The Cabin in the Woods

I mean a lot of these people. Their children may be getting to that age, their kids might be sixteen or even older, and so that's got to be hard if you saw something like that at a party and you never told anyone. And it's interesting because I could completely understand being sixteen years old. You're terrified, you're terrified of getting in trouble for drinking and you know whatever. But that's very different from thirty years later. You've got

kids who are older, like you know. It's just interesting. It's the end of winter and icicles are frozen on the gutters of my dad's house in Mountain View. I'm on the top floor in the war room, and in front of me are two boxes. There's a small brown one that looks like an oversized briefcase and a huge plastic blue one. These hopefully hold the clues to what happened to Janie Ward on September ninth, nineteen eighty nine. Everything in these boxes was collected by Janie's dad, Ron.

He died last summer, but I feel like I've been talking to him every single day. Weird how things will hit you emotionally. You're really you know, you're okay for a long time, and then you see something. The autopsy photos I saw were war horrific, something that no family, you know, father should ever have to see. And then you'd see things like all of Ron's correspondence with his attorney,

me and with the state. And Ron had obviously googled how to write a business letter and what to do, how to get a notary, how to get a notarized statement. I mean he really every single thing in there was documented by him, and you could just see how meticulous he was and how hard he worked, and right up until the end, he had his to do list. Like we did with Rebecca's case, In order to figure out what really happened to Jane, we need to focus on victimology.

We have to try to reconstruct what was going on in her life. And the days and the hours leading up to her death, what really happened at that party? And thirty years later, why don't we know the truth about how Janie died. I'm Catherine Townsend and this is Helen Gone. So yeah, I'm keeping him in the order Ron had them in, But then I'm also separable going back to the week leading up to the party on Saturday,

September ninth, nineteen eighty nine. I'm keeping him the same folders that Ron had them in, and he was very methodical, so I don't want to mess that up, and I've put a few aside I think we need to be to deal with first that are contradictory. But anyway, we're using witness statements from the Arkansas State Police case file. The ASP took charge of Jane's case at the request of Sircy County Sheriff Kent Griggs. The sheriff had a history with Ron and he wanted to avoid any suggestion

of impropriety. Arkansas State Police investigator Bill Beach got the call, he drove to Marshall and started his investigation. And there are also contradictory things about out where Janie was. They call her Olivia in a lot of the statements because her name's Olivia Jane, But I mean most of these witness statements spend more time talking about the kegs and who collected money at school during the party and who

was playing the party. By that Wednesday, everyone in the junior class at Marshall High School is buzzing about a party. It's being thrown by one of Janie's cousins, Jamie Ward. Since their names are so similar, will refer to him as Jay from this point on. Jay lived at a cabin in the woods off of unpaved Zach Road. The cabin was owned by Jay's father, Steve Ward. Even though Jay is only sixteen, his parents let him live in the cabin by himself so he could keep going to

Marshall High School. Jane's family lived pretty far away from downtown Marshall. Janie's mom, Mona, told Bill Beach that it was not unusual for Janie to spend the night with friends on the weekend. On most Fridays, Jane rode the school bus home and then a friend would pick her up to go back to downtown Marshall. Ron told Bill Beach that the last time he saw his daughter was the morning of Friday, September eighth, a day before the party. He told Beach that she left home wearing a pin

striped shirt and stonewashed jeans. We know that Janie was excited about the party from an interview her friend Leslie did with Bill Beach. It's been an interview of Leslie, student died in tenth grade approximately four twenty FM. Leslie says Janie spent the night with her on the Friday night before the party. Where was last night time? The last time Leslie saw Janie was at around four thirty pm on Saturday, finish fir on linked she said shirt.

