School of Humans.
We've been trying to figure out what happened to Taylor Barksdale in the last few weeks of her life that led her to Kingston, Arkansas at twelve thirty four.
On August fifth, twenty twenty.
Four, a nine to one to one caller reported that she could hear a woman screaming on a rural property in Kingston. The nine to one one caller said the woman sounded like she was being raped or tortured. Just over a month later, on September ninth, Taylor's remains were found in a field near where the nine to one one call was made. We have made some headway in finding out what was going on in Taylor Barksdale's life
during the last few weeks. We know that she had been staying on and off with her ex boyfriend Kenny, but something happened in Taylor's life on or around July twentieth. Apparently, Taylor and Kenny got into an argument. After that, Kenny's neighbors say that they didn't see her come back to Kenny's residence after July twentieth. Taylor was staying on and off with different friends, and two of those friends who she was hanging out with were men mutual friends of
hers and Kenney's. One of the men lived in a camper on a piece of land near where the nine to one one call originated from. So who are these two men, how do they know Taylor? And what happened to Taylor that led to her death and her remains being found in a field. I'm Catherine Townsend. Over the past five years of making my true crime podcast, Helen Gone, I've learned that there is no such thing as a
small town where murder never happens. I have received hundreds of messages from people all around the country asking for help with an unsolved murder that's affected them, their families, and their communities.
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, or you can send us a message on Instagram at Helen Gonpod. This is Helen
Gone Murder Line. Before we talk about Taylor, I want to say a word about closure, because I've been getting some texts and messages from people asking me if these stories are over after three or four episodes, they're asking for how things end, and I get it. Unsolved cases, by their nature don't have closure yet. I would just ask everyone out there please to have patience, because if it's frustrating to listeners, imagine what it must be like
for families to not have these answers. I wish that I could bring every four episode arc to a conclusion where the right person was prosecuted. I wish that real life worked like an episode of Law and Order. Unfortunately it doesn't. With these ongoing investigations, we're on the ground trying to help families and the community find answers. As of now, there is no satisfying ending, but we are trying to get there, and for that we need your help.
So I'm gonna say something again that I find myself saying a lot.
In this podcast.
Let's go back to the timeline, because this week we found some inconsistencies. One of the most frustrating things about Taylor's case is that it seems like we can't even get the most basic facts confirmed by police. For example, when was the nine to one one call made? Were there other nine to one one calls that night, or a second call to a non emergency number made after
the deputy failed to respond. The Madison County Sheriff's office says no, but we're trying to get dispatch reports and see if we can verify some of this information.
We do know the original nine to one one call.
Was made at to twelve thirty four am on Monday, August fifth, twenty twenty four. We also talked to two witnesses, two women, who say they believe that they saw Taylor shortly before she was killed. One of the witness's names is Patricia. She says she didn't realize until afterwards that when Taylor left her home that she could have been one of the last people to see her alive. Patricia's said she was hanging out at home with a friend of hers. We've talked to this friend as well separately.
She asked us not to use her name. It's bleep throughout this episode. At first, Patricia believed that Taylor and two men came over on Sunday.
August fourth.
Later, after checking with her friend and confirming the text messages they sent and the time stamps, she said she realized that she had been wrong about the date and that actually Taylor and the two men came over on the.
Night of August fifth.
For now, we're going to refer to these guys by their first initials, but since they have the same first initial B, we're going to call them B one and B two. The first guy, B one, lives in a camper near the area where Taylor's remains were found. Both of these guys, B one and B two were Taylor's friends. As we said before, they also knew her ex boyfriend Kenny. It's a small town, so pretty much everyone knew everyone.
As we said last week, Taylor had been hanging out in Kingston, in the area and near where the nine one one call was made in the weeks after July twentieth. Patricia knew Taylor, but Patricia said that prior to Taylor and these two guys showing up at her house, she hadn't seen Taylor in around three years. That night, at around ten pm, Taylor, B one, and B two showed up together. Patricia said they were looking to buy drugs. Her friend was already there hanging out with her.
