Transcript

Square Dance of Death

From MrBallen Podcast · Episode page · Watch on YouTube

· 36 min · 6,556 words · 49 timestamped sections

This is the full, timestamped transcript of "Square Dance of Death", an episode of MrBallen Podcast published August 11, 2025 (36 min, about 6,556 words). It mentions 11 people, works and ideas, including Patty Wheelington, Virginia Hyatt, James Hyatt, Paul Null, Jason Hack.

What this episode is about

the atmosphere at the Guys and Dolls Square Dance Club is charged with excitement as Patty Wheelington, the 59-year-old owner, eagerly engages with her close-knit community. However, unbeknownst to her, one dancer has developed a dangerous obsession, leading to a chilling plan that threatens Patty's life as they believe her demise is the only way to achieve peace.

Key takeaways

  • In Arkansas, square dancing isn't just a pastime; it's a community lifeline—proof that even dance can heal a heart.
  • Obsessions can twist even the most innocent settings; it's alarming how love can morph into a deadly fixation.
  • Patty's club served as both a haven and a stage for her life, emphasizing how spaces evoke deep emotional ties.
  • The mundane act of enjoying coffee on a cold day can become a backdrop for the most extraordinary stories.
  • Every dance tells a story, but some stories dance dangerously close to the line between affection and obsession.

Who speaks in this episode?

What is discussed, and when

  1. – 5:00: Patty Wheelington, Virginia Hyatt, Guys and Dolls Square Dance Club, Phyllis Neighbors
  2. – 10:00: Tex Arcana, Jason Hack, Paul Null, Barbara Rickettts
  3. – 15:00: 38 caliber, Paul Null, Tex Arcana
  4. – 20:00: Barbara Rickettts, Jason Hack, Paul Null, Guys and Dolls Square Dance Club
  5. – 25:00: James Hyatt, Virginia Hyatt, Paul Null, Guys and Dolls Square Dance Club
  6. – 30:00: Patty Wheelington, Tex Arcana
  7. – 35:00: Patty Wheelington, Virginia Hyatt, James Hyatt, 38 caliber

Notable quotes from "Square Dance of Death"

  • On the night of Monday, December 2nd, 2013, 59-year-old Patty Wheelington walked across a gravel parking lot toward her favorite place in Tex Arcana, Arkansas, the Guys and Dolls Square Dance Club. Patty was the owner of the.
    about Guys and Dolls Square Dance Club · at
  • Phyllis answered the phone, this mutual friend said he was very worried about Patty. Patty was supposed to pick him up to take him to a doctor's appointment, but she had never…
    about Patty Wheelington · at
  • Hack looked at the time and figured he should start canvasing the neighborhood while the neighbors were still awake. He told Null he'd be back in about an hour.
    about Jason Hack · at
  • Null looked through the hole in the back of the swivel chair and then repositioned himself until he could see through the hole in the chair and also through the hole in the bedroom window,.
    about Paul Null · at
  • Shock. This was not the first time in this investigation that they had run across James Hyatt because James Hyatt was the third beneficiary on Patty's life insurance policy…
    about James Hyatt · at
  • The detectives arrived at James' house, but his wife, Virginia, came to the door and told them James wasn't home. In fact, she had no idea where he was, and she was starting to worry that he might have just left town or something without.
    about Virginia Hyatt · at
  • They found the blouse that Virginia was seen wearing in the surveillance footage from that morning. They sent the blouse to the crime lab and it came back positive for gunshot…
    about 38 caliber · at

Who and what is mentioned in this episode?

