Hell and Gone Murder Line: Christina Pipkin Part 2

girl seemed to have vanished into thin air. They got an answer, but it wasn't the answer they were hoping for. Three days later, on May seventh, nineteen ninety one, Christina Pipkins's body was found floating in cow Lake Ditch. Almost twenty three years later, this case is still unsolved. I'm Catherine Townsend. If you have a case you'd like me and my team to look into, you can reach out to us at our Helen Gone Murder Line at six seven eight seven four four six one four five. This

is Helen Gone Murder Line. By the way. As you can tell, I've been talking to a lot of people this week, so I've lost my voice a little bit. Please excuse me. I'm in Hickory Ridge, for a meeting with Amy Tubbs, who, as I mentioned in the last episode, is married to Robbie Tubbs Junior. She's the daughter in law of Robbie Tubbs Senior, who is a suspect in

Christina's murder. Back in the nineties, Robbie was arrested and he was charged with Christina Pipkins's murder, but as we said in the last episode, he was released after there was a mistake with the DNA testing. The prosecutor, Fletcher Long, admitted that instead of testing hair from a vehicle once owned by Robbie Tubbs, law enforcement tested the wrong hair, and then when they tried to correct that error, they said that there wasn't enough DNA on the hair that

was inside Robbie Tubb's car to test. I still wonder is that hair still around and with today's technology, could it be retested that. It's just one of the many questions we're going to be asking as we investigate this case. Amy said that since she started dating her husband, they've

never really had contact with his father, Robbie Senor. She said she's heard that Robbie Senior has a criminal background and that he's in her words, and not a great guy, but as she pointed out, that's quite a different thing from being a child killer. Amy wanted to know if Robbie Senor was capable of committing this horrific crime. She is clear, if he is the right person, he needs to be charged, and if it's someone else, we need to figure out who they are and where they are.

Either way, charging a suspect and then having those charges fall apart and seeing the person you believe is guilty released. As I've said for a long time, this should not be a stopping point for law enforcement. Either you need to get more evidence on your suspect, or you need to find the right person to charge. Amy and our meeting in Hickory Ridge in the morning. There's really only one place in town, the only coffee shop for miles, Cafe forty nine. How do you get around the not

being an Arkansas resident? Jazz so Amy and I are catching up. We've had some exciting developments. Both of our Foyer requests were granted, so we now have access to the entire Christina Pipkin case file, all two hundred pages of it. That's the good news. The bad news is that there is no audio of the original interviews, and there are no photos. The Arkansas State Police have also not released the autopsy report. It's not part of the

case file. There are also almost no transcripts, so all we have of the police interviews are these short type pages. Presumably they were taken from notes and then transcribed. Since I have a lot of experience with case files, I want to verify every thing ourselves. I want to get in touch with everyone we can who isn't dead and is willing to talk. We've come here to East Arkansas to see if there was anyone around who was there on the day Christina went missing. This could be our

only hope for getting new information. Would I'll take one more. Amy brought Denise, who describes herself as an amateur sleuth who's been working on the case for a long time. Denise has also brought a friend who says she just wants to be in the background. She spends her time as Denise's sidekick, helping her find addresses and get into contact with people. After we get our coffee, we start talking to some other people in the cafe. Was that the little girl? She's found it in a ditch right

out here? Yeah? Yeah, I think I wat. I mean this was this happened before I was born, And now what I heard was that her stepdad had drowned her. And now she said that she heard Christina's stepdad had drowned her. That was one of the rumors We've been hearing a lot, that someone in Christstina's family did this to her and then there was a cover up. Some people have blamed Christina's mom, others her dad. Some people have even mentioned a step dad, even though that would

be impossible since Christina didn't even have a stepfather. But I've heard that story. I've heard that story too. Yeah, I heard that story too, But no, she didn't have a step bead. This is just one of many versions of rumors that have been flying around town since Christina went missing. The woman we talked to brought her mom over, and her mom knew a lot. She said she was in high school at the time and was part of the search party. I just I remember searching the town.

It's heard that she didn't just go on door to door selling something for school. Just we searched for days and days and days and days. She mentioned another rumor that I've heard a lot of that the reason she believed someone in Christina's family did. This was because apparently no water from the ditch where Christina's body was found

was found in her lungs. He had chlorinated, so it had to have come from a bathtub or something there about this led them to believe she had been drowned in a bathtub and then taken out there and dumped. This is one of those rumors we can shut down right now because even though we didn't get the actual autopsy report as part of the case file, we did get some documents that refer to interviews with a medical examiner and to forensic testing that was done on Christina's body.