Well, me and you've been speaking with also, Well, she and I were sitting here at my house and it was about ten o'clock or so at night, and they come pulling up, and it was and Taylor. They were you know, they were driving them around, is what I what I understood about it, because owned the vehicle, okay, right, And they came in and they were looking They were looking for illegal drugs, is what they was looking for. And there wasn't any here, and I told them that
we don't have it. There's nothing here, and so they him hauled around a little bit. And then Taylor were sitting on my couch, or actually was standing there with her, and she sat on the couch. And they was only here for about ten or fifteen minutes, and they all three left together. Nobody went outside, I mean other than them. They left together, all three of them.
So that means that they would have been leaving shortly after ten pm. Patricia lives about seven miles from where Taylor's remains were found. That would have been about a fifteen minute drive.
They were at my house at ten o'clock. I mean, I know it was because Taylor was saying something about they needed to go because they had to go in the morning. They were going to go and see her kids, and she was wanting to go when she was ready to go, so they wouldn't have been left. And that's the reason why I know it was around ten o'clock, because she specifically said something about being ten o'clock and they needed to get around.
Taylor said that it was getting late and that they needed to leave. She mentioned that she was going to see her children the next day. From looking at court records, it seems like Taylor was in a pretty contentious relationship with the father of one of her children.
We found one of.
Taylor's Facebook pages, and in the months before her death, she was making posts that seemed to express the fact that she was missing her children. In March, she posted quote I withdraw from people.
And places from time to time.
I need space from a world that is filled with millions of mouse that talk too much but never have anything to say.
End quote.
Then on March fourth, she posted quote people have no idea of the family I've lost.
The regret of my selfishness is unreal.
End quote.
On July sixteenth, she posted a couple memes, one red quote the next time I feel butterflies, I'm chugging down a bottle of tequila so they drown.
End quote.
The other red quote, realizing that I'm too nice for a toxic man, but too toxic for a nice man end quote. These memes are darkly humorous on a normal day, but knowing what happened to Taylor, in my opinion, they're just dark. On July seventeenth, her messages seemed to be getting more positive. She posted, I'm feeling like me again. God is amazing. Then comes July twentieth. Now, remember this
is when she was first listed as officially missing. But we still don't quite understand the sequence of events there. We don't really know who reported her missing. There was apparently a nine to one one call that mentioned her name around this time, but honestly, I'm not sure if the conflict on July twentieth was with the father of her son, her ex boyfriend Kenny, or both. Either way, she posted eight times on July twentieth the same message.
She posted quote last night and today he had been disappointing, sad, heartbreaking, and not unnecessary end quote.
Then she said that.
Her son needed his mud and that no one cared, no one would let them be together. She continued to post on social media for days after police initially said she was missing. Her last post was on July twenty ninth. There's a picture of Robert Downey Junior and the meme I have smiled at people who said the most terrible things about me and they think I don't know. After that,
the social media post stopped. Then she was hanging out with these two guys B one and B two and some other friends, and at some point she ended up staying in Kingston, near the area where her remains were found. Patricia said that when Taylor showed up at her house, she was acting normally. She said Taylor did seem to be under the influence of something, but not in a way that was alarming. She said that Taylor and the two guys were not arguing, no one appeared to be upset.
There was nothing to suggest that this was going to be anything out of the ordinary other than some friends hanging out. After they left, Patricia said she did not see Taylor again. Patricia and her friend spent the night there at her house. Patricia said that the next morning, after her girlfriend left, B two came back to her house and that he showed up alone.
And then the next morning after left came back. He was the only one that came back, and that's pretty much all that happened.
Patricia has known B one for about three years. She says that he has been dealing with a lot of personal issues, issues that she said caused him to appear more angry and withdrawn when she sees him. Patricia said, when B two came back to her place the next morning, he was acting completely normal. So what happened to Taylor?
And when.
