Transcript

Episode 336

From Sword and Scale · Episode page · Watch on YouTube

· 1 h 24 min · 13,732 words · 184 timestamped sections

This is the full, timestamped transcript of "Episode 336", an episode of Sword and Scale published January 27, 2026 (1 h 24 min, about 13,732 words). It mentions 16 people, works and ideas, including Rebecca Gould, William Miller, George Jared, Casey McCulla, Arkansas State Police.

What this episode is about

The content explores the intense emotional journey of reporter George Jared as he grapples with a missing person's case that becomes pivotal in his nascent career. It highlights the psychological impact of such cases on journalists, emphasizing how certain stories can haunt them and become obsessional in nature.

Key takeaways

  • In a world of missing posters, some stories grab hold of journalists like a vice grip.
  • When blood meets bleach, it’s a clean-up – but not of the conscience.
  • Monsters roam in plain sight; journalistic curiosity is the flashlight in the dark.
  • Vultures circling may signal tragedy, but they also remind us: nature knows the truth.
  • Small towns hide big secrets, and the past waits to rewrite its own headlines.

Who speaks in this episode?

What is discussed, and when

  1. – 10:00: Rebecca Gould, Casey McCulla, George Jared, Dr. Larry Gould
  2. – 20:00: Arkansas State Police, Casey McCulla, George Jared, Catherine Townsend
  3. – 30:00: Facebook, Jen Bukultz, Rebecca Gould, George Jared
  4. – 40:00: William Miller, Jen Bukultz, Hell and Gone, Facebook
  5. – 50:00: William Miller, Arkansas State Police, Facebook
  6. – 1:00:00: Casey McCulla, George Jared, William Miller, Arkansas State Police
  7. – 1:10:00: William Miller, Rebecca Gould, Texas Ranger
  8. – 1:20:00: Rebecca Gould, William Miller
  9. – 1:24:19: Operation Rebecca

Notable quotes from "Episode 336"

  • Different language and [ __ ] Y'all saying it in Ohio in a small newsroom in Batesville, Arkansas, George Jared was a brand new 20-some year old journal. IST. It was September of 2004.
    about George Jared · at
  • Apparently, Rebecca had arrived in the small town of Melbourne, Arkansas on Saturday, September 18th, to visit her boyfriend, Casey McCulla.
    about Rebecca Gould · at
  • And he was obsessed with her. He was totally in love with her. But weirdly, when she vanished, he didn't spend one second looking for her.
    about Casey McCulla · at
  • Ridiculous, stupid, Are you kidding me? story. come on. A guy named Dennis was the Arkansas State Police detective working the case. This man was hellbent on pushing the Chris Canrell story, and he wouldn't give up.
    about Arkansas State Police · at
  • 14 years passed with no progress. When Rebecca's father tried to request a copy of her autopsy report, officials denied it, citing the case was still active.
    about Dr. Larry Gould · at
  • She now teaches forensic science at American Military University and works as a cold case investigator for Colorado's El Paso County Sheriff's Office. And it was my content editor at.
    about Jen Bukultz · at
  • The show gave the public a voice and it gave the story new life online.
    about Hell and Gone · at
  • William Miller had failed his polygraph test miserably. He realized the walls were closing in and he asked for one last chance to talk with his mother.
    about William Miller · at

Who and what is mentioned in this episode?

People

  • Rebecca Gould — Person · Victim / central figure of the case · 5 mentions · first at
    Her 2004 disappearance and murder in/near Melbourne, Arkansas is the core narrative; all investigative threads and suspects revolve around her.
  • William Miller — Person · Confessed perpetrator (later recanting); Casey's cousin; Facebook-group participant · 8 mentions · first at
    He joined the investigators' Facebook group, was later interviewed by police, failed a polygraph, confessed to murdering Rebecca, led police to a missing suitcase, and received a 40-year sentence (per transcript).
  • George Jared — Person · Primary narrator/interviewee; journalist who covered the case · 5 mentions · first at
    He was the early-career reporter who first engaged with the family, witnessed the body recovery, and later collaborated with Jen Buoltz to reinvestigate and run a Facebook group.
  • Casey McCulla — Person · Primary suspect figure discussed; Rebecca's boyfriend/ex-boyfriend · 5 mentions · first at
    He was the last known person with Rebecca, owned the trailer where the blood evidence was found, and is repeatedly discussed as suspicious due to behavior, timeline issues, and alleged confession statements.
  • Jen Bukultz — Person · Cold-case investigator / expert commentator; co-investigator with George · 3 mentions · first at
    She brings professional investigative and forensic framing, connected via the Hell and Gone podcast, co-admins the Facebook group, and continues post-conviction inquiry including potential additional victims.
  • Dr. Larry Gould — Person · Victim's father; family advocate · 2 mentions · first at
    He is portrayed as a grieving parent who pushed for transparency and outside help, criticized law enforcement secrecy, and is central to the family perspective on the investigation.
  • Catherine Townsend — Person · Referenced podcaster/investigator (Hell and Gone) · 2 mentions · first at
    She is credited with launching the Hell and Gone podcast that revived public attention, gathered community information, and shifted the narrative toward a crime-of-passion theory.
    George kept writing articles. Web sleuths discussed the case to death. And by 2018, a woman named Catherine Townsend hoped to put even more eyes on this mystery by doing a podcast.

Books & papers

  • Rebecca's autopsy report — Book · Referenced work · 1 mention · first at
    Key document in the investigation of Rebecca Gould's murder, providing details about her death
    Rebecca's autopsy report remained unreleased for years. Even today, only a few people have a copy of it. The report suggests that she was likely bludgeoned.

Companies & orgs

  • Arkansas State Police — Company · Law enforcement agency · 6 mentions · first at
    Primary law enforcement agency involved in the investigation of Rebecca Gould's murder
  • Facebook — Company · Social media platform · 6 mentions · first at
    Platform used to create a group dedicated to solving Rebecca Gould's murder
    Attention to anyone who's interested and also their cats. Do I know my audience or do I know my audience? The Facebook forum continues to grow and all of a sudden a new name…
  • Sonic — Company · Employer · 3 mentions · first at
    Place of employment for Casey McCulla, Rebecca Gould's boyfriend
    We worked at Sonic together, and very first day that she worked at Sonic, I thought she was the most beautiful creature I've ever seen. So, yeah.
  • American Military University — Company · Educational institution · 1 mention · first at
    Place where Jen Bukultz teaches forensic science
    She now teaches forensic science at American Military University and works as a cold case investigator for Colorado's El Paso County Sheriff's Office. And it was my content editor at.
  • Texas Ranger — Company · Law enforcement agency · 1 mention · first at
    Agency involved in the investigation of Rebecca Gould's murder
    The actual truck that he that William Miller owned in 2004. It was somewhere in South Texas. He sent the Texas Rangers down there to take pictures of it. And so Mike has a…

Products & tech

  • Hell and Gone — Product · Podcast · 2 mentions · first at
    Podcast that investigated Rebecca Gould's murder, bringing new attention to the case

Concepts & topics

  • Operation Rebecca — Concept · Investigation project · 1 mention · first at
    Project initiated to investigate Rebecca Gould's murder and potential other victims
    So, we can't do it by ourselves. And so, we started this project several months ago, and I just called it Operation Rebecca cuz I didn't know what else. I couldn't come up with anything better, but I have an official sign up form. I.

Media & podcasts

  • Reno 911 — Media · Referenced media · 1 mention · first at
    TV show referenced in comparison to a detective's behavior in the case
    This Dennis character sure does remind me of Lieutenant Jim Dangle from Reno 911.

Full transcript with timestamps

Sword and Scale contains adult themes and violence and is not intended for all audiences. Listener discretion is advised.

Listen, you know, I I I I'm telling you, you know, I I'm confessing to you. I'm telling you that I did it. Would you arrest me? Welcome to season 13, episode 336 of Sword and Scale, a show that reveals that the worst monsters are real.

You know, the show gets a lot better when you stop complaining and just enjoy it. I'm not going to start talking like you do in, I don't know, northern Michigan or West Appalachia or, God forsaken, Ohio. You're not going to be able to get me to talk exactly how you talk in your little specific local town. So, just stop. You can't control everything. Just stop trying to control everything.