The results of those tests showed that the water and mud in Christina Pipkins's lungs matched the water from Cow Lake Ditch, the body of water where she was found. We also learned from the case file that Fammi Malick did the autopsy because one of the investigators put a report in the case file. He talked about meeting with doctor Malick to discuss some of his conclusions. I've talked a lot about doctor Malick's controversial history on previous podcasts.

He was the medical examiner in Arkansas who was found to have botched hundreds of autopsies back in the eighties and nineties. In fact, the time period when he did Christina's autopsy was not long before he was forced into retirement. But for the moment, until we're proven otherwise, we're going to take the information that we get about the autopsy at face value. Doctor Malik indicated there was obvious decomposition. We knew she had been in the water for three days.

He also said there were no signs of strangulation. He said he had X rayed Christina's body from the outside and from the inside. He said he could find no stab wounds, no obvious cuts of bruises, and there was water and mud found in Christina's stomach, water that matched the water from the ditch. Doctor Malik also found pickles and carrots and Christina's stomach. We know that Christina ate

pot pie for lunch that day. We also know that Elsie Lyles, her next door neighbor and sometimes a babysitter, gave her a pickle as a snack at around four pm. The report reads, quote Doctor Malik was emphatic he could find no other cause of death other than drowning. End quote.

But it also says when given the supposition that one could smother an individual to the point of unconscious and then throw that person into the river, Doctor Mallet could make no comment regarding this, but said that this was

a possibility. In other words, we can't tell from the limited information we have whether Christina fell into the water on her own or was thrown in there, or whether she was conscious at the time, but we can rule out the rumor that Christina was drowned at home and then taken out to that site where she was dumped by the way. Christina's father, James, and everyone else in

her family cooperated completely with investigators. James Pipkin took and passed a light detector test that's part of the case file, and he was cleared by law enforcement. I cannot imagine the pain of losing a child and then after that having people in town either think that you were involved somehow or that you were hiding something. Plus James had to go through the pain of being asked about his marital problems issues he had had previously with his wife Frieda.

That must have also been a nightmare. But unfortunately, when law enforcement is looking through someone's pattern of life, they have to know the history of the family members. It's all part of solving the puzzle. There have been some other rumors in this town that refuse to die, so we need to check them out so we can figure out what to investigate further and what else to rule out. We went to the place where Christina and her family lived on Doughty Street. Okay, so this was the Bearcat

right where apparently everyone in town went that day. There's the bank. The alle still runs behind the bank, so this whole thing is tiny. Yeah. And there's the tracks right there. Yeah. And then there's the little park school. All that is back there. This house, no, that house, this lot, this lot where there is no more house. There's no house there now, just a vacant, overgrown lot with a home next door. We have a couple of

goals here today. First of all, we want to take a look at the place where Christina's house was on Doty Street and the place where she was last seen, the Bearcat grocery store. It's not there anymore now, it's a tire shop. Denise is talking me through the streets in Christina's neighborhood. So that was her house, and then the house they were saying that the backed up on her yard would have been that one over there. Maybe, well, I think that's something different or is it destroyed now? Maybe?

Ye see how that's what I'm thinking, and those houses might have been the same. But we see from the case file that police talked to Christina's mom Frida and father James. They discussed what they did on the day Christina disappeared in a lot more detail than I've ever seen. On Saturday, May fourth, Frida said it started out as an ordinary Saturday. Frida went to the post office that morning between nine thirty and ten. When she got home,

Christina and her brother Adam were watching cartoons. Frida said she had some coffee with her neighbor Pat Moore. Then Pat left. After a few minutes, Frida started cleaning and doing laundry because Saturday was wash day. At around eleven thirty or twelve, Freda warmed up some pop pies. They ate the pop pies, and they had iced tea to drink.