Leslie just said that Jane borrowed a shirt from her. When did you find out which one she bought? Say? After it happened. She tells Beach that she discovered her missing shirt day after Janie died when she went through her drawer to see which one of her shirts was missing. It was her deaf leopard one. So we know where the shirt came from, but we still don't know how she could have been wearing one shirt at the funeral home in Marshall and then a different one at the

crime lab in Little Rock. Leslie also says Janie told her she was going to stash her clothes at the pool hall so that she could pick them up after the party. Was there anything in the time that she's fad with you last year it was saying to be bothering her INtime that she's concerned bat Nothing as far as well she's trying to glory kiss I ran her financial tumble. Yes, she get into the air. While Jane's at Leslie's house fixing her hair, Jay is at his

house getting ready for the party. He's setting up kegs on the front porch. He's also preparing the PGA pine bunch, which stands for pure grain alcohol. He'd taken up money at school and he collected around one hundred and fifty dollars. Follow will be a swarm statement of Jamie Ward. Why am I oil seventeen? Is that right? When was the alcohol purchase for the party? In my hum? I don't know. I ain't got it, Jamie. I'd I say that, Well,

you're under oath, you're not a suspect. Jay is reluctant to share who bought the alcohol for the kids at the party, but Beach has already discovered it was twenty two year old Gary Don, did you go with Gary Shnod's Big Flat? Gary Don is a graduate of Marshall High School, and it's still friendly with the students there. I told you when we started that I talked to a lot of people since I talked to you the

first time. I told you when we started, and I tell you you're again in front of your mother, that we're not your point fingers, and we're not gonna say to somebody specificly college Jane's dead, but that we do have to have the trivia because these are unanswered questions if we can't leave unanswered to close out this investigation. Circe is a dry county, so to get the booze, Jay drives with Gary donn the thirty minutes to the Junction liquor store in Big Flat, which sits right on

the border of Circe and wet Baxter County. Ever Clear, which is what the kids at the party Jane attended were drinking, is one hundred and ninety proof. That's ninety five percent alcohol content, making it one of the purest and most potent alcoholic beverages available, and Jay tells police that along with the punch, he added fruit pieces soaked in rubbing alcohol to make it extra strong. I remember my high school chemistry teacher lecturing about the dangers of

grain alcohol. He took a styrofoam cup. This is what grain alcohol does to your stomach, he would tell us, And when he poured the alcohol into the cup, the styrofoam bottom melted instantly. I can't remember what chemical reaction caused the cup to melt, but I can remember that, far from being deterred by the potential danger, the kids in my class had the opposite reaction. Strong plus cheap

equals a maximum buzz for minimum cost. Shortly after saying goodbye to her friend Leslie, Jane heads to the town square. They're in the Daisy Queen were the main spots where teens would hang around on the weekends. Janie's friend Ron Rose is driving around the town square in his truck. He's with Kim, another friend. Jane asked them for a ride to the party. Should be a swarm statement of Ron Dale Rose, twenty years old. This is Ron Rose,

not to be confused with Janie's died Ron Ward. How did how did Olivia act when he first talked her out there on the square? Did that she's doing a pretty good movie. When she was talking being really happy, do you remember anything in particular if she talked about what you got to the bar? I really I just wondered who all was going to be down there and what was doing on? Okay, so you and Olivia and

Kim went to the party together. Ron says the three of them got to the party around five point thirty or six pm. Soon after that, more people start arriving. Here's Gary Donn, the twenty two year old who bought the alcohol, and we in associated with a few people, and I seen Jane, and there's more. There's more people and went on into the house, went there and there was people doing different things. There's people who listened to

this ORYA. Only there's people in the kitchen, and there's some people out there that had ferried out there as messing with the There's more people out in the backyard. And I'm or less walked on through one housesosiated with a few more than people. Multiple witnesses see Janey at the party. Some people say they saw Jane drinking the PGA punch, chewing on a few pieces of fruit, the one soaked and rubbing alcohol. But no one at the party is paying close attention to what Janie is doing.

