00:00:04
[theme music] The area is called Beulah
in the Pensacola area. It is very much a rural area.
00:00:50
WAYNE WRIGHT: It's a
little ways to the north from downtown Pensacola. Very nice area of town.
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This is an area of Pensacola
that crime really is-- it's not thought of. It's a quiet little place.
00:01:04
Crime is never dreamed of. And certainly not a
crime of this magnitude. When the Escambia
County Sheriff's Office
00:01:14
received the 911
call, they basically send their units rapidly. The crime scene technicians
monitor the same police radios
00:01:26
as the patrol deputies do. We heard this call go out. We heard that there were
two shooting victims.
00:01:32
I knew that the crime scene
technician's going to be needed. We were told there were
two people killed in a house.
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I was thinking that it's
possibly a murder suicide. I got a call from the
captain of the division
00:01:50
saying, you need to around
your people up and come in. We need help. BOBBY GUY: There's a
long private driveway.
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And then when you go down
the driveway, you see this-- it's a large
plantation-style house
00:02:11
on a private lot with
quite a bit of land, probably 10 or 15 acres. So it's very secluded.
00:02:22
The value of that property
is really incredible. I mean, it was an incredible
piece of property and a house.
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WAYNE WRIGHT: There's
a small fishing pond off to the left, a detached
garage, and a swimming pool.
00:02:36
It is a very, very nice home. When patrol deputies
go into a scene, the preservation of
evidence is actually
00:02:48
secondary to the
preservation of life. JOHN MALCHON: They
enter the house. They see the blood
inside the living room.
00:02:57
The husband and wife
were dead in the house. It appeared to be
close range shots.
00:03:10
Mr. and Mrs. Billings. Byrd and Melanie are
found there in the bedroom. Byrd is face down.
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He's got zip ties on his hands. There's wounds that
are visible in his head area and his leg area.
00:03:32
Melanie Billings is in a
hallway towards the bathroom. She is face up. There are multiple
gunshots in her head,
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multiple gunshots in her chest. And she's clearly deceased. And they find the bodies.
00:03:48
And then they're dealing
with the multiple children that they had. The Billings family
had adopted a lot
00:03:54
of special needs children. And a lot of the children were
still present in the home.
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There's children hiding
and under beds, in closets, everywhere. The scene was absolutely chaos.
00:04:10
They enjoyed helping
children with disabilities. There was maybe 12 or
13 children at the time.
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They had to evacuate all
the children, clear the house, make sure that there's nobody
left that's around or injured.
00:04:27
You're looking for bad guys, in
case the bad guys are hiding. The fact that these
children were in the house--
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I mean, thankfully,
no harm befell them. They were not the
recipients of more violence.
00:04:49
The crime scene folks came. The detectives arrive. There's a huge, you
know, amount of police
00:04:55
presence at that point in time. BOBBY GUY: Half the
force was there. And right away, I know that this
is going to be something major.
00:05:06
I mean, it's obvious. WAYNE WRIGHT: The first
and foremost thought for all law enforcement
on the scene
00:05:11
is getting justice
for the victims. And you can only get
justice for the victims
00:05:17
by being careful, methodical,
and making sure that as little as possible is missed.
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Once patrol deputies
secured the scene, I moved in and started
documenting the scene.
00:05:31
We don't want to
leave anything out because, at that early
stage, we don't know what's going to be important.
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JOHN MALCHON: There
are spent 9 millimeter casings that have ejected
from a semiautomatic pistol.
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So you have a huge clue there. You have a semiautomatic
pistol being used in the crime.
00:05:52
WAYNE WRIGHT: There
were two shell casings in the living room,
both around Mr. and Mrs.
00:05:59
Billings' deceased bodies. 10 casings in the
master bedroom. We also recovered the
projectiles, the projectiles
00:06:10
that had gone through the bodies
and had embedded themselves in the wood through the rug.
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The crime scene folks are
documenting and photographing the points of entry, which shows
that there clearly was busted
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in doors, busted
door frame, which shows the severity of the
intrusion into the house.
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It wasn't a knock on the door. This was a kick down
the door type of thing. But typically, in
these neighborhoods,
00:06:42
you don't get this
kind of crime scene. And when I see multiple
points of entry,
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I know that this is something
that's on a whole new level. Forced entry to multiple
points, multiple assailants.