After lunch, she was hanging clothes out on the line when James came out and showed her a picture of a used car he had been looking out in the local magazine She and James took Christina and Adam and they went to Walmart and went They bought a few things there for the house. Then they went to Cherry Valley, a town about fifteen miles east of Hickory Ridge. They looked at the car, a blue Mustang that was parked

out in the seller's yard. They took a quick look at the car, asked about the price, and left there around one pm. At some point they stopped at Gaskin's grocery store in vandal They bought some pork rines, and apparently Christina had a few of the porkskins on the ride home, but she didn't really eat a lot of them because apparently they were a little bit pink and she didn't love the taste. The family got back home,

Adam and James were hanging out watching TV. Christina played with one of Frida's old makeup compacts that she had found lying around. James was programming the VCR to tape the movie The Hunt for Red October that was airing that night. At some point, Christina asked her parents if she could go door to door to sell her jewelry. She headed out at around four thirty or five PM.

Now I should say that what's in the case file differs from what we've read in the newspapers, because in the newspapers it said she asked her dad, James, if she could go out. He said no at first, then said okay, but you have to be home before dark. But in the case file, James said he believed that Christina had asked her mother if she could go sell jewelry, though he does mention the kids knew not to cross

over to the other side of the railroad tracks. At around seven or seven thirty pm, Frieda realized she still needed a few things from the store. She ran up to the Bearcat Grocery, a couple of blocks from their house. The bear Cat was next to the only bank in town, Cross County Bank. The two businesses shared a parking lot. At the store, Frida bought onions and gravy and potatoes and mushrooms. She said she was only in there for around five minutes and then she went right back home.

She started to make dinner to fry potatoes. At some point it started to get dark, and that's when Christina's parents realized that she hadn't made it home. Frida sent Adam out to look for his sister. Pretty quickly, he came back and said he couldn't find her. That's when Frida said, quote, I had a gut feeling something was not right. This is a mother's concern. I sent Adam out to find Christina. When he came back and said he couldn't find her, I knew something was wrong with

my baby girl. End quote. James and Frieda went around the neighborhood. They went to some apartments near by where Christina had been selling her jewelry in the days before she went missing. They went to the Bearcat store, and then they went back home in case Christina came back. They called the police to report her missing, and the search started. James said in his statement quote after the police came, we started a house to house search. I went to several houses and went back home to see

if anyone had found her. After my brother in law got to the house, we went out searching. I kept hoping she would show up. I did not believe this was happening. I wondered what happened to her? Where could she be? As we drove around looking for her, I was hoping to see her walking. I thought if she could just get away. I might see her on the road. On Sunday we went searching some more. I didn't eat because I couldn't eat, not knowing if my baby girl

had had anything to eat. I was wondering how she was being treated. Was she cold? Was she hungry? I kept hoping that whoever took her would let her go. I kept looking up the street, hoping that I would see her. I kept believing we would find her alive, even if she was hurt. We could get help for that. But when they told me they had found her and she was dead, how do you describe how do you feel when you find out your daughter is dead? Angry, hurt, confused?

I don't know how to describe it. End quote. I don't know how many of you have ever seen the movie rasham On, but it's something I think about a lot when I'm doing an investigation. Now. In that movie, there are three different people, and they're telling the story of an assault and a murder. Each of them witnessed this from their point of view. Everyone saw exactly the same thing, but each person gives you a different piece of the story. Each person has another piece of the puzzle.

It's the same thing with a murder investigation. We have all these people who are present at the Bearcat convenience store and the bank that afternoon. Each of them saw a small slice of Christina's day, and we really need to put all those multiple versions together. Now. Admittedly there's a separate problem, which is that memory itself changed just ever time, even if you have great recall, But we'll get to that later. First, we need to get as many points of view as possible to try and fill

in some of these holes on the timeline. So let's go back to May fourth, nineteen ninety one, Christina is missing. Over the next few days, police started talking to people, and, as happens often in small towns, a few names got

thrown around. We noticed something else in the case file that during this time, quite a few people also mentioned they had seen a blue car with a man driving it, one that was in the bank parking lot and hanging around town in general around the time when Christina went missing. That what we were about to find out was that people had a lot of different descriptions of exactly what that man and that vehicle looked like. We measured the distance from where Christina was last seen to where she

was found. It was around three and a half miles so I think police were right. She was almost certainly driven to that location. So who drove her there? In a town this small, it seems like somebody would have to have seen something. We need to find that car. We need to explore all of those suspects, figure out exactly where everyone was on the day Christina went missing, and also find out where this rumor about a blue car started. One person the police talked to was the

Long family. They live right by Christina's house at two eighty nine Doty Street. Michael Long, who was twenty six at the time, said that he was home that Saturday afternoon at around five pm. He said Christina stopped by the house looking for his little sister, who was ten Christina's age, presumably to go door to door jewelry selling with her. His sister wasn't home, so Christina left. Michael said he next saw Christina walking back south down Third Street.