A lot of partygoers said they talked with Jane, but they don't remember what they talked about. People say she was sitting on Ron Roses truck's tailgate, or on a couch on the front porch, she was leaning against a post, or sitting on the rail of the porch. No one knows for sure. According to the National Weather Service, sunset on September ninth, nineteen eighty nine was at seven twenty seven pm, and that's around the time that all hell breaks loose. Depending on who you ask, two things happen

simultaneously or one after the other. Janie falls and someone shout that the party is about to get busted by the cops. Even though it didn't have electricity, the cabin had a phone. It's called a party line, and it was a common sight in rural Arkansas during the eighties. A party line is a phone line where you're able to pick up the phone and listen in on conversations happening nearby. If you want to use the phone to call out, you usually have to wait for another person

to hang up and someone at the party. No one is sure who heard a neighbor calling the cop on duty, Joey Pruett, and telling him a bunch of kids were having a party with alcohol. The neighbor also complained that the party goers ran her off the road as they zoomed up to the cabin. Of all the people at the party, only three say they actually saw Janie fall. Garyed on a cheerleader named Sarah and Billy, the high

school quarterback. Sarah said that she was on the porch when Janey sort of twisted sideway then just fell on back. In Billy's statement, he says, she just came straight back like a tree. Gary Donn was socializing on the porch, so I looked away, and then I was more or less glass back in this in fly. I mean I called her in flight, is what I'm saying. I mean she was falling when I looked, and I mean just

happened that quick. This, I mean, all that right there we've been talking about happened more or less in just a little wat. I mean she fell. I mean somebody hollered. Joy Prut was coming, That's what I heard. Joey Prutt was the police officer supposedly coming to bust the party. But and then people started scattering running by her. And that's more or less whenever I really started paying attention to her, because I mean, I couldn't get nobody to help me. I didn't know if she was knocked out

or what or really hurt or anything. I knew when I got down there and turned her head over, safety busted her head over. That's the first thing I did. I mean, I try and save our head was much the over good. I thought her, she might knock yourself out. It's me and somebody lift her up on the porch j in the light, because the porch just kind of had her face shaving and stuff. It had her shaved a little bit, and we raised her up in the light where we could really see her, pay attention to her.

And basically from that, this payple is going wild. The thing no one can agree on is how long Janie was laying on the ground. Gary don makes it seem like it was less than a minute, but Billy said it was more like fifteen to twenty minutes before anyone moved her. So this is the Billy Harris statement. Yeah, this is brutal. Kim Weddie went over to Janie and said she had passed out. I never saw anybody else go over to her. I went back in the house

and talked with Jason, Matthew Brian. She probably laid there fifteen to twenty minutes before anybody moved her. Me, Jamie, Gail, and Gary Donn moved her to the back of Ron's truck. I don't think she was ever moved onto the porch. Jamie and Gil said she needed to go to a doctor. I noticed that's when I came back outside, that she had a bowel movement. I could see that her pants were wet and she was having a hard time breathing.

Rose and Kim were in the cab of his truck, and Rose said there was no room for Janie except in the back. I offered to ride with her in the back, but Rose said no, he didn't want any trouble with the wall. I offered to get a blanket, and he said no, she'd be all right. I believe she moved her arm across her chest and we'd put her in the truck. She never said anything else that I heard. Janie was on the ground fifteen to twenty minutes before someone said the police was coming. Everyone just

thought she was drunk and and passed out. Once everyone found out the cops were coming, people started panicking. Gary Dahn said, everyone was running around like maniacs. They see Janie soil herself. At this point, they know she's in serious trouble, maybe dying. The decision was made to put Janie into the back of Ron Rose's truck. Ron, Kim, and Sherry, another friend, got in the front. They started the three mile drive on rural roads to marshall'stown Square.

At first, no one is sitting in the back of the truck with Jane during the rocky ride back to town, until Kim opens the window of the truck cab and climbs into the back to check on Jane. As Ron zoomed down Highway sixty five, he passed another friend, Carla Brightwell. She flashed her lights at his truck and when he didn't slow down, she thought something must be wrong, so she followed him. They ended up at the bank parking lot.