People

  • Patty Wheelington — Person · Victim / central figure · 3 mentions · first at
    The homicide victim; owner/operator of the square dance club and the focal point of the investigation and motive.
  • Virginia Hyatt — Person · Perpetrator (convicted) / spouse of initial suspect · 3 mentions · first at
    Wife of James Hyatt; ultimately identified as Patty’s killer and convicted of capital murder.
  • James Hyatt — Person · Key suspect / affair partner / beneficiary · 4 mentions · first at
    Married club member alleged to be having an affair with Patty; a life-insurance beneficiary; investigated and later cleared via cell data.
  • Paul Null — Person · Lead investigator (detective) · 4 mentions · first at
    Texarkana police detective who processed the scene, developed early theories, and conducted key interviews and phone interrogation of James.
  • Jason Hack — Person · Co-lead investigator (detective) · 2 mentions · first at
    Partner detective to Null; canvassed neighbors, interviewed Barbara and Virginia, and coordinated phone-number identification and surveillance review.
  • Phyllis Neighbors — Person · Witness / discoverer of body / beneficiary (initially suspicious) · 3 mentions · first at
    Close friend who helped discover Patty’s body and called 911; listed as a life-insurance beneficiary and interviewed as a potential suspect.
    Also been trying to get in touch with Patty and had not been able to reach her all day. And so at this point, Phyllis said that she was just going to drive out to Patty's house…
  • Barbara Rickettts — Person · Witness / discoverer of body / beneficiary (initially suspicious) · 3 mentions · first at
    Friend who accompanied Phyllis to Patty’s house and is also a life-insurance beneficiary; interviewed and considered as a suspect early on.
    Couldn't get in touch with Patty, and she had this bad feeling that something might be wrong. Barbara said she had also been trying to get in touch with Patty and had not been…
  • Rey Wheelington — Person · Deceased spouse / background figure · 1 mention · first at
    Patty’s late husband; co-managed the club with Patty and provides context for Patty’s life and relationships (including trust in James).
    And Dolls Club members, Null and Hack learned that James was married and he had known Patty for years. Patty and her husband Rey used to go out on double dates with James and…

Companies & orgs

  • Guys and Dolls Square Dance Club — Company · Setting · 3 mentions · first at
    The social hub where Patty Wheelington and the Hyatts interacted, central to the events leading to the murder.

Concepts & topics

  • 38 caliber — Concept · Key evidence · 2 mentions · first at
    The murder weapon used in the crime, linking Virginia Hyatt to the murder of Patty Wheelington.

Places & events

  • Tex Arcana — Place · Setting · 5 mentions · first at
    The town where the murder took place, providing the backdrop for the story.
    On the night of Monday, December 2nd, 2013, 59-year-old Patty Wheelington walked across a gravel parking lot toward her favorite place in Tex Arcana, Arkansas, the Guys and Dolls Square.

Full transcript with timestamps

On a cold December night in 2013, a 59-year-old widow stood on stage at a square dance club in Arkansas, watching some of her closest friends dance together. The woman had owned and run the square dance club for years, and the people out on the floor were just like family to her. But as she listened to the music and called out different square dance steps, she didn't notice that one of the dancers had their eyes fixed right on her. And the woman didn't know that this dancer had become obsessed with her. In fact, the dancer had started losing sleep just thinking about this woman. And now the dancer had decided it was time to act because they believed they would never find peace until the object of their obsession was dead. But before we get into that story, if you're a fan of the strange, dark, and mysterious delivered in story format, then you come to the right podcast because that's all we do and we

upload twice a week. Once on Monday and once on Thursday. So, if that's of interest to you, please offer the follow button a nice refreshing cup of water while they run a marathon, but don't tell them you've replaced the water with colite. Okay, let's get into today's story.

On the night of Monday, December 2nd, 2013, 59-year-old Patty Wheelington walked across a gravel parking lot toward her favorite place in Tex Arcana, Arkansas, the Guys and Dolls Square Dance Club. Patty was the owner of the club, a spot where club members from town got together each week to socialize in square dance, which is a traditional type of partner dance that had once been extremely popular in the American South and West. Patty had managed the club for years with her husband Rey. But Ry had died a year earlier, leaving Patty to run things on her own with some help from the most dedicated club members.

The couple had always considered Guys and Dolls to be like their second home. And now that Ray was gone, Patty felt like this club was the most important thing in her life. And tonight was her first day back at the club since taking a short trip for Thanksgiving. So, she was looking forward to seeing some of her friends and getting back into her weekly routine. Patty opened the front doors, stepped inside, and her face immediately lit up. This old-fashioned dance hall was housed in a metal building that almost looked like a large storage unit from the outside, but the inside was bright and festive. String lights and decorations hung along the walls. And Patty saw a group of older women dressed in colorful western skirts and pett coats and older men wearing their cowboy boots and hats, and everybody was socializing and laughing and having a great time while filling up their paper plates with food.

The moment Patty walked inside, the club members turned, saw her, and shouted hello. And some rushed over to greet her like she'd been away for months. They told her they'd been anxiously waiting for her to come back because they hadn't known what to do with themselves while the club was closed over the holiday. She told them how much she missed them, too, and thanked them for getting everything set up for the night. As she talked, Patty heard somebody calling her name. She looked over at a long table lined with food, and she saw two of her closest friends waving to her. They were Phyllis Neighbors and Virginia Hyatt.