You're probably saying it wrong anyway. It's usually a word that comes from a different language and [ __ ] Y'all saying it in Ohio in a small newsroom in Batesville, Arkansas, George Jared was a brand new 20-some year old journal. IST. It was September of 2004. He was still learning the rhythm of leads, stories, and deadlines. Most reporters expect stories to come and go. That's the nature of the job. Research it, write about it, and move on. Maybe go get a peppermint latte from Starbucks before they take them off the menu. But every so often, a case doesn't let go.

Or maybe there's just something about a certain personality type that just can't let it go. For George, that case arrived just as his career began. I'd been there maybe 7 months. I was just out of college. And um you know, most of the stuff I would cover be like schoolboard meetings and you know, city council stuff and you know, I'd do features at local schools and whatnot. And then one I remember very vividly it was a Wednesday morning phone rings at my desk pick it up and a woman on was on the phone and she said my niece is missing and we can't find her. And I said really? George jumped in his car and drove straight to where the woman said she was calling from the county Sheriff's Office.

And then I walked over to some family members and um Rebecca's mother handed me a missing poster that I still have to this day. It's sitting in the other room. The missing girl was 22-year-old Rebecca Gould. And so immediately I start talking to Rebecca's mother and her one of her sisters. And I just flipped the missing poster over on its other side and I put it up against the building and I just started taking notes on the back and those notes are still there. And then I walked over to her father, Dr. Larry Gold, and he was standing with another one of his daughters and that's how I first met him. And I just I was out with them the whole week. um that she was missing.

That's how it started. Apparently, Rebecca had arrived in the small town of Melbourne, Arkansas on Saturday, September 18th, to visit her boyfriend, Casey McCulla. She was on break from college, but it wasn't unusual for her to take a few days off to see friends. Rebecca's mother told George she'd talked with her daughter on the phone just the day before, but during their call, Rebecca realized she was about to run out of minutes, so she told her mom she'd call back. That call never came. When police searched Casey's house, everything looked fairly normal until they reached the back bedroom, the room Casey and Rebecca would sleep in. Inside they found a blood soaked mattress that had been stripped and propped up against the wall. The box springs remained and it too was stained red. The bed clothes were spinning around in the washing machine. Wet fabric mixed with bleach and blood. Interestingly, any

fingerprints on the washing machine had been wiped away, probably with the brand new cleaning supplies that sat on the kitchen counter. Back in the bedroom again, sections of carpeting had to be cut up and taken in for evidence. The amount of blood was so extreme and had seeped into the subfloor. At this point, detectives knew they'd be searching for a dead body, not an alive Rebecca. And um you know, Monday morning came one week later on September 27th, 2004. I was at the office probably 5 or 6:00 in the morning. I got there really early and I just decided, for some reason, I felt like I needed to go back to Melbourne cuz my office was about 25 or so miles away. And so I drove down there. Um there were some ladies walking around the courthouse, you know, kind of a southern thing to walk around, you know, the the courthouse in the morning.

And I overheard as I was walking past them. I was going to go talk to the county judge and I was going to see but they were coordinating their search efforts that day cuz the county is big and it's very rural and it's very mountainous and um so it's it's hard and um I overheard a lady say, "Hey, they're out searching over by my h my property or my house, something like that." And I said, "Where do you live?" And she said that she lived down Highway 9, which is a thoroughfare that connects Melbourne to Mountain View, which is Rebecca's hometown. It's very treacherous.

20 years ago, George still had that restless new reporter energy. This case had already begun to dig its claws into him. He knew he had to go help with the search efforts. And so I drove down there. I saw a line of cars on the side of the road. Just pulled in behind him, got out. It was very steep, you know, um lots of trees and bushes. I saw a searcher and I asked him, I said, "Are you guys out here looking for Rebecca?" And he said, "She's right there." and he pointed at her and she was just laying there.

Volunteers had already been searching for days, but on this particular day at this spot about 5 mi outside of Melbourne, they noticed vultures circling overhead. Never a good sign. Searchers located Rebecca's severely decomposed body about 35 ft down the embankment. She was wearing only a t-shirt and underwear. You can see her her hair was like over her head, like her face. I mean, um, what I didn't realize at the time, it literally it had decomposed off of her scalp and had just moved down it. It almost looked like, you know, like if you flipped if you have long hair and you just flipped it over like that. I was in an absolute shock. Like I was like it was like being in a tunnel. That's the only way I could describe it. Like all of a sudden I couldn't hear anything. I couldn't see anything. My heart was racing. My head just was throbbing. You know, at the time I had two very small kids. And so

I'm sitting here thinking, I've just talked to this mom and this dad and they're hoping beyond hope that this isn't what happened. A few minutes later, I drive back to the sheriff's department, which as the crow flies is only four or five miles from this place where she was dumped, and her father, Dr. Larry Gould, came running up to me and he grabbed me and he said, "Did they find my daughter?" And I said, "Larry, you need to go talk to the sheriff right now." And he grabbed me and he said, "Did they find my daughter?" And I said, "Yes."

And he just collapsed, went to his knees, started crying, put his head in my stomach. And this is a man I hadn't even I'd known him for 5 days.

Rebecca was gone forever. And for a few days, time stopped. At least for the people who had hoped she'd come home alive.

I can honestly say that I was never the same person after that. Um I'm remember I wrote when I wrote the story, I wrote it. Um I went back to the office that night and I stayed till 4:00 in the morning writing it. And it was the the newspaper office was this old creaky building. It was a huge building. And if the wind blew, you know, you hear all these creaking sounds. And I was just sitting there um with her missing poster sitting on my desk. And um I wrote I've written about this before. I've never every single resume that I've ever submitted after this, attached to that resume was a story I wrote about her case. And she never left me. It was in my soul. After that,

everyone's focus shifted to finding Rebecca's killer. While the medical examiner did the autopsy, investigators turned their attention to the trailer where she had last been seen. She was on she she had an on-again, off-again boyfriend named Casey McCulla, and she would come back, you know, she was living up in Northwest Arkansas at this point. She'd come back and see him on the weekend. She'd stay at his house. They were just kind of on again, off again. you know how it is when you're that age, you know, 22 and you know you're dating someone, you know, and he obviously was not a long-term thing for her. There's she was quite a catch for him, I guess. I'll just put it that way.

And he was obsessed with her. He was totally in love with her. But weirdly, when she vanished, he didn't spend one second looking for her.

And tell me, how did you come to know Rebecca? Uh, we worked at Sonic together, and very first day that she worked at Sonic, I thought she was the most beautiful creature I've ever seen. So, yeah. That's when we started talking. And

how long did you live with Rebecca? For about two two months. Okay. And after that, uh, just a relationship, uh, did y'all split up or what what took place?

Um, well, we did split up. We decided that, you know, it'd be better if we just stayed friends and and that's what we did. We still spend an awful lot of time together, though.

She would live with certain people at certain times. um you know, and she kind of bounced around a little bit, but then she finally decided that she wanted to go into pharmaceutical sales. And so she um she had a sister that was already going to school up in Fagetville, which is about I don't know 3 hours or so from Melbourne. So she moved up there and she moved in with her sister in in an apartment and she started attending a local uh community college and she started taking classes and so she was 22 and she was just trying to get her life together. The previous spring, Rebecca and Casey's relationship had been pretty serious. Casey was head over heels for her, which brought out the controlling side of him. That didn't work well with Rebecca's fiery personality.

By the end of the summer, things had become a little messy. On her drive from Northwest Arkansas to Melbourne, Rebecca told her sister that this would be her final trip.

She told her sister, she's like, "I'm done. This is it." And then they stop off at their dad's house. He gives Amish a $100 bill um on their way to Melbourne and she tells her father, she says, "I'm done with Casey. It's over. We're done." Detectives often use an investigative strategy called Caner and Larkin's circle theory. It's a fancy way of saying that most offenders don't stray far from home when they commit a crime. They stick to what they know, neighborhoods they've been in, routes they're comfortable with, places that feel familiar. So, investigators start looking close to the victim, family, partners roommates.