00:06:56
BOBBY GUY: One of
the kids starts telling us about a red vehicle
that she saw from her window.
00:07:04
We had a bank of secretaries
that had been called in to take the tips that were calling in.
00:07:09
And I'll tell you right
now, I didn't know how many red vans were in this county.
00:07:14
I was assigned to
check them out. That was my job. BOBBY GUY: Maybe it's a robbery
because it was a nice house
00:07:24
with money, somebody
with a vendetta, or maybe even a family member. We knew that something was
missing from that home was.
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There was a small
linen closet very close to Mrs. Billings' feet. And there were some spent shell
casings in that linen closet.
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But also, if you
looked on the carpet, you could see four
small indentation marks
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or something relatively heavy
had been sitting on the carpet. Common sense would tell
us it was probably a safe.
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Probably, I don't know,
size of a microwave oven. You know, small enough that,
you know, it was heavy,
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but one person could carry it. The other investigators were
digging into the backgrounds
00:08:15
for the victims. They learned that
Byrd Billings had been a very successful businessman.
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JOHN MALCHON: It was
their second marriage. And they had children
of their own. Of course, Ashley Markham
was his biological daughter.
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She had children, also,
biological children. He also had a son. But they weren't
there at the house.
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They were older. BOBBY GUY: They lived
very comfortably. Mrs. Billings,
especially, enjoyed
00:08:46
taking care of all the
children and loved having them. JOHN MALCHON: Very challenging
work, I'm sure very rewarding.
00:08:54
They were known in the
community, well known in the community
for their efforts in taking in these children.
00:09:02
Byrd Billings was a very
successful car dealer, car finance, multiple businesses.
00:09:08
Multiple locations where he
sold cars and financed the cars. When you took all the assets
of Byrd and Melanie Billings,
00:09:16
they were-- they certainly
had to be millionaires. The value of that property
is really incredible.
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WAYNE WRIGHT: Obviously,
in that line of work, he makes a lot of
connections and deals
00:09:27
with a lot of different people. That opens up the door
for a lot of people that need to be talked to.
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We're keeping all possibilities
on the table at this point. JOHN MALCHON: We got
blood stains here.
00:09:38
We have shots being fired here. And then you have the
decedent, Byrd and Melanie,
00:09:42
but I can't remember
who discovered it first, but that was basically
the discovery
00:09:46
of the surveillance system. WAYNE WRIGHT: The Billings had
so many special needs children.
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They had equipped the home
with a number of cameras. I believe there were
13 cameras total.
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That's when you have a
significant amount of evidence that tells you what happened.
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And that's something that
you very rarely seen. We had to get our tech
guy to come in and actually
00:10:14
remove the hard drive
from the computer system and the
surveillance system to get back to the Sheriff's
Office to try to get it open.
00:10:26
We reviewed the
surveillance footage early on. And frankly, some of the
footage was just heartbreaking.
00:10:38
There was one camera
in an upstairs bedroom. And you could see one of the
children look out the window,
00:10:45
sees the red van pull
up in the driveway. BOBBY GUY: The little girl was
explaining exactly what she saw.
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We didn't know that at the time. We felt like she was
talking about a red SUV. She was very accurate, you
know, as a limited speech
00:11:03
that she had. It was unreal. WAYNE WRIGHT: You see
people exit the van. There's one that goes
towards the front door, two
00:11:11
that go through the side door. Another camera captured
two other people coming out of the wooded
area that separated
00:11:19
the home from the main highway. So you've got two approaching
from one side on foot.
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You have three others
coming out of the van. And then they all make
simultaneous entry to the home.
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So as we're watching the
video, we were just shocked. We see five people
dressed in all
00:11:48
black, ninja, military style. WAYNE WRIGHT: Given the
fact that there were three
00:11:56
points of entry, three doors. And they all converged and found
the victims in the living room.
00:12:05
There was definitely some
planning and some forethought that was put into this. You see Byrd and Melanie
that are in their house
00:12:15
when doors are busted open. Two individuals come in
from the laundry area. One come in from the front door.
00:12:22
Again, another person
and then other people come in into the house. There's a child also there
that is witnessing this.
00:12:30
This is not a smooth
surveillance video, where it's capturing everything. It's stopgap.