Patty went over to the table, and the women hugged each other and talked about their Thanksgiving holidays until Patty noticed it was almost time to start the night's dance. Patty walked across the dance hall, got up on the stage, and tapped the mic, and then welcomed everyone back to the club. And immediately, everybody cheered and took their spots on the dance floor with their partners. Well, at least almost all of them cheered. As Patty looked out from the stage, she noticed one of the couples whispering to each other while pointing her way. Patty almost tripped over her words as she began wondering if that couple was talking about her. But she quickly caught herself and figured she was just reading too much into it.

So, she wrapped up her welcome back speech and then led club members in saying the pledge of allegiance, which they did every time before they danced together. Once the pledge was finished, Patty with a huge smile on her face started the music and kicked off the dancing for the night. And as she watched everybody out on the dance floor, this sense of almost complete calm came over her. She knew most people would laugh at her for thinking this, but she believed being up on the stage and running this square dance club was her true calling. It was a way for her to give back to her community and to help the people she loved continue to thrive.

The next morning around 7:50 a.m., Patty stood in the kitchen of her home and poured herself a fresh mug of coffee. She slid her phone and pack of cigarettes into the pocket of her bathrobe and walked outside onto her front porch. A blast of cold winter air immediately hit her. So, she pulled her bathrobe tighter across her body, sat down in a swivel chair, and set her coffee on a small wooden table and lit a cigarette. Now, in the past, on a cold day like this, Patty would have very likely just smoked inside of her home. But more than 5 years earlier, a raging fire had ripped through her home and destroyed half of it. Now, the blaze wasn't caused by a lit cigarette. In fact, the fire had started while Patty and her husband Ray weren't even at home. But they had hired a good friend of theirs from the Square Dance Club, who was a contractor, to restore their house, and he'd done such an amazing job overseeing the

construction project that the house looked almost brand new. So now Patty would never risk lighting a cigarette inside, no matter what the weather was outside. Patty smoked her cigarette and sipped her coffee. And just when she started to feel like she was really waking up, her phone rang. She put her coffee down and grabbed her phone out of her pocket. She looked at the caller ID and saw it was one of her many friends from the dance club, so she answered it. A few minutes into the conversation, Patty heard a car slowing down just beyond the trees at the edge of her property that isolated her house from the main road.

Patty's friend kept talking on the phone, but Patty was no longer listening. She heard the car turning up her long gravel driveway toward her house, and she wondered who would be visiting so early without telling her they were coming by first. Patty watched as this car emerged from the trees and headed straight towards her. And as it did, Patty immediately told her friend on the phone that she'd just have to call them back.

Over 7 hours later, at around 3:30 p.m., Patty's close friend, Phyllis Neighbors, received a call from a mutual friend from the dance club. And as soon as Phyllis answered the phone, this mutual friend said he was very worried about Patty. Patty was supposed to pick him up to take him to a doctor's appointment, but she had never showed up and was not returning his phone calls, and this was totally unlike her. Over the next hour, Phyllis tried to reach Patty several times without any success. So, eventually, she called another friend from the club, Barbara Rickettts, and told her that she couldn't get in touch with Patty, and she had this bad feeling that something might be wrong. Barbara said she had also been trying to get in touch with Patty and had not been able to reach her all day. And so at this point, Phyllis said that she was just going to drive out to Patty's house to see what was

going on. But Barbara told Phyllis to hold on a minute and stay put and wait for her. She wasn't letting her go out there alone. By the time Phyllis and Barbara finally got to Patty's place, it was starting to get pretty dark. Barbara drove slowly and carefully up Patty's long gravel driveway because the light coming from inside Patty's house was actually the only thing guiding her way toward it. She parked right behind Patty's car and the two women got out and started walking toward Patty's house. When they got close to the porch, they noticed something lying at the foot of the front door. Phyllis squinted and thought it looked like a bunched up rug. Phyllis climbed onto the steps to get a better look at the object. And when she reached the middle step, she suddenly froze.