Then, they widen the lens to include friends co-workers casual acquaintances. And if that still turns up nothing, only then do they start to consider strangers. With this in mind, you'd think the first person in the hot seat would be the boyfriend. It's always the boyfriend, right? Arkansas State Police didn't think so. Instead, they zeroed in on an old friend of Rebecca's.

The main suspect for years and years and years and years was Chris Cantrell. And he was just this guy who was involved in the local, you know, kind of drug scene. You know, he um I don't think he sold a lot of drugs, but he consumed them. maybe get in trouble for it. And this guy, I mean, you're not talking about somebody who has the sophistication probably to, you know, wipe their own DNA from a crime scene or get rid of all their fingerprints and all this other stuff because the story was is that he he killed her over like a very small drug debt. Like, I'm talking like $40, which was really weird because she had at least that much money in her possession when she was killed. So, if that was the motive, why didn't he take some of her stuff or her cash or and and the second problem with it was was that, you know, I've written about assassinations, you know, where somebody is, you know, you're you're you're

involved in the drug trade and we're going to get rid of you. And that involves something very simple. They come with a gun, they shoot you in the head, they leave, they don't do anything else, and they walk away. Rebecca's autopsy report remained unreleased for years. Even today, only a few people have a copy of it. The report suggests that she was likely bludgeoned. It's hard to tell if there were any defensive wounds. She'd been exposed to the elements for a week, and her body was very badly decomposed. Rebecca had two clear blunt force injuries. One to the left side of her head and one that was a direct hit on the center of her face.

Experts and medical professionals who have read and analyzed the report say that neither of those injuries would have killed her immediately. In fact, it's very possible that Rebecca was alive for hours after the killer hit her. Even worse, she could have been alive when her body was dumped down the embankment. As for the weapon, the autopsy pointed to something long, thin, and heavy. Something like a tire iron or a bat. And in the house where Rebecca disappeared, police noticed something strange. The piano. Yeah, there was a piano. The piano was missing one of its legs. this story that this guy shows up at this house out in the middle of nowhere that he's never been before, doesn't bring a weapon. He's like, "Oh, gee, I wonder if I wonder if the piano label come off of this piano over here." Okay, whoa, here we go. Yeah. I mean, it was just this ridiculous, stupid, like, "Are you kidding me?" story. Like, come on. A guy

named Dennis was the Arkansas State Police detective working the case. This man was hellbent on pushing the Chris Canrell story, and he wouldn't give up. Ego is a hell of a drug.

Well, Dennis was a narcotics officer. Um, they had a working theory that drugs were somehow involved in this, even though no drugs were found in her system that they could find. And he had he had dealt with Chris in the past. And, um, I've always said this about Dennis. Um, it's one of my favorite sayings, you know, um, if you're born a hammer, every problem in the world has to be a nail. There's no other, it can't be a screw. It can't be, you know, attack. It's got to be a nail. So that's what he turns his case into. Dennis gets the case I think in November, December, and then he starts to focus in on Chris Cantrell.

And it was pretty widely known by like June, July of 2005 that they were focusing on Chris. I mean, that was clear. That was out in the public. People talked about it.

There were other suspects along the way, and people in town gossiped about the possibility that Rebecca's boyfriend, Casey, was the real killer. But this detective wouldn't hear any of it. He refused to look into any tips or reanalyze any of the existing evidence. But a lot of it pointed straight to Casey McCulla. I mean, I spent, you know, uh, years just befuddled by the detective because, you know, you automatically assume that they know more than you know cuz they've got the case file and there must be I had there had to be something in there that was really pointing them away from him.

George didn't get his hands on the case file until years later, but by the time he'd read it, this detective decided to pay him a surprise visit. Armed with all the original evidence, this turned out to be a perfect opportunity for George to ask Dennis why he was so focused on the wrong suspect. And I'm not kidding you, this guy, this detective snuck into a book signing of mine one time in these cut off Daisy Duke looking shorts, cut off flannel shirt. I mean, like I'm not going to notice this dude coming in here. I pitch him the book cuz I didn't recognize him at this point. And then um as I'm I said, "Do you want to buy a book?" He's like he's like, "No, I'm special agent Dennis Simmons with the Arkansas State Police." He pulls out his badge and I looked at him. I'm like, "Okay, Dennis, I haven't seen you in years, but you know, come on." And he tells me, I can't I told him, I said, "I

I don't understand something here. Why would he clean up the mess? why wouldn't he just take a match and torch the place? And he said, "George, if you had the case file, you'd know exactly why it this person did this thing." And I'm like, "Okay, well, we have the case file now, and it's even more incomprehensible." This Dennis character sure does remind me of Lieutenant Jim Dangle from Reno 911. Can you picture it? Life imitates art, I guess. Rebecca's case swirled around in George's mind for years, and all the while it had become a closed loop. He wrote articles about the case and about various theories, but law enforcement was holding all the information under lock and key. They held no press conferences and gave no updates.

14 years passed with no progress. When Rebecca's father tried to request a copy of her autopsy report, officials denied it, citing the case was still active. George kept writing articles. Web sleuths discussed the case to death. And by 2018, a woman named Catherine Townsend hoped to put even more eyes on this mystery by doing a podcast. Rebecca was murdered in this woman's hometown. So, she traveled back there, lived in the community for 6 months, and did her own investigation.

I first heard about a podcast called Helinggon in late 2018. This is Jen Buulz. She's a former US Army counter intelligence agent who served in Iraq and Afghanistan. She now teaches forensic science at American Military University and works as a cold case investigator for Colorado's El Paso County Sheriff's Office. And it was my content editor at the university who we would go back and forth sometimes about new podcasts and cases and sometimes I'd write about different cases and she's like, "You really should listen to Helen Gone. I think you're going to find that case really interesting. Maybe you want to write about it." And so, of course, she was correct and I binged it. and George was featured in several of the episodes.

So I thought, well, I'll reach out to this George guy. He clearly knows the case really well. And so I like I very carefully crafted this email to him. Whatever I wrote, which I don't totally remember now, it caught his attention because he called me pretty much right away. And then we ended up on the phone for 3 hours and 22 minutes, I believe, our first conversation. And so it was like, "Oh yeah, we're going to work on this case." I think I don't know we had very similar mindset was the behaviors that this killer took and um the importance of understanding those behaviors and what they meant about the relationship between the killer and victim. Very clear that the detective at the time had no idea about criminal profiling or behavioral analysis and it was really being overlooked. And that was like one of my key points in reaching out to George and as you'll hear he had the same thoughts through

the years. Jen Bukultz spent years working as a private investigator before stepping into her current role in cold case investigations. Now embedded within a police department, she sees a sharp divide, maybe even a distrust between law enforcement and civilian investigators. In many cases, police simply won't accept outside help. Again, ego is a hell of a drug. Rebecca's father, Dr. Larry Gould learned that the hard way. He spent thousands on private investigators over the years, but law enforcement never seemed interested in what they uncovered.

Here's Dr. Gould. The law enforcement officers that to me are truly the real professionals are the ones that reach out to the public and they ask for help. The ones that reach out and and say uh that they don't use their ego. They say, "I'm the officer. I'm in charge of this case. Help me. Now, if there's somebody I respect. And there's no reason to not be that way. Especially nowadays, there's a lot of unsolved murders that the public can get involved with. There's a lot of the public that loves to get involved with these types of cases because they feel sincerely like they can help and that they can um offer something.

And this is where the internet proves its worth to some degree, perhaps. I can't believe I just said that. In case after case, it's not a detective who breathes new life into a forgotten file. It's a podcast. It's a subreddit. It's a web forum or a Facebook group or even a Tik Tok channel where some web sleuth, usually a middle-aged woman, I might add, that has so much time on their hands and so much empathy in their heart that they have to do something with it. So, they focus on their favorite hobby. They dig into parts of a cold case that no one ever seemed to be able to uncover. Not even Lieutenant Jim Deng. I mean, Dennis. It's a lesson learned by us that can be passed on to other not just private investigators or citizens, but law enforcement agencies, too. Like, keep an eye on social media sites for your victim. See if any of your suspects are in there. Like, I do it at work.