Then he saw her turn west on Laurel Street toward the Bearcat's door and the bank. Michael told police that about five minutes after Ristina left, he went outside to check a ditch for snakes. Then he said he walked to the bear Cat for some cigarettes. When he came out, he saw Christina walking behind the alley at Cross County Bank. At that point, Michael said she was headed north. This would have been at around five thirty pm. After that,

Michael said he didn't see her again. Another family that lived next to the Pipkins were the Moors, Pat and Connie. They had a blue car registered to them, a nineteen seventy three Ford Maverick. On the day Christina went missing, two friends of Theirs, Ricky Dawson and James the Sheers, who were eighteen and twenty at the time, came by the house at around four thirty. They were there to pick up Ricky's girlfriend, Jenna Algood and her friend April Jones,

who were hanging out at the moorhouse. Ricky, James, and the two young women left for a night out on the town and Win, but before they left, Ricky said he remembered seeing Christina outside on her porch. Next door. Ricky Dawson was driving yet an other blue car, his mom's blue Camaro with rust on the side. He said that he, James, and the two girls went to Win between five thirty and six thirty. He said they didn't

come back until around midnight. By that time, Christina was missing and a bunch of people were already out looking for her. So at that point, obviously things got pretty chaotic. It was Saturday night. People were having barbecues, making plans, going on dates, the sun was going down, and the

night was just starting. But I want to go back to the timeline and mention a couple of other people who told police they noticed things that were slightly out of the ordinary, because obviously any event can have huge significance when someone goes missing. On May seventh, police went to the Hickory Ridge Elementary School and they interviewed several children. They asked about a stranger that the kids had seen around the time when Christina disappeared, but their descriptions were

completely inconsistent. The police report said there were numerous in consistencies in the kid's stories, and so because of that, the officer could not follow through on completing a composite drawing. This doesn't surprise me because by the time those kids were interviewed, it had been several days, and unfortunately, in my opinion, what happened probably was that the kids talked to each other over the weekend, so their stories took

on elements of each other's. This is not uncommon. So seventy two hours have passed, the whole town's talking about a kidnapping, and suddenly the mysterious stranger had gone from a white man with tanned skin to a Native American and quote Indian lookalike with high cheekbones and black hair. Now, because Christina lived in Cross County but her body was found across the county line in Jackson County, law enforcement met and decided that Jackson County would assist, but that

the jurisdiction would stay in Cross County. Jackson County did question some people, mainly guys who were arrested for other things like dwi's, but police really seemed to have pretty much zero leads and not much to go on. There was another family, the Earls. They lived on Fourth Street, close to Christina's house. Kim Earles said that on Saturday night, just after midnight, she saw a young man in a blue car, which she described as a late model Transam

or Camaro. She said it had one of those novelty brake lights that glow neon around the license plate when you put on the brakes. She said she saw that car, which seems like it would be pretty memorable at a McDonald's and win. She said the guy driving it was dark complexion with tan skin, medium bill, dark eyebrows, and

that that person was around six foot two. Other people said there was a guy named James Hannah who had a car like that, but when police showed a picture of James Hannah to the girls, they said they knew James Hannah and this was not him driving the car. They described the driver as dirty looking and said that that person was a stranger to them. Kim said that she had seen that same man, the one driving the blue car with the light up brakes, around on Town

for the past few months. She said that this mystery guy had been parked near the bank on Saturday. Her and her sister Angela said that they believed that this person had followed them to the tanning bed. Sharon and Ricky Holloman had a daughter who was friends with Christina. Sharon was another person who said she saw a blue car that day. She said it was sportsy looking and had primer or rest spots on it, and that it was speeding on the side streets. Of Hickory Ridge on