Then she gasped and quickly turned her face away. She stumbled back down the steps, grabbed her phone, and dialed 911. Tex Arcana police cruisers and an ambulance converged on Patty's house within minutes of Phyllis's call. A police officer stepped out of his car and turned on his flashlight. He scanned the area and saw Barbara sitting inside her car and crying. And then he saw Phyllis standing in front of the porch. Her hands were shaking and she was muttering to herself. The officer along with two EMTs began walking toward the house. And as they did, Phyllis looked up and saw them and went right over to them and then pointed back at the front porch and said they might as well send the ambulance away because they were too late. The officer walked past Phyllis, reached the front steps, and right away he saw what she was talking about. In front of the door to the house, there was a woman in a bathrobe lying face up,

gripping a cigarette in her right hand and clutching her chest with her left. and the officer noticed that her skin was pale and blotchy. One of the EMTs walked over and bent down to feel for a pulse, but he was already confident he was not going to find one. And when he actually felt the woman's cold, waxy skin, it confirmed that she was dead. The officer kneelled down and shined his light on the body, and he saw there were blood stains in the woman's bathrobe and blood spatter on the wooden slats beneath her. And it became very clear that this woman did not die of natural causes.

Minutes later, another car pulled up the driveway and two men stepped out. Tex Arcana police detectives Paul Null and Jason Hack, who were about as physically mismatched as two people could be. Null was round and bald, and Hack was tall and thin. They looked like an odd pairing, but these two men were actually almost always on the same page, and they were both sharp and meticulous investigators. Tex Arcana, Arkansas, only had a few murders every year. So, whenever Null and Hack got a call for a homicide, they knew it was not going to be an ordinary day at the office. And as they sized up their new crime scene, they could tell right away that this murder seemed especially out of the ordinary. The dead woman looked much older than the average murder victim in the area, and this neighborhood was more affluent than where they usually responded to violent crimes.

Null and Hack quickly met with Phyllis and Barbara, but both women seemed so shaken they could barely talk. However, Phyllis did offer in a very trembling voice that the deceased was their friend, a woman named Patty Willington. Hack looked at the time and figured he should start canvasing the neighborhood while the neighbors were still awake. He told Null he'd be back in about an hour. As Hack walked to his car, he was struck by how eerily quiet it was. Even during the drive here, he had noticed how the woods seemed to isolate everything and how much land there was between each house. And as he pulled out onto the road to begin his canvasing, he didn't feel optimistic that any of Patty's neighbors would have witnessed anything.

Meanwhile, Null stepped onto the front porch and began examining Patty's body and the area around her, trying to make sense of what had happened. For Null, there was no mistaking the five small, perfectly round wounds on Patty's body for anything other than gunshot wounds. He observed a bullet hole in the swivel chair where he guessed Patty had been sitting, and then another bullet hole in the bedroom window directly behind the chair. It looked as though the first shot was fired while Patty was seated, and it missed her. He then noticed another bullet lodged inside the front door of the house, which looked like yet another missed shot. Null took a step back, trying to picture the crime as it happened. He looked down at Patty and saw the cigarette wedged between her fingers, now burnt down to the filter.

He noticed the way Patty's body was positioned, face up with one knee raised, and Null visualized Patty leaping up from her chair after the first shots were fired and desperately trying to retreat into her house as more bullets hit her until she collapsed onto her back. From how quickly it looked like things had unfolded and how the gunshot wounds appeared to have been fired from close range, this crime looked very intentional. It seemed like whoever had killed Patty had showed up on a mission, like they had come here to kill Patty.

Null looked through the hole in the back of the swivel chair and then repositioned himself until he could see through the hole in the chair and also through the hole in the bedroom window, both at the same time so they're aligned. This way, he could get a sense of the bullet's trajectory into the house. And while he was doing this, headlights suddenly swept across the porch as the coroner's van pulled up to the house. The coroner got out and met with Null, and Null told him he was free to remove the body. So with the help of two police officers, the corner lifted up Patty's body, placed it into a cadaavver bag, and carried it off the porch. With the front door now clear, Null entered the home and went straight to the bedroom, where he found a 38 caliber slug on the bedroom floor, right where he calculated he would find it. He then began doing a walkthrough of the house, going from room to room, looking

for any signs of ransacking or burglary. But nothing appeared out of place. In fact, it didn't look like Patty's killer ever entered the home. It was as if they drove up to the house, exited their car, immediately began firing, and once Patty was down, they got back into their car and drove away. Just as Null started a search of the kitchen about an hour after he'd arrived, his partner, Detective Hack, walked in and quickly brought Null up to speed on what he had learned during his canvas of the neighborhood. Several of Patty's neighbors reported hearing gunshots around 8:00 a.m. that morning.