Because sometimes the killer does come back to the scene of the crime. Only in Rebecca's case, the scene was now virtual. By the fall of 2018, Rebecca Gould's case sat unsolved for nearly 14 years. The crime scene had been cleaned. The man she was last seen with had quietly receded into the shadows, and the Arkansas State Police special agent was borderline obsessed with pinning the whole crime on the wrong guy. But then something shifted. A podcast called Hell and Gone started digging into the case. The show gave the public a voice and it gave the story new life online.

One of the podcast's fans was a former Army counter intelligence agent named Jen Bukultz. Another was George Jared, the very reporter who had watched Rebecca's body be pulled from the embankment. When these two connected, they spent hours on the phone. Soon after, they created a Facebook group. The plan was not just to rehash the case, but to solve it once and for all. Well, me and George are the admins and we we set the group settings so that it's a public group. Anybody can find it, but you have to request to join because we always want to keep track of who's joining. So, you know, one of our goals and I guess I guess subconsciously one of our goals in making the group was to lure the killer in there or somebody who knew something.

The Facebook group grew quickly. At this point, neither the police's case file nor Rebecca's autopsy had been made available to the public yet. This meant that the host of the Helen Gone podcast had to piece the story together using rumors and gossip from people in town. By the time Katherine Townsend aired the final episode of season 1, the narrative had shifted away from small town gossip and toward a deeper, darker truth. This was never about random drifters or drug deals. This looked like a crime of passion and a cleanup that took time and work. So, here's the thing about this case. We don't have a definitive time of death for Rebecca.

The theor this is the the working theory, the prosecutorial theory about what happened is on that Monday morning, Rebecca takes Casey to work because his father had borrowed Casey's truck the night before. Casey needed a ride. So, she drops him off at the Sonic that morning. Then she goes back to his house um to collect up all her things. She had a little Pomeranian dog and she had her clothes and she had brought two big suitcases because she had told her father and her sister Danielle that this was going to be the last time that she came to Casey's house. And so she brought an extra suitcase because she had some personal items over there at the house. And so it's during this time frame that morning when she's collecting up all this stuff, that's when the police and the prosecutors think that she was murdered. And so I will say this, there is absolutely no proof of life on Monday morning. There's none.

And for years we were led to believe that there was a video at a convenience store that she stopped off and got a coffee and a breakfast sandwich. And so we thought there was all this evidence, you know, that that um that she was there. The problem is is that none of that stuff was true. So there's no proof of life Monday morning, but that's the official story. Just to fill in some gaps, the day Rebecca went missing, Casey's father had borrowed his truck. So, he was Carlos and needed transportation to and from work. He worked at Sonic, by the way. We know Rebecca's plan was to quietly pack her things and dump his ass that day. But Casey was clueless about this. Or was he? Did he find out? Was there a subsequent altercation?

This is where things get really suspicious and a little messy. So, he asked a group of four friends, people that he was friends with, he they were going to go to the movies that night. They were going to go see the movie Resident Evil 2. And so, he asked them if he could ride with them. And they were all kind of surprised by it because he was kind of a recluse. He didn't like to hang out with anybody. And so, he went down to Batesville that night. They watched the movie. They go into some stores. He was clearly trying to make himself available to cameras that were in, you know, like they went to a Walmart to look at Halloween decorations and they went to some other places. And it was clear that he was trying to make himself visible on these cameras. And then at one point in the night, he gets a call. And during this call, he used his friend's phone to make this call, by the way. Didn't use his own phone. After

he hangs up, he tells all four of these friends that Rebecca is missing. He used his friend's phone to call his own voicemail. So, he didn't actually talk to anybody. He listened to his messages, whatever they were, and then got off the phone and told his friends that Rebecca's missing. Now, here's the problem. She wasn't reported missing until the next morning at 8:30 in the morning by her mother. The second part of it is all four friends in all four of their statements to police said that he was obsessed with her. And I'm paraphrasing this that he was obsessed with her and they were all shocked that he wasn't running out the door to go and find her. And so what he did instead is he went to his friend's house, smoked some marijuana, played some video games, and fell asleep on the couch.

Are you suspicious yet, fellow Web Sleuth? So she drops you at work. I'm just a little past eight.

Mhm. Little past eight. And I just all I remember saying bye and smiling at each other and waving and that's the last time I saw Rebecca.

Okay. Did you have any contact with her by telephone? No, sir. I I tried. Have you talked with her since Monday morning at 8:00? That was the last time I talked to her.

You haven't seen her since I haven't seen her since. So, did you plan on seeing her before she went back?

Yes, she she was supposed to come back and and pick me up from work to go pick up my truck from Batesville.

Okay. Did she show up? No, sir. Washington. What time was she supposed to pick you up?

Uh 4. And then you came back to Oxford and any time uh since you left there, did you go back to your house at any time that night?

No, sir. Did you ever go back there to get some clothing items? A shirt, pants, anything like that?

No, sir. Never went back to the house that night. No. Okay. What time did you leave Oxford or that house and come to work the next morning?

Uh about 7:30. You got to work at 8. And what how long did you stay at work? Um, I stayed there for about 10 15 minutes. I I called Rebecca's mom to see if she had heard from Rebecca because, you know, I haven't yet. And she said she sounded really worried and freaking out. And so I asked um my manager, Daniel, if I could go down to the house and see if she was there. Tell me what you find when you get to your house.

I drive up and I see your car. So, I'm thinking she's there and she's safe um inside and I I walk in and uh I see her dog, which which gives me a little bit more um what's the word I'm looking for? Insurance.

What's significant about the dog being there? Um that if she's there, then she then Rebecca's got to be there cuz Rebecca goes nowhere without that dog.

Okay. I walked in. I checked our room. I'm going to call it our room cuz it is. Um and um

Whoa. Did you catch that? Tell me you caught that. We walked into our room. I call it our room because it is. That's what he said. No need to be so uh defensive there, buddy. You weren't questioning your relationship status.

No sheets on the bed. Nobody's in there. And I thought it was very odd. No sheets on the bed because she just washed them the week earlier. And I wouldn't say why should we wash them again. Um I looked through the whole house. Uh again, double backed in every room and I didn't see anything and I was well appeared to be I thought I was on the clock because I punched in. That thing doesn't work all the time and um so I I took off back towards Sonic.

Okay. Was her car there? Her car was there. Okay. Did you see anything like her flipper or anything like that in the house?

Yes, I saw her her pink flippers. These are all clips from Casey's first interview with police. He tells them that he never went back to the house that day, the day Rebecca went missing. It was the next morning that he said he drove back home by himself to search the trailer for clues. One day I was driving through Melbourne and I saw him outside smoking a cigarette in the parking lot. This is probably eight or nine months after the murder. And um so I just pulled my truck in, got out and I just confronted him. I said, "So tell me what happened." and he told me that he never went to the back to his house before he went with the police. And so he lied.

When we get the case file, not only did he not notice that his room it l and I'm not I don't think I'm exaggerating. It looked like a tornado had gone through his room. I mean there was stuff broken everywhere. I mean it was a a mirror offkilter off the closet. There were bloody pillows in plain sight. He admitted in his first interview with the police that he did go to the washing machine, open it up, and it's full of bedding with blood all over it. The, you know, like the um what's that thing? The agitator. There was bloody water in there. The the the like the bleach dispenser thing was completely caked.

Caked with blood. And he just puts the lid down, gets in his truck, and drives back to work like nothing happened.

Did you subsequently go back out to your house with the deputy? He he I asked him I said, "Do you just want to follow me?" And uh so I was ahead and he just followed me all the way there.

And when you got there, the police, I take a look in the your house. Yes. He I let him freely walk through the house. I showed him that her belongings were still there, how it's very odd that she really never ever leaves without it. And um he walked into the back room, checked under the mattress, and found some blood. And uh I really didn't know where it came from. That's when I started getting really scared. Uh didn't know what to think. Then after we checked the mattress, he turned around and checked the washer.