Saturday afternoon. She described the driver as clean shaven, with short hair and chubby cheeks. She said that she had seen that same car several times a week, going over to what she thought was the Pipkin residence. Sharon and Ricky had a daughter, and their daughter was a friend of Christina's. She actually saw Christina on the afternoon that she disappeared, and she said she saw her with a young boy that had gone to school with Christina. The

little girl said she didn't know the boy's name. She said for some reason, the boy would hide behind trees and Christina seen impatient, and that when this friend tried to talk to Christina, finally, she said, the boy caught up to Christina and started walking with her, and they

went off in the other direction. Christina's friend said the last time she saw Christina, Christina was walking south on the southbound shoulder of Highway forty nine in front of the bear Cat Store, so between the Bearcat Grocery Store and the post office. She said the blue car was following Christina, driving slow, and that Christina was shaking her

head no to the person driving the car. She described it as an older blue colored car with some type of brownish rust colored stains or rust on the lower portions of the car. The friend said that she rode her bike around the bank one more time and that by the time she got back to the road, she could not see Christina or the car. The little girl didn't know what time this was, but her mother said they had only gotten back to their house at around seven pm, so would have had to have been a

little bit after that. If that's true, then this little girl may have been the last person and the case for at least to have seen Christina alive. Christina Pipkins's math teacher also said she saw Christina outside of the bear Cat grocery that afternoon, and she said that Christina was barefoot. This seems to solve another mystery because remember we mentioned that Christina's mother said she was wearing white sandals on the day she went missing, but her sandals

were not found with her body. But it seems like Christina had already ditched her sandals because she was walking around that parking lot barefoot, so it seems less likely that her killer took them or that they slipped off during some kind of struggle. I still wonder though where are the sandals? But in my mind, if she was barefoot, that means it's even less likely she would have made that over three mile walk out to the area where she was found. Another name that was mentioned in the

case file early on was Charles Cotton Junior. Charles Cotton Junior has a criminal record, including charges for lewde acts against a child. Now, Charles Cotton would later tell a journalist in Juno, Alaska, where he was living, that that was all mistake, that what happened was a child had walked in on him and either his wife or girlfriend having sex on a couch. That the whole thing was blown out of proportion. That's what a lot of sex offenders say. And the fact of the matter is Charles

Cotton did have a lengthy criminal record. At the time when Christina went missing. Charles Cotton was married. According to his wife, Rebecca Cotton, who was twenty one years old at the time, the couple was living a little bit out of town. But we've also been told by people close to Christina's family that Charles Cotton was living right next door. We're still trying to figure out his exact

location and movements at the time. We do know that Charles Cotton was introduced to Christina's father, James, by their next door neighbor, Pat Moore, So as far as I can tell, Charles Cotton did spend some time at the Moorhouse. That could potentially be why some people believe that Charles was living next door. These guys all had completely different physical descriptions. Robbie Tubbs was white with tan skin and dark wavy hair that went down toward his shoulders. Charles

Cotton had blue eyes and blonde hair. We mentioned in the last episode that after hair testing and the trial, the charges against Robbie Tubbs were dropped. He walked away a free man. His last known address is in Sulfur Spring, Texas, but he's challenging to find. Charles Cotton is much easier to find. He's in federal prison in Washington State. After Christina's death, Charles Cotton got into some more issues with the law and eventually he found love. In twenty eleven,

Charles reconnected with a woman named Penny. They actually grew up together and they met while they were both students and win high school back in the day. Back then. They dated, but they broke up and they didn't see each other for years. This time, though, once they reconnected that relationship got serious. They got married and Penny moved with Charles to Juneo, Alaska, but their fresh start did not last long. In Juno, Charles Cotton started managing a

hotel called the Bergmann Hotel. It was a historic structure that had become run down over the years. In twenty sixteen, he took that dilapidated building that had become a hangout for people doing drugs and other illegal things and said he was going to turn it around. At one point, he actually made local news as someone who had a criminal record but was now a productive member of society.

Charles told the Juno Empire during that interview, quote I come in and started getting the riff rafh out, started getting the thieves and the drugs out. I run them the hell off, and I'd do it any day of the week end. Quote. So in this article, Charles was described as this recovering addict who was kind of running

his own alternative to narcannon called Choices. So the idea of the program was that Charles would get the addicts to do work on the crumbling building and they would get free room and board, but that good press did not last because the city came in and they found a ton of problems without building. There were toxins in the water, exposed wires, and apparently no heat or hot water. They slapped Charles with a fine, which he didn't pay.