After hearing this, Null looked over at the half empty pot of coffee still on the kitchen counter. He'd seen Patty lying dead in her bathrobe, and she had obviously been dead for at least several hours before she was discovered. So, it definitely seemed like she'd been killed that morning, possibly around 8:00 a.m. But then, Null wondered why none of these neighbors had called the police if they heard gunshots that morning. Hack said he'd asked the neighbors the same question, and the explanation was pretty simple. People in that area fired their guns into the air all the time to scare geese out of their gardens or deer off their front lawns, so hearing gunshots would not exactly be cause for alarm.

Then Null started updating his partner on what he had found on the porch and inside the house as the two men searched the kitchen. But then suddenly Null stopped talking. He picked up several pieces of paper that were lying on the counter near the coffee pot. And as he read them over, he turned to Hack with a smile on his face. It looked like he had just found a huge piece of the puzzle. Null handed over the papers to his partner and after reading it over, Hack as well got the same look on his face. The first piece of paper was an invoice for a locksmith. Just a day earlier, Patty had paid someone to change all the locks on the doors to her house. Hack looked up at his partner with his eyebrows raised. If Patty was suddenly changing her locks at the house she'd lived in for years, it very likely meant she was afraid of someone who she knew well enough to maybe have a key to her house. Null nodded in agreement and told

him to wait until he saw what was on the other papers he had handed him. And as Detective Hack started reading those papers, his mouth fell open and he started shaking his head side to side because what he was looking at was Patty's life insurance policy. Each of the beneficiaries listed in the policy stood to gain $20,000 in the event of Patty's death. And the last two names on the list were Phyllis Neighbors and Barbara Rickettts. Patty's friends who also were the two women who had found her body.

Null and Hack arranged for police escorts to bring Phyllis and Barbara down to the station. And when the two women got there, Null and Hack interviewed them separately in two different rooms. Phyllis told Detective Null that she had first met Patty at the Guys and Dolls Square Dance Club about a decade earlier, and she had been very close with both Patty and Patty's husband, Rey, and so had Barbara. Null asked Phyllis if she knew that she and Barbara were beneficiaries on Patty's life insurance policy, and Phyllis began laughing and nodding. Null couldn't tell if this laughter was maybe nervous laughter or if it was designed to mask just how important this money may be to her. Phyllis kept on laughing and said Null's question had reminded her that when she first learned that she and Barbara were beneficiaries, she had jokingly said, "Oh, real cool, Patty.

You're younger than all of us. We'll all be dead before we see this money." Null smiled at Phyllis and sort of played along like this was a good joke. But secretly, he thought that everything Phyllis was saying and doing made her seem a little bit suspicious. So after she stopped laughing, Null asked her to go through her day to help him establish a timeline, hoping that, you know, if she was involved, she would implicate herself. Phyllis said she woke up at 8:00 that morning and then sometime around 10:00, she sent Patty a text message. Phyllis said she didn't really think anything of it when Patty did not reply. She just assumed that Patty was still asleep. And then she got distracted when her friend came over to watch a television game show with her.

Null nodded and wrote everything down that Phyllis said, but privately he wondered if maybe she had sent that text message to Patty just to throw off investigators and make it look like she'd been innocently trying to reach her friend on the morning of her murder. In the next room over, Detective Hack was asking Barbara a similar round of questions. And like Phyllis, Barbara had an alibi. She said she was with her husband all day and her husband could verify this. Hack leaned back in his chair and looked across the table at Barbara. As much as he tried to picture Barbara as Patty's killer, he just couldn't see it. Barbara reminded him of his grandma, and she looked so utterly shaken by her friend's death that it was hard not to feel sorry for her. But Hack had enough experience to know that he should never take anyone's emotional state at face value. This could all just be an act. And so as he sat listening to

Barbara talk, he found himself calculating in his head how much money Barbara may have been willing to pay someone else to kill Patty in order to still turn a profit on that $20,000 life insurance payout. It was after 9:00 p.m. by the time detectives Null and Hack wrapped up their interviews, but they didn't want to stop working right now when they felt like their investigation was really starting to take shape. And so after Phyllis and Barbara left the police station, the detectives began going through the text messages and recent calls on Patty's phone. They hoped they might find something that would give them more information on Patty's two friends. But none of the text messages between the women seemed in any way out of the ordinary. Instead, the detectives discovered something strange that they hadn't even been looking for. One of Patty's most frequent correspondents was someone she had saved in her contacts