When we checked the washer, we saw just a little bitty film of something red. We didn't know if it was blood or not, but we noticed and we tried to put two and two together that, you know, the sheets were on the bed. Let me ask you this, Casey. What do you think has happened to Rebecca?

I think she was killed. I don't know who did it. So, Monday night is when he tells his friend she's missing and whatever. So, Tuesday morning, he had spent the night at his friend's house. He hadn't gone home. Tuesday morning goes to work for a shift at Sonic. Well, for some reason, he didn't have his Sonic shirt. Even though he worked the day prior. So, his boss is like, "You got to go home and get a Sonic shirt. You got to be in uniform." So, he was forced to go home Tuesday morning to his residence. And he walks in, you know, her car's there, her purse, her dog, the mattress is flipped, there's bloody sheets in the washer, all his stuff. I mean, broken ashtrays, broken mirrors. And he grabs a shirt and just goes back to work. And and then later on said he didn't notice that anything, you know, was a miss, which is impossible. I mean, you can't. After we got the crime scene photos, you're like,

"Yeah, there's no way you could like, how would you go in your room?" And his bed was moved to cover a big blood stain on the carpet. Like, you can't tell me you didn't notice her bed's in a different position in the room and it's been stripped and all this stuff. You already said the night prior she's missing and you go home to this mess, why aren't you immediately calling police? You know,

if the lies, the changing timeline, and Casey's strange behavior weren't bad enough, just wait. It gets worse.

Well, it's even more suspicious because he confessed to hurting her. He in, let's see, April of 2010 or 2011. They're not quite sure what year. And so he was working on like these towers. He was climbing towers. And he was one night he and two other people were in a hotel room. One one of them is Tad Hickerson. Um and he signed a sworn affidavit to this where they're all in a a hotel room. They're drinking. He starts crying and tells them that he hurt Rebecca, that he had hit her with some type of a wooden object, that he had hurt her. And they were, of course, they were thought he was just, you know, full of it. They're like, "Well, the police have cleared you. You know, how could this be possible?" And he said that they the reason that he was getting away with it was because their timeline was off, but they couldn't figure that out. So the next day, Tad still thinks, you know, he was just drunk and crying and feeling

guilty and all this other stuff. Well, now they're sober. And so Tad asked Casey. He said, "So tell me what happened." And he said that she said something to him. Um, and like said something like mockingly to him, like laughed at him or scoffed at him, and he just flew into a rage, hit her twice. He said he threw the wooden object, which you know, we believe could be a piano leg that's, you know, obviously missing, that he threw it into the White River and that um he said, "What mistake did you make?" And he said, "Cleaning up the mess." By when exactly was the evidence cleaned from the trailer. According to police, Rebecca was killed sometime on Monday, September 18th, after she dropped Casey off at work. And Casey had an alibi for that time period. He was working at Sonic all day, then was seen on camera hanging out with friends in the evening.

So, because of that, he Casey was cleared because they assumed she was alive Monday morning and he was accounted for at work during the hours that they thought she was killed. So, he I mean, Dennis Simons, the detective who was on it for 14 years that botched it, he did publicly clear him, which is always a mistake. you don't clear anybody. But he did publicly clear Casey. So Casey fell off the radar for most people, I think, from that point forward.

It was open and shut. Sherlock and Daisy Dukes had nailed the timeline. Or did he? Jen and George certainly didn't think so. They think Rebecca may have been killed much earlier, perhaps that morning, giving someone plenty of time to erase what couldn't be explained. And that changed everything. If the murder didn't happen when police thought it did, then Casey's alibi wasn't airtight. So, fast forward to the year 2019 when fans of the Hell and Gone podcast are in a frenzy, obsessively discussing all these suspicions day and night. Y'all are relentless, I'll tell you.

Well, all this chitchat attracts attention to anyone who's interested and also their cats. Do I know my audience or do I know my audience? The Facebook forum continues to grow and grow and all of a sudden a new name starts leaving comments in the forum. a guy by the name of William Miller.

And he was one of the first people to join our Facebook page when we created in October of 2019. And there's a girl on our our crowd sourcing team who's really good at like genealogy, you know, like she's good at putting family trees together. And as soon as he joined our page and her name is Miranda and she immediately told us, she said, "Hey, this guy's the first cousin of Casey's." And we're like, "Okay." We didn't think anything of it because he lived in the Philippines and I think Jen had done a little research on him and figured out pretty quickly that he lived in Aran's past, Texas, you know. So we didn't think anything of it and he was you know postulating theories on how she died and he was very active on the page and we just thought he was a mole for the family you know cuz what what had happened previously you know when Helen Gone came out as these Facebook pages formed and a bunch of family members got

on there and people would get into these huge fights and they would say all this stuff and um so we just thought okay they don't want to join and get into these you know brew hahas um and so they're just going to send in this first cousin you know he's kind of you know kind of a weirdo anyway Okay. Um, you could just tell that from his messages and stuff like that, but he's living in the Philippines. He's working on oil rigs all over the world. You know, he flies all over the place. Um, he's a very world traveler and he made a lot of money, too. And then I is, this may be a coincidence, but I just can't believe that it's a coincidence.

Casey's birthday is January 16th. So, on January 16th of 2020, right before the pandemic starts, William Miller starts me sending private DMs to Jen. Now, he had sent me one or two, but I never responded because I mean, he was Casey's first cousin, so I'm just like, "No, you who cares?" Um, of course, Jen is a much more thorough investigator than I am, so she started responding to him and asking him questions.

At first, William Miller seemed like any other dedicated member of the group. curious, passionate, maybe a little too invested. But as Jen talked to him, the tone shifted. The conversations were often long back and forth dialogues. Sometimes William rambled and didn't make much sense. In one message, he claimed he was being targeted by other group members trying to stir up drama. I am being attacked by a few people. They took pics and sent them to Dennis and he was one of them to blow up on me. He got more paranoid, even defensive. At one point he wrote, "Now he talks [ __ ] to me. I'm sorry to talk like that, but about to block the guy if he keep it up.

Hate to be a grammar Nazi here, but anybody know English these days?" Anyway, this guy William seemed like he wanted to be helpful. He wanted to be part of the team. He insisted. Sorry if I sound like I am on Casey's side. Maybe I come across that way, but I'm not. But behind the scenes, Jen was already putting the pieces together. William wasn't just engaging with the case. He was circling it, fixating on details like gloves, DNA, and forensics. No fingerprints, no DNA. First thing pops in my head is, did he have gloves?

John's goal was to find out why William was so interested in this case, or at least to see what kind of answer he would give. They knew he was Casey's cousin, and they knew he was being evasive about it. But why? And he was lying. He was he wouldn't he wouldn't tell her like what was the relationship or to the case? just like why was he interested in it? And he just said podcast and then she asked him what states he'd been to and he said 50 of them or something like that and her and I would talk about him some early on and then the pandemic hits and then in September we found out something very interesting. We did not know that he was in town the weekend of the of this whole thing happening. We didn't we never knew that. Even more suspicious, they didn't know that William's mother, Linda, and his brother, Jeremy, had actually been living in the area at the time of the murder.

Like, the family kept that way under wraps, which is so telling. Even Casey and his family never divulged that publicly. So, I'm like, why are you hiding that?

Jen and George both saw the signs. William Miller was quickly moving up their list of suspects. me and Jen are talking one day and we're just like, "This guy could be involved." Like, as soon as we found out that he um was there because our analysis had always pointed towards a male member of the McCulla family, his name is William Miller, but he's as much he's as much a Makulla as the McCulla are. He fit the profile. And it was even more interesting with him because he immediately left. It's like your cousin's girlfriend vanishes and you don't stick around for a day or two to try to help find her. Of course, at this point, we knew Casey hadn't been trying to find her. Um, and then I'll never forget this. We kept digging on him. And so, we're trying to put this together all through October of 2020. And little did we know that the police were on the same track. Um, because we weren't we weren't communicating to them what we

were doing at this point. And they weren't communicating obviously with us. A new detective had been handling the investigation and it took him only 8 months to get his sight set on William Miller. This detective wanted to get William in an interview room. But knowing that William lived overseas, he called his mother, Linda. Just so you know, they're going to be referring to William as Billy. By the way,

hello. Hello. This is Linda Miller and I'm returning your call. Hey Linda, how are you doing?