At some point they condemned the building. The city evacuated it, but Charles and his tenants refused to leave. It turned out that he was selling drugs again. At some point he had relapsed and gone from being a program for recovering addicts to a drug den. Charles was hit with a string of charges for distributing methamphetamine, and then on September twenty seventh, twenty seventeen, his wife, Penny Cotton, was

found dead in a hotel room in Morris, Alaska. When Penny Cotton was found dead, she had been shot in the head. Her death was ruled a suicide, but her family back in Arkansas told reporters at the Mid South they did not believe that Penny would take her own life. The medical examiner did not order an autopsy, but Penny's family got some photos and they shared those photos of

Penny's body with local media. These photos apparently showed Penny had been shot in the left side of the head, but Penny's family pointed out she's right handed, so to them that seemed to be impossible. In twenty seventeen, Charles was hit with charges of distributing methamphetamine and was arrested by the FBI. In twenty nineteen, Charles Cotton Junior and his son, Ricky Staplear Lisk were both sentenced for drug charges. Charles got ten years in prison, Ricky got five, and

Charles is in prison today. There was a comment on Penny's obituary. It referred to her as being gangster and to her helping Charles with his business, and it was written by someone who had been in that building with Penny and Charles, so obviously Penny knew a lot about what Charles was getting up to. Could this have motivated someone connected to him to take her life. Charles Cotton Junior may have been involved in other legal activities, but

what about Christina Pipkin. Let's look at Charles Cotton's connection to the Pipkin family. James Pipkin told investigators that he was introduced to Charles Cotton through his neighbor Pat Moore, but that before Christina went missing, he had never seen or spoken to Charles in his life. Charles Cotton said that on the day Christina disappeared, he was fishing with a friend of his from around one thirty to five thirty at an area called Bird Eye near Cherry Valley,

a small town a few miles from Hickory Ridge. Apparently, Charles did stop by the Bearcat grocery store at some point on Saturday. Now, he said he didn't remember doing that, but a friend of his saw him there, and he mentions that in his discussion with investigators. He said that after he was finished fishing, he went home and watched TV with his wife, Rebecca, and the rest of his family. At around ten thirty, he said, a friend of his name, Neil Long, came by and asked if anyone had seen

Christina Pipkin. That's when he said he found out Christina was missing. Charles said at that point he went out and borrowed a friend's three wheeler and started searching for her. By the way. Charles drove a seventy four light blue Dodge Charger at the time, yet another blue car. I have questions about Charles Cotton, mainly because reading through this case file, it seems like he was inserting himself into

the investigation a lot. We know from James Pipkin's statement that Charles was very involved in the search for Christina. He kept looking constantly until she was found. Apparently, Charles even borrowed two hundred and twenty five dollars from James Pipkin. He claimed he had to pay a fine because he hadn't had time to go pay it. He'd been out looking for Christina and missed his chance. So James Pipkin felt sorry for him and gave him the money, which,

of course James Pipkin never got back. Now, this could have been totally innocuous. This was a big story. This is a low girl. But the Pipkin family had only lived in Hickory Ridge for about four months at that point. Charles, Cotton and some other people seem to be getting very close to the family in that time. I wondered about this, and Amy and I made a few more stops. We were looking for old newspapers and we found one from

the week when Christina's body was found. We were shocked when we saw Christina's obituary and there was a detail that had not been online the names of pallbearers, and one of those pallbearers at Christina's funeral was Charles Cotton. This seems very odd to me. Again, could be totally innocent, could be just someone doing a kindness for a neighbor. But why would someone who didn't know James at all suddenly be super involved in the search, then borrow money

from James, and then show up as a pallbearer. Again, though that's all circumstantial, we have to go back to the place and time where Christina was last seen in and around the bear Cac grocery store in the Bank

parking lot. Even though there are a lot of disparate reports. Actually, what we're finding out is that Christina went missing in a pretty small window of time, and we see something else in the case file that could potentially help police talk to the four people who were working inside the