At this point, Carla said, Ron and the girls were arguing about whether Jane was just passed out and whether or not they should take her home. I heard somebody say she's called, you know, and Dennie Wynn got a jacket at somebody's car and put over Jane and someone said she hadn't I already seen her move, that she fell off the porch, and I kind of thought, right then, though she fell off, of course she hadn't moved, you know,

like all these end runs in my head. So Pam and I went over to her, and we were trying to feel her pulse, you know, because you know from when I said of like, you know, fell off of what I thought, maybe she's look for her, that's what you bag what I thought. Carla took control. She told Beach that she felt for a pulse and thought she might have found one, but she since decided that what she felt was her own pulse. She picked up Janie's arm.

It felt cold. I knew enough to know to go get somebody that might know what to do, but they don't train. You didn't know what to do to pull up in a bag of the truck and there's a girl lay in there and you don't have a certainty. I didn't. I didn't know what to do, true, and I need to get help somebody that didn't know what they were doing. So Carla had run across the street the ambulance service to alert them of Jane's condition. J D. Beeson was the ambulance driver and manager of the ambulance

service at the time. He and his wife, Kathy, a licensed LPN, arrived on the scene and would later testify that Jane was lying on her right side. In a statement, Cathy said, we checked and rechecked for needle marks at the request of the sheriff. Coarse sand, dry leaves, and small twigs were found at the blouse neck and the LEVI waste. Coarse sand was found on the abdomen under the bra Cathy said this immediately led her to conclude this was a suspicious death, not an accidental death. Another

employee of the ambulance service stepped in. He stated that he noticed something else, a strong odor of alcohol on Jane. That's odd because it doesn't match witness statements at the party who said that she wasn't drinking heavily. One of the paramedics who examined Janie remembers seeing a black back def leopard T shirt over a white pinstriped shirt. She remembers having to unbutton and roll up the shirt in

order to get to Janie's body. Meanwhile, many of the kids who had left the party congregated at the Daisy Queen. All of them were talking about what happened to Jane. A lot of them came to the Bank parking lot, where a huge crowd gathered around Jane's lifeless body. By this point, half the town is there. It even makes the evening news, but her parents Ron and Mona still have no idea what has happened to their daughter. Jane is pronounced dead at eight forty five pm. We'll be

right back on the night Jane he died. Bill Beach interviews four of the people at the party, Gary Dawn, Kim Jay, and Ron Rose. He then asked the sheriff to send everyone home. Over the next few days, the sheriff collects statements from the kids at school. Beach then interviews thirty people. Over the next few months, he reinterviews some of the key witnesses. As I read through his interviews,

several things start to bug me. A lot of the statements collected from people at the party are incredibly short and don't provide much detail, and they spend half the time talking about who provided the booze for the party. And over the months people's answers change. The cheerleader Sarah changes her answers of who she was at the party with, and also adds a story about Janie, calling her a snob.

Gary Don initially said he saw Janie fall, but later in a reenactment video done by the Arkansas State Police, he demonstrated how Janey was likely to have fallen. It's strange. A couple of other partygoers also said they heard a thud when Jane fell, and then a statement from a

police dispatcher named Harold Young throws everything off. Ron, Rose, Kim, and Sherry all said they drove from the cabin to the parking lot without stopping, but the dispatcher at the police station that night said Ron came by the sheriff's department at six thirty pm to tell him there was an injured girl in the back of his truck. The dispatcher's statement was notarized, and he confirmed what he said

years later during another investigation into Janie's death. So, depending on how you read the witness statements and who you believe, the time between Janie falling and being in the Bank parking lot could either have been half an hour or more than ninety minutes. The order of events and how much time passed between them becomes one of the most hot button issues throughout the last thirty years of investigations.