Doing pretty good. Working hard. Hanging in there. I didn't know you still worked. You still working?

Yeah, I I take care of a a little lady that has Alzheimer's. Oh, okay. And that can be difficult sometimes.

Oh, I Yeah, I can imagine. I can imagine. I wanted to reach out to you. Um Okay. You know, I'm going through this case file and the I guess the opinion of of the Arkansas State Police is that they're basically wanting everybody reinterviewed. So, I'm going back and I'm going through, you know, all of the documents and and trying to trying to accomplish that. And I know that you and and Jeremy and Billy were all interviewed back back in 2004. And, you know, I just wanted to to reach out to you guys and see

what, of course, I get, you know, Billy's in the Philippines. I I probably won't be able to talk to him for I don't know if he's planning on coming back anytime soon or do you know?

I don't know. Oh, no. You don't know? Things have been crazy with the co Right. And you have no idea when Billy might be returning to the States? Not right now. Not when it's all the co stuff. It's

So the last the last time Billy made it home was sometime last year or I I I don't know. I I mean I know he does that for I know he does that I'm thinking every year.

Yeah. Okay. Well, if you would, Linda, get with Jeremy and see Okay. If there's uh one day

where we're home at the same time. Yeah. Awesome. Well, thanks, Linda. All right. No problem. You have a good day.

You, too. Byebye. That was Linda Miller, October 21st, 2020. Should be noted that Billy Miller is currently in Oregon. Uh he returned from the Philippines approximately a little over a week ago. It's entirely possible that William or Bill or Billy was sitting right next to his mother listening to her lie to the detective about his whereabouts during this call. Just a little bit later, probably after having a team meeting with her sons, Linda called the detective back.

Hello, this is Linda Miller. Hey, Linda. How are you? Pretty good. I think we got everybody coordinated where you can get all three of us at one time.

Oh, really? Yeah, I've been busy. Well, when's when's Billy coming back in? Uh he'll be here November 7th. Uh that's when we want to have uh our meeting with you.

Okay. November the 7th. Linda Miller and her two sons believed they were heading into just another round of questioning. What they didn't realize was that every word they spoke would be used to dismantle the lie they'd been upholding for 16 long years.

By the fall of 2020, almost exactly 16 years after her murder, there was a Facebook group rife with theories on Rebecca Gold's case. One of the people offering up ideas was a man named William Miller. Jen Buoltz and George Jared, the two investigators who had taken a personal interest in Rebecca's story, realized pretty quickly that William was Casey McCulla's first cousin. At first, they thought the McCulla family had sent him in as a spy, someone who could figure out just how much the public knew. But the more that William talked, the higher he moved up their suspect list. Coincidentally, Arkansas State Police were coming to the same conclusion in parallel. On November 7th, 2020, detectives finally got William into an interview room. His mother and brother sat in the room next door.

First off, let me tell you this is called a non-custodial interview. Okay? Uh you probably never heard of such a thing, but what that means is you came up here voluntarily. You're not being detained. Uh, you're free to go at any time. That door is not locked. You know, I'm going to tell you what I told the police down in Texas when they came and stuff. Yeah.

And I'm going to be honest with you and truthful with you on everything. You know, maybe I saw something that maybe you'd be a key factor in something there and all that stuff.

Right. Right. So, you're an oil field worker. I've been in working in oil field for 23 years.

Right. I remember moving mom up there and then she was uh moved into that little house I it was a couple miles down the road from grandpa's property.

Yeah. Uh and you're right that was about your mom's house was about 2 or 3 miles from the makulla trailer where this happened.

Okay. So, so I've been in that home and all that stuff and prior to the homicide.

Yes. How many times had you been in that trailer, do you think? Maybe two, three times. Maybe two or three times.

Two or three times and stuff. So, she was Rebecca was killed in September of 04. When was the last time you were in that trailer? You think

it was the way before that? Months. Yeah. William goes on to explain that back in September of 2004, his mother asked him to help her move to Texas with William's younger brother. So he drove up to Arkansas and arrived on Sunday. The same day Rebecca had gotten into town.

So in the information that was provided to Texas in 04, you said that whenever you showed up in Melbourne that you went and visited family in the small town. So that made it sound like that that you were with your mom and that you visited family in the small town. So do you remember going to the grandparents house on Sunday because that's what you told investigators in ' 04?

I don't I can't remember all that stuff. Yeah. Do you think that uh probably if you if you said it in 04 that that would probably be more accurate than

it probably be more accurate because we sat there and went and then and then uh because I know that when I came up I remember going and asking Casey if you could give me a hand helping you move.

Helping mom move. Help mom move the stuff into the house and he was like hey I'm too busy.

Is that whenever you showed up to Casey's trailer on Sunday? No. Okay. Well, when did you have that conversation with him?

When mom moved up there three or four months before. Okay. William claimed that this interaction happened months before. But now that we have Casey's original interview from September of 2004, we can look back and see that Casey told police something different.

Your cousin, what's his name? His name is Billy. Little We call him Little Billy. Um, and it's Billy Miller. What does Billy live at? He lives in Texas. And I'm not for sure where. What was he doing up here?

He was coming up here to uh move his mom and his brother back to Texas. So, has he already gone back? Do you know?

Yes, he's already gone, I'm pretty sure. Okay. And so, I guess he came up and spoke with you just a short period of time that night.

Yes, sir. That would have been Sunday evening. Mhm. Okay. So, how long did he stay?

Um, about 10 15 minutes tops. We just really talked about old times and stuff. Did he come into your house?

No, sir. We He stayed outside. Uh, I was outside. He never came in the house, but Rebecca was on the front porch. He saw Rebecca on the front porch.

Did he know that you and Rebecca had dated in the past? Yes. Did he know that y'all were living together? Uh,

he knew that she visited on the weekends and stayed. Remember, Rebecca arrived at McCulla's trailer on Saturday, September 18th. The police originally thought she was alive on Monday morning. Jen and George think she was actually killed before that, late Saturday night, or maybe sometime on Sunday. There's a problem, though, with this part of the story, too. Here's the problem. So this was what Casey told people in, you know, when he was interviewed the police and then William kind of told a similar story that he just pulled up into the driveway and, you know, that was it.

Well, a couple of weeks after their statements are taken, Casey's asked whose DNA could possibly be in the house and he gives a list of people whose DNA could be in the house. He lists William and Jeremy and beside each of them there's su meaning Sunday night next to each of them. Well, if he never got out of his car, how could his DNA be in the house?

Obviously, I can't talk a lot about the evidence in the investigation. You know, it's an ongoing

investigation. Investigation, but uh I can assure you that there are items of evidence that there should be no reason your DNA should be on it. You know what I mean?

Yeah. Uh, we believe investigators with the the people that have worked this, we believe that we have the suspect's DNA on a piece of evidence that is very specific and very unique and nobody else's DNA should be on it. Uh, so that's that's why I'm asking there's a number of people that have provided DNA uh, voluntarily. Would you be willing to provide your DNA?

And it would be a cheek swab. I don't want to take blood or is if I've been in the house and all that stuff, my DNA would be in there. You know, if if you don't feel comfortable doing it, I'm not going to I'm not going to push you or try to put any pressure on you. Test and all that stuff, but you know, yeah, you that's fine. I just to me it's just, you know, yeah, my DNA is going to be in there and all that stuff, right? Okay,

since he was so willing to give up his DNA, a polygraph would be no problem, right?

Like I was talking before about polygraphs, you know, uh almost all of the makullas have been polygraph. Um a number of other people had been, you know, that's one that that's a tool that we like to use to, you know, it kind of gives us a pretty good indication of

if somebody's lying or telling the truth, all that stuff. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, would you be okay with taking a polygraph? I'll just ask you.

Yeah, I don't have a problem with that. You want me to go to Arkansas and take one?