only as MF. Patty and MF communicated multiple times every day, and it was clear by reading their messages that this was more than just a friendly relationship. This was romantic, and it was also suspiciously discreet. Everyone else in Patty's contact list had been saved under their first and last names except for this one person. Hack ran MF's phone number through a reverse directory. But all he was able to determine was that it was a mobile phone number because the directory only gave him the name of the carrier, not the name that the phone number was registered to. And so he would need help from the phone company to find out who this number actually belonged to. But he also knew at this time of night that could be very difficult to make happen and it could take a while. So Hack handed over that task to other members of the investigative team. And while he and Detective Null waited for the results,

they started tracking down and calling members of the Guys and Dolls Square Dance Club. Even though it was getting late, several of the members answered their phones and were actually quite eager to help the police. None of the members could think of anyone with the initials MF. But Hackenol quickly discovered that these people loved to gossip. Several of them told the detectives that rumors had been circulating for a while that Patty was having an affair with a married club member, a man named James Hyatt. And as soon as Detective Null and Hack heard this name, they stared at each other in shock. This was not the first time in this investigation that they had run across James Hyatt because James Hyatt was the third beneficiary on Patty's life insurance policy right behind Phyllis and Barbara. In the event of Patty's death, James, like Phyllis and Barbara, stood to receive $20,000.

And so now the detectives had three possible suspects, Phyllis, Barbara, and James. And they also started to wonder if maybe all three of them had conspired together to kill Patty for the insurance money. In their conversations with Guys and Dolls Club members, Null and Hack learned that James was married and he had known Patty for years. Patty and her husband Rey used to go out on double dates with James and his wife. And they had become even closer with James in 2008 when they hired him as a contractor to help restore their fire ravaged house. In fact, Patty and Ray had trusted James so much that they had made him the executive of their wills. This definitely seemed like a guy who Patty and Ray might have given a house key to.

So, the detectives thought, you know, maybe James was the person Patty had changed her locks to try to keep out. As the detectives were working through this potential theory in Null's office, the door opened and an excited young cop walked in. He said they had gotten lucky. The phone company had been able to help them and gave them the name connected to the MF phone number in Patty's contacts, and it was a burner phone for James Hyatt. Null and Hack immediately got in their car and drove across town towards James' house. They still considered Phyllis and Barbara suspects and they thought there was a chance the women had worked together with James. But based on the text messages the detectives had found between Patty and this MF person and now the burner phone, it seemed pretty clear that James and Patty were having an affair, which automatically made James a major suspect in his own right. On top

of that, it made it even more likely James would have had a key to Patty's house. And as a final strike against him, he had something to gain financially from Patty's death. The detectives arrived at James' house, but his wife, Virginia, came to the door and told them James wasn't home. In fact, she had no idea where he was, and she was starting to worry that he might have just left town or something without telling her. And now the detectives realized they might be looking at a fleeing suspect. They told Virginia to contact them if she heard from her husband and to please keep her phone close by in case they needed to follow up with her. And Virginia said she would.

Null and Hack got in their car and headed right back to the station. It was late and they were both very tired, but now this was starting to feel like a case they could close before sunrise. They just had to find James. Detective Null walked into his office and called James' main phone, not the burner phone. There was no answer, but Null was relentless. He just kept calling over and over and over. And finally, after a bunch of tries, Null heard James answer. Before James could say anything other than hello, Null introduced himself and told James why he was calling. But James cut him off, saying he'd already gotten the news of Patty's death, and so this would just have to wait because he was out of town.

Null couldn't believe how arrogant and dismissive James sounded, and he was not convinced James was actually out of town. But either way, the detective knew he could not let James off the phone and risk having him disappear for good. Usually, Null liked to interview his primary suspects in person, but he knew he could not wait for a face-to-face meeting with James. So, Null just launched into an interview right there on the phone. He told James that police knew all about the burner phone and his affair with Patty. There was no point in trying to hide those things. James immediately went silent and there was a long pause. And then when he started talking again, all of the arrogance Null had sensed just minutes ago was gone.

James sighed and admitted that he and Patty were romantically involved. He only had the burner phone and the different name in her contacts to protect Patty's reputation. After all, he said, you know, people in this town don't look too kindly upon adultery, and the other woman often gets blamed in these situations. So, he just never wanted any of this to get out to protect her. Detective Null doubted that it was really Patty's reputation James was trying to protect and not his own or his marriage. He asked James if Patty had ever demanded that he leave his wife, but James said she hadn't. In fact, he said Patty pleaded with him specifically to stay with his wife.