What gets me is coming back the next morning as if nothing ever happened? Right, And he waited until left before he come back, and he came in the same way went out. Well. A couple of days later, I asked if she had seen him, and she told me she hadn't seen it. And so I think he was I have a there's a pole barn out here behind my house, and I think what he was doing is he's waited for her to leave and then came back.
He wanted to use me for an alibi. Yeah, Well when he came back way, I mean, he didn't say anything. He just come back. First of all, he come back because he had said the night before all he said, uh that he would come back and he'd bring and bring some stuff back. And I was like, whatever you know, and then so he come back and he got to come back here he come in. I know known him for many years that he has been I do know. I know him, and I've never felt right about him.
I've always had this leary feeling toward him. And and I have a good sixteenth like that five daughter, I wouldn't be alive today. But he's stacked like nothing had ever happened.
There were two campers on the property, the one where be One lived and another one that was the residence of a guy whose first initial is Jay. They were near each other in what Patricia described as yelling distance. A few days later, Patricia said that Jay came by her house.
The guy that owns the trailer house, the camp or trailer, the other camper trailer that was on his property, he came by. He came by my house and he said, he's like, where's Taylor? What's happened to Taylor? And I stuck, what do you mean? What's happened to Taylor?
Patricia said.
Jay told her he had gone out of town for the night and that when he got back he saw that b One had moved some of Taylor's stuff.
And he told me then that well, when he come back, he had left out and he was gone all night Sunday night, and he come back Monday morning, and he owned it. He had moved all of Taylor's stuff over to his camper in front of his camper, and so then he come here asking me that, and I was like, I don't have any idea.
As we said in the first episode, Taylor's and uncle told us that one of the campers, which we now know is Jays, was moved a few days after Taylor's screams were heard, and the deputy failed to respond.
It was about a week or so before that he had come over wanting to know, hinting around, wanting to know if he could move this camper over here on my property. And then he came by two days after Taylor had been here and asking me about Taylor. But I never would let him bring his camper over here.
But Taylor had been moving from place to place and staying with different people. And again, this was the first time that Patricia had seen Taylor in years, so she said she wasn't immediately alarmed, but then about a month later, Kenny, Taylor's ex boyfriend, showed up at her house. That's when she said she knew something was very wrong.
And then on September the fourth or the fifth, Kenny, which is her ex boyfriend, he came to my house. He came to my house asking me what happened to Taylor. And that was a month later. And at that time, that's when I realized it's something. Something's wrong, something went on, uh something and uh And I got with I told you, something's not right. I said, they were at our house that night. Anyhow, I put two and two together.
Patricia's nervous about meeting new people in general, and then she figured out people she considered friends who she had let into her home could have been some of the last people to see someone who was brutally murdered.
It's scary, Yeah, yeah, yeah, And it's scary too, that the damn thing about it.
Yeah, I mean, I know we've been fine.
I mean, I mean, that's the thing.
Well, let me ask you this, what made you think that he was going to use you as an alibi?
Because he came by the next morning or.
After, Kenny came over here and started asking questions and I went and went and talked to my my ex husband. They've been friends for years, and so I go and I'll talk to him and see what he has to And he come up to me, and first thing he asked me, he says, you've been getting any visits from the law lately. And I said, yes, I have, as a matter of fact. And he said, you can thank for that. And it's like, what are you talking about?
And he told me, he said, well, that was using me for an alibi, saying that he was at my house all night. Right, I mean I didn't tell me that, No, I haven't. I haven't spoke to right, he told the cops that he was at my house.
Now, we don't know if this is true, but if somehow the police got the idea that either of the men who were with Taylor stayed the night at Patricia's property, Patricia wants people to know that that's not what happened. I asked her if the police had ever interviewed her.
Yes, the sheriff came out here. And this is something else that's been weighing on my mind. Why did he come out here to my house by himself when everybody else he talked to he had a backup, nobody else. It was just the sheriff, and he didn't record anything. He did write some stuff down, but he didn't record anything. And the main thing that he was focused on was whether I went outside with them while they were here or win anywhere with them when they come out here.
That was that was what he was focused on, because he hit me. He can't asked me, I cure three different times if I had went anywhere with them.