No. I tell you what, let me holler. I'll call uh I'll call the sergeant up here to see. They may have a calligrapher in town. You know, it's a shot in the dark. But, uh,

actually, it was the furthest thing from a shot in the dark. This detective had his piggy locked and loaded,

right? And so, uh, we're going to review in great detail all the questions are going to be on the exam. We're going to administer the test. We're going to give you the test. It'll be done in several phases. And then I'm going to evaluate the exam results. And I'll tell you how you did before you leave today. Okay. What do they want to know? They want to know if you caused the death of Rebecca Gul. How would you answer that question?

How would I answer that? Yes. that you know how can you do something when you're in another location?

Okay, perfect. So, if they were to ask you that on the exam, what would your answer be?

No. Okay, perfect. And are you have 110% positive? Yes. Perfect. You know, you're not going to have a problem pass the test. If you know, if you didn't do it, you didn't do it and then let's go through the process. And that's that's that's what they want to know, right? William sat like a statue in his chair for the duration of the test, answering yes and no questions confidently. When it was over, he didn't have to wait very long to get his results.

Now, you think you did? I don't know if you So, the results on the exam were deception indicated, right? So, to the questions of did you, you know, was that

caused you failed the test? I failed the test. Yes. Yes. And so my heartbeat felt like it was just beaten out of my chest.

Yeah. You know, we we've talked about your DNA being at the crime scene. And you you tried to give an explanation as to why your DNA would be at the crime scene because your mom gave Claude furniture,

baby furniture, and all that stuff and bedding. And you even you even said that it it would be reasonable for your DNA to be on the bedding, which is absolutely absurd.

No, I didn't say that. Okay. I just said that mom gave furniture and all that stuff. Okay. All right. This is a washcloth that was under the bed that the killer used to clean up. It was wadded up in a ball. Okay. We've got we've got the killer's DNA on that washcloth.

Okay. Okay. Would there be any reason for your DNA to be on there? It shouldn't be. He shouldn't be on there.

Are you ready to have your mind blown? The detective is lying. His DNA was not on the washcloth. This is just one of the tools in a seasoned detective's tool belt that's used to get a reaction and possibly a confession out of a suspect when there's little else to go on. They were baiting him. He got tricked and it and it was a gutsy move. I I I'll give Mike McNeel credit. He got tricked. He got tricked into thinking that his DNA was on a rag that they had found. They were going to do some DNA testing. And then he also got tricked into thinking that Rebecca's uh DNA. What Mike did is he went and found the truck, the actual truck that he that William Miller owned in 2004. It was somewhere in South Texas. He sent the Texas Rangers down there to take pictures of it. And so Mike has a folder a this is and this is after William has failed the polygraph test during his interview and he comes in. He says, "Well, I've got to

share something with you." And he pulls out these pictures of this truck. That truck look familiar?

Yeah. Yeah. That's your truck. Okay. Biological evidence, Billy, last for decades. blood, skin cells, all kinds of stuff.

Okay. All right. That was a really bloody crime scene. What you What happened? You got blood on the side of your shoe. We got Rebecca's DNA next to the gas pedal in your truck. No question about it. Her DNA is in your truck. So, what you have to do is you have to explain to me how that's possible. If you didn't kill her, you know who did. And if you know who did, if you're covering for Casey, dude, I'm telling you, you have got to come forward right now with what you know.

And William immediately knows it's his old truck. And he goes, "We're going to get this tested, and who whoever killed her is on the drag." Neither one of those things was true,

but it was enough to scare William into confessing. Still want to be a detective. We know what you did. We know how it went down. We've got her blood in your in your floorboard. You tried to clean up best that you could, Billy. Don't drag your mom through this anymore. Don't drag your brother through this anymore. Give Give the family some peace. It was a freak deal, man. You did not mean to kill her. It happens. It should have never happened, but it did. Okay. So, tell me, Billy. Just tell me. Tell me what you did, how it happened.

When I speak to my mom outside, you can look at me. I'm not going to run off or anything. Listen, let me do this. Let me Let me bring your mom in here and let's talk to her together if that's what you want to do.

I want to talk to her outside and I promise to come back in here and tell you whatever you want. William Miller had failed his polygraph test miserably. He realized the walls were closing in and he asked for one last chance to talk with his mother. When he came back into the room, William told police exactly what they'd been waiting to hear. He had murdered Rebecca Gould all of those years ago. It was him that had always been him.

Okay, I'll get Jeremy in a minute. We need to have a conversation. I held up my end of the deal. Let's talk.

What What do you want me to tell you? I want me I want you to tell me what you did, how it went down. One thing about this is it's been reeling in your head like a movie reel since it happened. There isn't anything about this that you forgot. I know that because I've been doing this a long time.

I just hate it. I did it. I did it. You guys, sorry. I'm sorry for what I did. You got to tell me how it went down.

I just can tell you that I kind of blocked it out of my mind in a way to survive. Everybody that I've associated is a victim of me. Absolutely.

A victim. Absolutely. And I played everybody as a fool. Everybody. I I never told anybody but you right now.

I remember going into the trailer and and stuff and then it just happened so quick and so fast and then I freaked out and I

You can't gloss over. What happened so fast and so quick? What happened? Where did it happen? You have to tell me these things.

If you got evidence on me, you should know. I I do. I do. Or should I just get a lawyer and all that stuff? No, I'm just asking you that because you know, listen, man. You know, I I I I'm telling you, you know, I I'm confessing to you. I'm telling you that I did it. Would you arrest me? Would you arrest me? What you saying that you said that I killed her, but her blood and all that stuff is in there? Then arrest me. I'm confessing. I did it. Billy, you're under arrest for the murder of Rebecca Gold.

Okay. Okay. Take me to Arkansas. Let me Listen, that that's a whole we we'll get there. Okay.

I know that. But, you know, it doesn't happen the way you want it to happen. It just doesn't take me to Arkansas. Do this. Do that. It doesn't happen that way.

Here's the thing. you in the state of Arkansas, you can't and and this is true in a lot of states, you cannot just have a confession. You have to have some other piece of evidence that ties the person to the crime. The problem for William is is that there was a piece of evidence that did tie him to the crime, and that's the missing suitcase. When police arrived um the day that Rebecca vanished, the three there were three things missing. One of her suitcases, the piano leg, and her.

Okay. But we I need to know what you did with Rebecca. Where did you put her before you dumped her? I need to know all that stuff. And I know that's not easy to talk about, but we got to have that conversation. Where did you put her before you dumped her? Where did you keep her? In the truck. Where in the truck? The back end of the truck. Okay. What was she in? She was in a shirt and nothing.

No. Did you put her in a trash bag or No, I didn't put her in there. No. What' you put her in?

There was a blanket and all that stuff. Okay. What was used to cause her injuries? We'll go to Arkansas and I'm going to point out something to you and then you'll find some certain things that you might be looking for. All right. So, you're telling me right now in November of 2020, there is still physical evidence that has not been found?

Yeah. Let's go to Arkansas. That will nail the in the coffin, would it? Well, no. I'm telling you, you know, unless somebody picked it up and thought it was trash, but it should be where it's at.

It should be where it's at. Well, that's helpful. Ain't it weird how humans can do inhuman things but not talk about them afterwards? Words too violent for you, Billy? We are a strange species indeed. for you know 16 years they were trying to find this suitcase. Well, William told them where to find the suitcase and it was in proximity to his mom's old house that where she when she was living in Guian and it took him about the search we estimate was about 3 to four hours but they found the suitcase. Um the suitcase is weird though and there's a reason why it's weird. William says he took it and William's a he's not tall but he's a big stocky guy. you know, he he weighed over 300 lbs. He was only like 56. And so he took this suitcase and he said he launched it from the highway and it landed like 30 40 yards away or something like that. And um so when it's found, it's open and all of the bedding and

there's some bedding and there's some clothes. They're all in a pile over here and there were some CDs in there and all this other stuff. So, Jen is at my house one night after we get the pictures of this suitcase. And it was confirmed, you know, it was her suitcase, her stuff. Um, there's only one problem. Think about the physics of throwing a suitcase. Okay? If it's all zipped up, you throw it, no problem. But if it was open, then all that stuff would have been scattered all over the place and all of the the clothing type items would have long been gone, deteriorated into nothing. They weren't faded. You could see the This is how we know it was came from Casey's house is because the plaid on the sheet matches that that was in his washer. And we've actually done our own suitcase experiment. We one of the local residents in Melbourne went to um Goodwill and got two black suitcases.