Finally, Null asked James where he was on the morning Patty had been killed. James said he'd been in Florida, where he still was, and so he was a thousand miles away from Tex Arcana when Patty died. Null knew that there was an easy way to either prove or disprove this, and that was by getting the location data for James' mobile numbers and seeing what cell towers they pinged. So, he told James one more time that he needed to get back to Arkansas right away. As soon as Null hung up, he and Detective Hack put in a request for a subpoena so they could get James' cell phone records. They knew that request would take a little time to be fulfilled. So, in the meantime, they reached back out to James' wife, Virginia. They said they knew it was late, but they needed to talk to her.

And not long after the call, the detectives drove back to James and Virginia's house, picked her up, and brought her back to the station. And by the time they arrived there, detectives Null and Hack weren't even sure if it was considered late at night or early in the morning. They just thanked her for coming in at such a strange time and they led her into a large office with a conference table. Virginia sat down across from them and for a second neither of the detectives spoke. This was not a situation that either of them wanted to be in. But finally, Hack looked across the table at Virginia and asked her if she was aware that her husband James had been having an affair with Patty. Virginia gave a little smile and said she knew it might sound strange to them, but she knew all about the affair. Hack and Null shared a quick look like what was going on here. And then Virginia told them that she and

Patty were friends and there were no problems between them at all. Now, neither of the detectives had expected this response, but they knew there were all different kinds of marriages out there. Maybe Virginia and James had an open marriage, or maybe James' affair with Patty somehow made his and Virginia's marriage stronger. They were not there to pick apart the exact nature of this relationship, but they did think there was a chance Virginia might have information that could directly connect James to Patty's murder, even if she didn't know it. And so, Hack asked if Virginia remembered where her husband was when Patty was killed. Had Virginia seen James or even called or texted with him? Virginia said she hadn't seen James at all. She had woken up around 8:00 a.m. that morning, and she drove straight to a fast food restaurant to buy breakfast for her mother, who lived in a nursing home. After spending some

time with her mom, she had gone home and she said James had already been gone when she woke up and he wasn't home when she got back and they hadn't talked on the phone at all. The detectives excused themselves and stepped out into the hall. They had some new information, but nothing that would enable them to close the case or prove if any of their potential suspects were actually where they claimed to be at the time of the murder. They needed James' cell phone data. if his phone had been picked up by one of the cell phone towers near Patty's house on the morning of the murder, they would know he'd lied to them about being in Florida at the time of the murder. Luckily, it didn't take long for the phone company to come through yet again. Now, almost exactly 1 day after Patty's murder, detectives Hack and Null received James' cell phone tower data, which showed his location and movements throughout the morning of

the murder. They also obtained surveillance footage from multiple locations around town. And that footage was the final piece of evidence they needed. It had taken just 24 hours, but the detectives now knew who had killed Patty Willington.

Based on video footage, cell phone data, the interviews conducted, and other evidence gathered throughout the investigation, the following is a reconstruction of what police believe happened to Patty on the morning of December 3rd, 2013.

Just before sunrise, the killer got out of bed after yet another sleepless night. And they told themselves there was only one way to find peace again. They had to kill Patty Wheelington. They went to their closet and collected their 38 revolver. As the sun began to rise, they slipped the gun into their pocket, marched out to their car, and began driving towards Patty's house on the outskirts of the city. The killer pulled into the long driveway leading to Patty's house. And as they approached, they saw Patty sitting on the porch, smoking a cigarette and talking on her phone. The killer got out of their car and began walking toward Patty, who quickly put her phone down and greeted the killer. But the killer was not interested in talking. Instead, they drew their revolver and aimed it at Patty. Patty saw the gun and tried to reason with them, but the killer just fired off a shot. The bullet missed

Patty and went through the bedroom window behind her. And Patty jumped up with her cigarette still in her hand. But before she could even turn, the killer had fired again. And this time, the bullet hit Patty in the chest, puncturing her lung. Patty clutched her chest and struggled to breathe. She lurched toward her front door, but the killer kept on firing, hitting Patty four more times, including a bullet that struck Patty right in the heart. Patty's legs buckled and she collapsed on the porch, still clutching her cigarette in one hand and her chest in the other. And as the killer watched Patty fall, a sudden sense of peace did come over them.