Bearcat grocery store that day. Now, three of the employees had either left or were otherwise occupied when Christina was around, but one person, the cashier, got a very good look at a stranger, someone who came into the store at around the same time as Christina was there, someone who

she said no one in the store recognized. I wanted to find this cashier because in the whole case file, she was the only one who had a definite and good description of a potential suspect, who had been close to the unknown stranger and actually seen a detailed view of their face. I will not say exactly how we did it, and I won't use her name because I know that this person is very nervous, but we found her, and I'm putting this information out there because number one,

this case file is public. These names are part of the public record, and also, most importantly, I believe this information is critical to solving this case. We asked the cashier about what she had seen that day before we showed her her police statement, by the way, which she'd never seen. In her statement, the cashier said she was working at the Bearcat grocery store on Saturday, May fourth,

nineteen ninety one. She said, at about five forty five pm, an individual a stranger, came in and bought some cigarettes. In her statement to police, the officer who interviewed the cashier noted she said that the stranger drove a mid or late seventies model Oldsmobile four door and it looked blue gray in color. In a statement, she said the stranger pulled in heading north. The statement reads quote she saw him on the side walk looking north and south

and making a U turn and went south. Quote. The statement described the stranger as a white male, mid thirties, five foot nine and around one hundred and forty five pounds, hair dark brown, almost reddish in color, clean hair almost shoulder length, not curly, almost straight. She further stated he had a mustache and that his hair was cupped around his face, which was thin. She said he wasn't wearing glasses or a hat. He had on older jeans and bell Crow type tennis shoes with a gray T shirt

underneath an older shirt that was short sleeved. She said no tattoos were visible. In her statement, she said the stranger, who was white but had tan skin, looked like Richard Gear, that he bought cigarettes and left, and that he stared at her. The police report was very brief, but when we talked to the cashier, she gave us a lot of details that were not in the police report. Again, it's important to note that we asked her about her

memories before we showed her her own. Most of the police statement match which she told us, but there were some very important differences. First of all, she said she got a very good look at the stranger's car, and she emphatically said it was brown or tan in color, not blue. Also, when you read the police report, it kind of makes it sound like the stranger was standing on the sidewalk. She clarified what she meant. She said he pulled his car all the way up on the sidewalk.

In fact, he pulled it so far up that he had to get out on the passenger side, and she remembers looking out the window at that car because that was annoying. She described the car as dirty, but definitely brown or tan. And she clarified when she said the stranger looked like Richard Gear, she was really talking about the distinctive nose shape and eyes. She said. The stranger walked into the store and bought Marlboro Reds in the hard pack. Then he asked if she had some matches.

She said, yes, sir, we do, and gave him some of the freebie matches. Then he left, and because he had parked so close to the building up on that sidewalk, he had to get in through the passenger side of the car and shift over to the driver's side. She said he was alone. He drove away and she never saw him again. The next page after the cashier's statement in the case file is a page that explains that

a sketch artist met with her. They developed a composite photo, and that the completed composite would be made part of the case file. But the photo copy of the composite drawing is not there as far as I can tell. I don't know if the police just aren't including it, or if it's not in the case file at all anymore. I asked the cashier about it, and she remembered that image very clearly. She said she might still have a copy and said she would go home to look in

her safe. Then she texted me and said she found it. She had the original composite photo. It had been sitting in her safe for over thirty years. We showed her some pictures of the people who were mentioned by police back in the day, including Charles Cotton, but she says that was not the stranger she waited on. Then Amy shows her an old picture of Robbie Tubbs, her father in law. The cashier blinked looked shocked and said, who

is this? How did you get this? We asked her if she believed that was the man she saw in the bear Cat that day. Later, we texted her a couple more pictures from that era. She texted me back, I got cold chills. I think this is the man who was in the store that day. I know that IDs are not definitive proof of anything. Often people are wrong, and even if Robbie Tubbs was in town that day, that does not mean he had anything to do with

Christina's death. But I do find it interesting that the description of the car was different from the one in the case file, and that the cashier seems so haunted by looking at the image of Robbie Tubbs next two that drawing she has had in her say for the past thirty years. I know positive ideas are not definitive proof, but it means we need to keep digging. I'm Catherine Townsend. This is Helen Gone Murder Line. Helen Gone Murder Line is a production of School of Humans and iHeart Podcasts.

It's written and narrated by me Catherine Townsend and produced by Gabby Watts. Music contributed by Ben so Lee executive producers of Virginia Prescott Brandon Barr, and Helsey Crowley. If you have a case you'd like me and my team to look into, you can reach out to us at our Helen Gone Murder line at six seven eight seven four four six ' one four five. That's six seven eight seven four four six ' one four or five.

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