And she her backyard has a very similar landscape to where this suitcase was found with the same types of trees and leaves and obviously the same weather pattern. So what we did is we had her put sheets in one suitcase and zip it closed and just put it out like that. And then the other one we had her put the suitcase like Rebecca's was found with it unzipped open and the sheets they're not in a neat pile but they're very close to the suitcase and just laying on top of the leaves and um so she put those sheets out there. This started in December of 2023 and within a few months those sheets were like unrecognizable, deteriorated and now they're just basically gone. So we that's how we know like Rebecca's suitcase could not have been laying open like that for 16 years and the sheets look pretty new. So somebody opened that suitcase, but we haven't figured out who yet.

What would you say to uh Rebecca as a mom? I'm truly sorry. I'm totally sorry. I know that I can't bring her back. I know that I I if there was times that I wanted to go to Dr. G's office, go to his office and hand him a gun and tell him that I did. Wow. Too chicken [ __ ] to do that.

Like he gave this confession, gave really no reason as to why Rebecca would, you know, he killed her, but then um at his sentencing, he agrees to meet with Dr. Gould afterwards, and he tells a completely different story about how he gave her that he he hit her, but then he gave her CPR, and if they find his DNA on her shirt, it was because he was crying. He keep keeps telling all these crazy stories that don't make any sense. But like with any anybody who's lying, there's gr there's grains of truth in there and you got to somehow try to mine them out. Of course, now he claims he had nothing to do with it in case he did all of it. So,

and for listeners uh who want to waste 11 hours of their life, they can watch his entire interview, polygraph, confession, everything on YouTube. William was arrested for Rebecca's murder and eventually took a plea deal that landed him 40 years in the Arkansas Department of Corrections. And like George said, these days William has changed his story yet again. As you might suspect, he and Jen have been in contact with him since his arrest, and he now says that Casey murdered Rebecca. He just helped clean up the scene. And fun fact, the the cleaning supplies that were used to clean up the the crime scene were delivered by Linda and that's verified.

She delivered those cleaning supplies. Now, she claims that her brother that he asked her to pick up certain items for the house and they were all cleaning items that were used by the killer or killers to clean up the mess in the house. No one knows for sure just how much Linda Miller knew about the situation, but it warrants some serious speculation. Rebecca's murder wasn't the only secret her son had been keeping, though. The same day he took the polygraph test, failed it, and confessed to the murder. He also confessed to five others, too.

That's right. William could be a serial killer. What happened was is he confessed to Rebecca's murder and of course then you know the detectives are trying to press him like hey we know this wasn't your first rodeo and so then he confesses to five other murders but he doesn't give the names of the victims. Um he did give specific details though um about how he kidnapped one of these victims from she was like at a pay phone at a convenience store late night. You know he and he gave specific details about how he would you know trick them.

and he said it was some of them were sex workers. You know, they would think they were about getting ready to have a sexual encounter and sometimes he would have a strap underneath his his somewhere in his truck that he could just grab it and wrap it around their neck and strangle them. I am almost 100% confident that he's a serial killer and he's done this many times. I just believe it. Jen still waivers on whether she agrees with George on this one, but she is 100% sure that William was somehow involved in the murder and disposal of Rebecca Gould. I just And this is this is the the tragedy of it in a way is that if only the state police had shared a little bit with us and we had known William had been in the state of Arkansas the weekend of the murder, I mean, everything would have been so different from our side the whole time.

and then him joining the group. I mean, it that was a golden opportunity. They're lucky that we're smart and like I'm used to running sources and stuff and we know how to interview or what to say and not to say because we could have totally screwed the whole thing up and scared him off and he never would have gone to that interview and confessed. But they also could have used us to try to get information from him if only they would have communicated with us, you know. And that's just what's so frustrating to me about this case. And we're not here to defend William. I am 100% confident he was involved in this whole thing and maybe others. Um, but there are just aspects of the investigation and that and his confession that weren't vetted enough.

Um, for instance, his timeline on this murder Monday morning. And they didn't challenge him on any of those details. And just to clarify for listeners, William's DNA and prints were never found in that residence. I'm not saying they're not there. I'm sure his DNA was there somewhere, but they did not have anything else on him except his confession, which had parts that cannot be true. And there's actually a lot of DAs that would not approve an arrest warrant on this. It's no wonder this case has held the attention of so many for nearly two decades. It's not just the brutality of what happened to Rebecca. It's the sheer scale of what we don't know. The conflicting timelines, the recycled alibis, the parade of rumors, false leads, and players who still haven't been entirely ruled out.

William Miller is serving a 40-year sentence for murder he now insists he falsely confessed to. He continues to beg Jen and George to uncover new evidence that will put Casey or someone else in prison for this crime instead of him. But that ship is sailed. He took a plea deal. He confessed. He volunteered evidence and in doing so he gave up almost any chance of appeal. So, I've been to visit him three times and George actually got to interview him and take video of it because he's an official, you know, journalist or what is it, George, that media member, I guess, that got you in. And so, I'm just if he's willing to keep talking to us, I'm not going to give up because I feel compelled to not only try to get the truth about Rebecca's case, but also try to figure out if he has other victims.

And so I told him this last time, this is just a couple months ago when I went with Jeremy. Um I said, "Dude, we're about the same age and barring some major catastrophe or me getting cancer, like we're going to be alive for about the same amount of time and I'm not going to stop talking to you." And in the absence of official help, it's civilians like you and me who are stepping up and finding Williams other potential victims. Not ego-driven cops and shorts. Regular people like you and me with a moral compass, a strong sense of right and wrong, and a need for justice. People who will not stop asking questions, even when officials have long forgotten the case and told you to shut up. Web sleuths like this have already been combing through other cold cases across every state William ever set foot in, trying to make sense of what he vaguely blurted out during his police interview.

So, we can't do it by ourselves. And so, we started this project several months ago, and I just called it Operation Rebecca cuz I didn't know what else. I couldn't come up with anything better, but I have an official sign up form. I have a video on our YouTube channel explaining the process of what we're doing. And I just ask volunteers if to fill out the form. It's only four questions. Um, sign up for a state and then watch the video and then email me once you watch the video and I'll send you the links to the Google Drive folder that has all the information you need.

We'll post a link to Jen's info in the show notes at swordscale.com so you too can join the investigative fun. Now, where'd I put that magnifying glass again? Anyway, I think this case proves Justice doesn't always wear a badge. Sometimes it looks like a true crime podcast enthusiast with a search tab open at 3:00 a.m. and way too much coffee in their digestive system. Get 20% off at strong coffee company.com with promo code sword. by the way. But as I was saying, sometimes justice looks just like you and just like me.

Sometimes it requires a hive of citizens to stand up for justice and collectively uncover what a single mind cannot or will not. It's kind of amazing to see it happen in real time. And next time, maybe, just maybe, you'll be the reason someone's story doesn't end in silence.

youtube.com/sordandscale TV is where you can find all three seasons of Sword and Scale Television. It's ongoing. New episodes every month. That's going to do it. Thank you for joining us. Until next time. Stay safe.

Hey, hey hey. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. N.

Questions about this episode

Who speaks in "Episode 336"?

George Jared (Host), Jen Bukultz (Guest), Dr. Larry Gould (Guest), William Miller (Guest), Catherine Townsend (Guest).

What is "Episode 336" about?

The content explores the intense emotional journey of reporter George Jared as he grapples with a missing person's case that becomes pivotal in his nascent career. It highlights the psychological impact of such cases on journalists, emphasizing how certain stories can haunt them and become obsessional in nature.

What is mentioned in this Sword and Scale episode?

16 people, works and ideas are mentioned, including Rebecca Gould, William Miller, George Jared, Casey McCulla, Arkansas State Police, Jen Bukultz. Each one on this page links to its own page with every episode that mentions it.

How long is "Episode 336"?

The episode runs 1 h 24 min; the transcript is about 13,732 words in 184 timestamped sections.

More from Sword and Scale

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 29, 2026.