The killer walked back to their car, started the engine, and drove away as Patty lied at the foot of her front door dying. A little while later, the killer stopped along an isolated road, disposed of their gun, and then continued on home. Over an hour later, at about 9:15 a.m., the killer drove to a fast food drive-thru and ordered a sausage biscuit. And at 9:42 a.m., the killer walked into a nursing home to see their mother and give her the fast food breakfast. And later that day, the killer returned home and waited for the sun to set, looking forward to their first good night's sleep since they discovered that their husband was having an affair with Patty Wheelington.

James Hyatt, who had been a strong suspect at the beginning of the investigation, did not kill Patty. His wife Virginia did. James' cell phone data proved he was in Florida at the time of Patty's death, just like he had told the police. This information led investigators to immediately turn their focus on Virginia, who they had considered a suspect from the moment they learned she knew about James and Patty's affair. So, investigators obtained surveillance footage from the McDonald's drive-thru and the nursing home, places Virginia told detectives she had visited on the morning Patty was killed. And those videos showed that Virginia had visited both of those places, but she lied about the times that she was there. And surveillance footage from a convenience store along the route between Virginia's house and Patty's showed Virginia's car heading towards Patty's house, right around the time it was believed Patty

was killed and then also driving back to her own house not long after. With that information, police served a search warrant on Virginia's house. Although they didn't find the revolver, they did find a box of 38 caliber ammunition and they found the blouse that Virginia was seen wearing in the surveillance footage from that morning. They sent the blouse to the crime lab and it came back positive for gunshot residue. It turned out ever since Virginia began to suspect that her husband was having an affair with their good friend Patty. Virginia became increasingly possessive and unstable. And James, who had been married to Virginia for 41 years, had begun to grow afraid of his wife to the point where he began sleeping in a separate bedroom and even began locking his bedroom door at night to keep his wife out. At Thanksgiving dinner with her in-laws a week before Patty's murder, Virginia had taken James'

sisters aside and told them she was concerned that James was going to commit suicide. But James' sisters knew him well enough to know that they did not believe this. And when they talked it over with James, the family became convinced that Virginia was actually planning to kill James and cover it up by the idea that he had killed himself. So, as a result of this, James had left town to stay with his sister in Florida. And while he was down there, he filed for divorce. And by coincidence, Patty had just happened to leave town around the same time as James left for Florida, which led Virginia to believe that Patty and James had run away together. So Virginia began calling Patty repeatedly, leaving voicemail after voicemail begging Patty to return her husband to her. On December 2nd, Virginia was served with the divorce papers. And then that night, she was at the square dance club where she knew the other club

members were whispering and gossiping about her husband's affair with Patty. And so she decided it was time to kill Patty. And the following morning, she would. Virginia was found guilty of capital murder and sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

Thank you for listening to the Mr. Ballin podcast. If you like today's story and you're looking for more strange, dark, and mysterious content, be sure to check out all of our studios podcasts. They are this one, of course, the Mr. Ballin podcast. We also have Mr. Ballins Medical Mysteries, Bedtime Stories, Wartime Stories, and also RunFool. To find those other podcasts, all you have to do is search for Ballin Studios, wherever you listen to your podcasts. To watch hundreds more stories just like the one you heard today, head over to our YouTube channel, which is just called Mr. Ballin. So, that's going to do it. I really appreciate your support. Until next time, see you.

Questions about this episode

Who speaks in "Square Dance of Death"?

MrBallen (Host), Patty Wheelington (Guest), Phyllis Neighbors (Guest), Barbara Rickettts (Guest), James Hyatt (Guest), Virginia Hyatt (Guest), Detective Paul Null (Guest), Detective Jason Hack (Guest).

What is "Square Dance of Death" about?

the atmosphere at the Guys and Dolls Square Dance Club is charged with excitement as Patty Wheelington, the 59-year-old owner, eagerly engages with her close-knit community. However, unbeknownst to her, one dancer has developed a dangerous obsession, leading to a chilling plan that threatens Patty's life as they believe her demise is the only way to achieve peace.

What is mentioned in this MrBallen Podcast episode?

11 people, works and ideas are mentioned, including Patty Wheelington, Virginia Hyatt, James Hyatt, Paul Null, Jason Hack, 38 caliber. Each one on this page links to its own page with every episode that mentions it.

How long is "Square Dance of Death"?

The episode runs 36 min; the transcript is about 6,556 words in 49 timestamped sections.

More from MrBallen Podcast

About this transcript: the episode's spoken words as captioned on YouTube, split into timestamped sections. Reclip.Me locates every person, work and idea in the text, keeps the time it is first named, and quotes the words around it verbatim. Last updated January 22, 2026.