Patricia said the sheriff seemed to be very focused on whether she went anywhere with B one, B two and Taylor.
But what my ex husband told me was that he told the law that he had went and dropped Taylor and off and came straight back here.
She said something about claiming that he got some drugs at Patricia's that night.
She says he didn't.
But honestly, I told Patricia that whatever was going on or was not going on with drugs that night is completely irrelevant. I told her I did not care who was doing drugs. I'm just focused on what happened to Taylor and who killed her.
Well, I'm I can't say for a fact because I wasn't there, But the dates and the times and everything they're just I can't help but feel in my heart and both had a hand in it.
Now, I should say again, we don't know for sure that Taylor was at Patricia's house that night. If she was, we don't know what happened after B one, B two and Taylor left Patricia's house. They may have gone somewhere else. There may have been other people out near the camper. We know multiple people had been staying out there at different times. They could have picked someone else up on the way home. We just don't know. But what worries Patricia is that Taylor's killers are still out there.
The screams and yells for help. I mean, why would why would they not go a nine to one call like that? I just don't know what. I don't know what to think about it, excepted I'm in fear for myself and because we're the little last ones that's seen her line where we can place, we can place and with her that night. Yeah, both did, both of us, can't.
She also says she's worried about her safety and.
Get through the woods like it ain't nothing in the dark. He doesn't have to have a flashlight or anything. That band can go through the woods. And I have woods around me I've got wooded area around me, and my dog's been't act it up. She'll just be barking a certain place down down the property line or in behind my house. There's a pole barm back there, and she'll bark back that direction, and and it just it just worries me.
Oh no, I.
Want justice for Taylor, and I want justice for all the other girls that suffered from me. Sorry solb in this town. Yeah, me too, me too. In the way that acted just so nonchalantly and it's like normal like he I've always known him to act. After something like that, it scares me to no end. I mean, how can somebody be so calm and cool about something like that.
Patricia said she's on probation. She said she talked to her probation officer about her fears about her concerns that she had seen Taylor with two men and that shortly after that, Taylor was dead.
I talked to her about it, and she made me go to the Sheriff's department, and the officers that I talked to, he just kind of downplayed me like I was paranoid or something, and that really irritated me. Yeah, I'm not just paranoid. I don't get paranoid. You also had a friend there who who's backs up your story, So yes, two people, It's not just one person exactly.
It's important to say that while the two women's timelines and stories match, social media evidence does show that they were together on the night of August fifth, there's no proof that Taylor was there with them that night. And because so much time passed between the night of the nine one one call and the time when Taylor's body was found, it's possible, as it would be with anyone,
that they're wrong about her being there that night. This is why it's up to the police to go and get the information from everyone, to sort through it and to build their own timeline to figure out which parts are rumor and what they can verify. We have two women who both believe they saw Taylor on August fifth with two men.
Other people had.
Seen her hanging around in previous weeks with one of these two men, the same one who lived near the area where her remains were found. This is a lead that it seems like police would want to follow. So
why aren't police taking these women seriously? When I was in Madison County, I also spoke to Patricia's friend, the one who was hanging out that night at Patricia's house and didn't want her name used on the podcast, And I spoke to her completely separately from Patricia on a different day, and they both had pretty much the same story. It's hard to understand in some parts because the day that I met Patricia's friend was very hot. We talked in the car, and the air conditioning, which was not
optional that day, was blasting. She said she believed the police timeline could be wrong. She insisted that the night she drove to Patricia's house and stayed over, and the night she claimed Taylor was there with B one and B two was the night of Monday, August fifth into Tuesday August sixth. She shares her Facebook messenger timeline with me, which tracked all of her movements.
She said that she was supposed.
To go to Patricia's house on August fourth, but was having car trouble, so she was at another friend's place taking care of some errands and getting her car fixed. All this time, she was exchanging messages with Patricia talking about coming over. Her social media data shows her arriving at Patricia's address shortly after nine pm on August fifth, and staying overnight.