We thought having all of these statements available to us would be an advantage in figuring out this case, but it's leading me to even more questions what could have happened in those ninety missing minutes. This is one of the recurring questions that the journalists Mike Masterson asks in his columns about Jane. After Jane died, the Ward family heard plenty of troubling stories about what could have happened

during that missing time. Well, and that's why Jamie and the Brose boy after they've directed to go to the macparking lots so Janey could be discovered there. That's why they were sitting there debating on whether to take Jennie's body to us so Ronnie could take it from there instead of them going along with their cover up. So

they didn't know what to do. Well, they also took her to the Mac parking lot because there is a car wash there and that's where they redwashed her body and marsh they were directed to take hersh her off and wait at the bank parking lot until they could come and discover her. Did they ever explained why she was wet and where her hair was wet and where there was sand in her clothes? I mean no, no, no,

that was never addressed. Yeah, I just rumors and witnesses claiming that they washed her now with the water hose at the car lot or the car wash in the bank parking lot. And when you say witnesses, was it people in the official report? Who so it was? This is like people talking beyond these missing minutes. What confuses me the most is the statements from the ambulance service attendants JD and Kathy. First of all, it took Bill Beach more than three months to interview them, and that

was after they requested he talk to them. They were so concerned they even compiled their own statements to deliver to him. Talked to hit This is an interview you that Ron Ward did with j D and Kathy. As Beach does his investigation, Ron has started his own would you like my opinion? And this is just speculation? Okay? I thank somebody throwing the damn river and picked her up. Work took to a carb wars and holder or something, But the investigators haven't him talked to Cat and I yet,

and I asked him. I asked Carold Young the other night, those investigators question Cat and I. We were the first ones on the scene. Jad and Kathy confirmed some of the things Ron saw when he saw Janie's body at the Morgan Marshall, like the sand and twigs. They said they hadn't noticed bruising, but in their notarized statement to Bill Beach, they did remark on swelling on Janie's neck

and shoulder. They also said she was wet except for her genital area, which doesn't make any sense because multiple witnesses at the party specifically said Janie wet herself. The paramedics also noted that Jane had a foamy substance coming out of her I bet there was one hundred kids over there, and the first thing I did had John Childers. I don't know if you know him or not. I hadn't chase everybody away from the truck. You know, they're twenty five feet back. That's the first thing to do.

While she was checking them. You I feel funny talking about this, and funny Ron, I'm sorry. Quick, So then Kathy check her he had no radio pulse, she had no karate pulse. Her eyes were dialing really large. I think we told you about that. And she had no visible bruises whatsoever on her body from the way stuff the other thing we found on herbs and twigs and leaves and sandy gravel, you know, like we told you.

Stuff down here and the back of the riches here and there was poor fans all and she was wet as is, like somebody dropped in a river or something and picked it back up. As we saw in Rebecca's case, memory can be unreliable, and like Rebecca's, Janie's case quickly began to become a question of who remembered what people forget, and the more time that has passed since an incident, the more likely it is for people to incorporate rumor into what they remember. This is a phone call between

Ron Ward and Bill Beach. It was included in the original police case file. Cool Roy, Bill Beach. So you're doing just fine there you okay, my lieutenant, Come and tell me that you had some more names. Oh, yes, I do, okay. Ron is providing names for Beach to follow up on. This phone call is fifteen minutes long. Well, what I'm saying, though, Ronn, is do you have all this documentary? Is it? Would it be offered for me

to get copies though, so I can compare them. I can go through and check the names and compare it to what they have told me, you know, And I'd say, if there's people that I haven't talked to, that haven't been interviewed, and I can go back and I can do that, or if it's people that have been interviewed that have given contrary and information that I can reinterview from what we can tell this call that was included in the official police file was very soft. And have

you got tape conversations with manage people? What I don't. I don't expect you'd given the original takes, But it would it be possible for some one time to desicateto and let me get copies of the duskis ron also recorded some calls with Arkansas State Police officers where he starts venting his frustration about what he feels to be Beach's lack of progress on the case. Ron how are you okay? I've been up here all day and I talked to Philip Christy and I told him must coming