And everybody some time. They were on their usual crazy films. They were there for about an hour maybe, and we're looking to score and there were stuff from milicover. Well, they left action about an hour one and I didn't see them again.
There are a few minor variations here, but it's pretty much exactly the same story that Taylor B one and B two came over together. She said they stayed about an hour. Patricia said it was closer to just fifteen or twenty minutes, but both women clearly said it was between ten and eleven pm. They only stayed a short time,
and they left and did not come back. So this is confusing because we verified that the nine to one one call was made on twelve thirty four on August fifth, So it is possible that these two women had their dates wrong. But if the police timeline is right, is it possible that these two women are right that Taylor was alive the next day, hours after the nine to one one call was placed, or could that nine to one one call have been something else? Could Taylor have
witnessed something else out there? Both Patricia and her friends said, Taylor appeared to be behaving normally. She wasn't beaten up at last, least not visibly, and didn't appear to.
Be in distress.
But we all know that when it comes to abuse, not all bruises are visible.
There's something else.
When Jay came over to Patricia's house, she said that he mentioned Taylor's stuff, stuff that b One had allegedly moved. Patricia's friend said the same thing that Jay had told her, that he came home and found that b One had some of Taylor's stuff in his trailer, but that Taylor was gone.
And he told me that he had been there harms.
Fifth.
He told me the last time he saw she was an Emperor Act three as usually as he was fixing when he had loaded up last some stuff, he was taking his arms and he said at last he heard was then arguing about and that he had showed un believe and it was known at that point that he had to hat but and he said that when he last it came back. I think it was a day later her.
Stuff was in.
The stuff was at One's house.
Patricia mentioned something else about her conversation with Kenny, Taylor's ex boyfriend, she said he told her that a woman in a white car had stopped by his mother's house to drop off some of Taylor's stuff. This could be totally unconnected with anything, but we're trying to find out if that's true. If a woman in a white car had Taylor's property at some point, and if she did,
where that stuff came from. Could that stuff have been in the camper where Taylor was hanging out near the area where her remains were found, Because if that's true, someone out there could have Taylor's stuff that could potentially contain evidence, evidence that maybe they're not even aware of. We're still trying to figure out exactly where everyone was
on August fourth and August fifth, twenty twenty four. No one has been arrested or charged or even been named a person of interest in this case, but we are getting much closer to figuring out Taylor Barksdale's last movements. Someone out there knows something, maybe more than one person. And finally, could there have been a police officer in
the area. Remember when we did our freedom of information request and got information back from the Madison County Sheriff's office, we found out the deputy Blake Castle lied about responding to the nine to one one call. In the statement we got from police, they mentioned that they checked Deputy Housel's AVN data that's the GPS data from his squad car, and saw that he had been in town when he
was supposed to have been out answering the call. But there was something else that was very interesting in that statement, because apparently Deputy Housel said the reason he didn't go out there to answer the call was because he had already been out there in the area where Taylor's remains were found thirty minutes to an hour before and didn't hear anything. So what I'm wondering is did anyone check
that GPS data to see if that's true. We filed a Foyer request for this data and we got back some of it, but it only shows a brief window of time after twelve am on August fifth. There's nothing about where the vehicle was earlier in the evening. We're still trying to get more information, including dispatch reports. We're trying to figure out where Deputy Housel was the night of August fourth and the night of August fifth, because if the nine to one one call happened at twelve
thirty four am. And if the deputy claimed he was out there thirty minutes or an hour earlier than that, If that's true, did the deputy hear anything? And what really happened out there in the dark. 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 and Miranda Hawkins. Special thanks to Amy
Tubbs for her research assistance. Noah camer mixed in this episode. Our theme song is by Ben Salek, Executive producers of Virginia Prescott, Brandon Barr, and Else Crowley. Listen to Helen Gone ad free by subscribing to the iHeart True Crime Plus channel on Apple Podcasts. If you are interested in seeing documents and materials from the case, you can follow
the show on Instagram at Helen gonpot. 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 five
School of Humans,