and I've been working on some mothers things. He said you had take for him. You know what he's talking about. Did he beend the merchant who he's worked with me? I don't know. I don't know, you know, but then feel come over information money now, okaymation you bet, And that's that's the only way I will do Okay. I mean, he's the investigator. He's wanted to see, he is, He's going first to investigate it, and I'm the father. Ron

is suggesting a trade with the police. He will hand his interviews over to them if they will give him more access to the information that they've collected. Tensions continue to grow when Ron hears about Beach's interview with Gary Donn. In it, Gary Donn complains about Ron. Ronnie calls my mother all that is not called at one o'clock and more than ask her where I was and if I was all right? He calls me that already at a

million becomes old with not has. He says that Ron is calling his mother at one in the morning, is calling him and has come by his house. Beach even says that Gary don can file charges against Ron. Ron gets wind of this interview, and has also heard that Beach has been asking about him and other witness interviews. Ron calls the Arkansas State Police, I understand it. You're see ID agent Bill Beats is running around town here and get an information and trying to say that I'm

the one to beat my daughter up. That's the information I have a chieve today. I do not appreciate that one bit. What's this got to do with my daughter dying? And they said I'm beating her up? You know, I can't understand this. I really can't. Over all things I can understand. You know, this is affecting my family life. It's affect of my mind. It works on the people in the whole county, the whole state. Everybody's undertune, everybody. I'm wondering just what the hell this happened this time?

You know, mister Beechers, like I go before, said almost the lucrous person. I'm not at all real luckily be to handle this at all. It's been one hundred and eighteen days to day, it's been one hundred and eighteen days, he says, and no answers. You'll be right back. After looking at Janie's case file, I'm left with plenty of questions.

Why didn't they put Janie in the front of the truck, and if she was in the back, why did no one ride with her the entire way and hold her hand If she had an in was it made worse by riding in the back of that truck? Also? Why was she left lying on the ground for so long? One sixteen year old kid was insistent and said that he needed to speak to investigators the night Janie died.

He said that Jannie was lying on the ground at the party for much longer than a few minutes without anyone getting help for her, and that they were focused on cleaning up the beer. I get that they were scared, but why didn't anyone help her? And why did some people hear a thud when she fell? Also why was she so wet? One statement said that someone threw beer on her to try to revive her. That could account for the strong odor of alcohol that paramedics said they

saw on her. But one witness who was in the bank parking lot said they were called water gushing from the back of ron Rose's truck. What was the root of the truck from the party to the bank parking lot In his statement, ron Rose said they decided to take Jane there because they thought it would be faster than calling for help, and the bank parking lot was close to the ambulance service. But why didn't they just

go directly to the ambulance service? And if we take the police dispatcher at his word, could they have taken an alternative route? Did they make additional stops? Obviously there's a lot we still need to figure out. But what we do know is that in the months after Janie's death, an environment of hostility is brewing in Marshall. The Wards and a growing number of residents are starting to believe that no one in the police department is telling the truth.

Fingers are getting pointed, and any remaining trust between citizens and authorities is deteriorating. On December seventeenth, nineteen eighty nine, a little over three months after Jane died, the Arkansas Gazette runs a story with the headline teenagers death remains a mystery. Parents call investigation a cover up. Rumors are flying, So we need to take a step back and turn to the one piece of evidence that Mike give us

some more reliable answers. We need to go back to the case file and take a hard look at Jane's autopsy and find out what happened at the Arkansas Crime Lab. I'm Katherine Townsend and this is Helen Gone. Helen Gone is a joint production between School of Humans and iHeartRadio. It is written and recorded by me. Catherine Townsend. Taylor Church and Gabby Watts are our producers and story editors.

Executive producers are Brandon Barr, Brian Lavin, and Elsie Crowley for School of Humans and Connell Byrne and Chuck Bryant for iHeart Our. Field producer is Miranda Hawkins. Theme and original score are by Ben Sale, available wherever you get your music. Please visit us at helengone podcast dot com or follow us on social media. School of Humans