00:12:35
It's a frame every
two seconds or so. JOHN MALCHON: They're startled. They're scared.
00:12:38
I mean, it's very clear. Two individuals are
all carrying an AK 47, another with a shotgun.
00:12:45
You see one with a pistol,
who then grabs Byrd. And you can see the fire,
you know, fire leave the gun.
00:12:51
It appears as he's
shot in the leg. And then you see them kind
of grabbing, and pulling,
00:12:55
and tugging, and just shouting. There's no sound to it, but you
can see that there's dialogue.
00:13:01
When we're
watching that video, I remember everybody was silent. And then everyone disappears
into the master bedroom.
00:13:10
And there are no cameras
in the master bedroom. You could have heard
a pin drop in there.
00:13:17
And we're all like, I mean,
our eyes are wide open. You see this kid watching
his parents get killed.
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It was horrible. And then everybody exits. And then you see the
red van just leave out
00:13:33
the front gate of the house. So at that point in time, the
investigation has a huge clue.
00:13:41
And that clue is the red van. [eerie music] The surveillance
video showed this red
00:13:56
van entering at approximately
7:05 PM on July 9, about 16 seconds. After the van first comes
into view of the cameras,
00:14:10
the assailants are already
bailing out of the van and making entry into the home.
00:14:15
You see the
suspects start exiting the residence carrying an item
which appeared to be a safe.
00:14:25
The van is then seen
departing at 7:10. So total time on the
compound was only about 5 minutes, maybe
5 and half minutes,
00:14:38
and probably only
four minutes actually inside the actual residence. So this was a very
quick operation.
00:14:47
They were able to get some
still shots of a red van that was involved in the murder.
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And we got it out in the news
and on the media pretty quickly. Who would want
to do this to them?
00:15:00
Because it looked more
like a professional type targeted attack. BOBBY GUY: When we asked Ashley
Markham, the oldest daughter,
00:15:13
if she knew who would
do something like this, she told us she didn't,
but she did talk
00:15:19
to us about Justin Billings. He was adopted also by
Mr. And Mrs. Billings. He had had problems
with Mr. Billings.
00:15:29
JOHN MALCHON: You know, you
look at the family first of all. I mean, you always look
at everybody as a suspect,
00:15:35
at that point in time. Who hates him to that
extent that would want to do this type of damage?
00:15:41
BOBBY GUY: When you
first get onto a scene, everybody's a suspect, right? And that's what we were
doing with Justin Billings.
00:15:49
Mr. Billings had caught him
stealing one time from him, I believe. And he had even got shipped
off to military school.
00:15:56
And Justin had gotten sent
back from military school just recently
before the murders.
00:16:04
So right away, it
piqued our interest. He's a 19, 20-year-old kid. He starts telling us his
relationship with Mr. Billings
00:16:13
was on and off,
volatile at times. They would butt
heads tremendously. So it really threw
up alarms for us.
00:16:24
As we started trying to get a
timeline, the best we can, where he was, what he'd been doing, he
advised that he had been eating
00:16:31
dinner with a friend of his. We start the process of being
able to eliminate Justin.
00:16:38
Well, it's either confirmed
that this kid is involved or let's eliminate him so we can
let him grieve the right way.
00:16:46
And we were able to
eliminate him fairly quickly. We asked him, did your
parents have any enemies?
00:16:52
He said that him and his
father, Mr. Billings, had a huge disagreement
and falling out
00:16:58
with the former
business partner. Mr. Billings and his partner
owned a car dealership.
00:17:05
Over time, they
had a falling out. And Mr. Billings decided
to end the partnership.
00:17:11
When he did, it got
very nasty and ugly. And we get contacted by
Santa Rosa County Sheriff's
00:17:20
Department stating
that they had located the former business partner. And this business partner
was at his car lot
00:17:30
that he was working at the time. And he was outside,
cleaning a red SUV. We're like, oh, my goodness,
maybe this is the guy.
00:17:46
We're thinking, maybe we're onto
something really, really good. We do pull up to the car
lot and then start to speak
00:17:55
with the business partner. And right away, he tells us he's
aware that Mr. Billings died.
00:18:04
And he is not upset at
all and tells us that. He's like, look, I'm not
afraid to tell y'all that
00:18:08
I didn't like the man. And I hate that he's dead,
but I could really care less. And he didn't hide it at all.
00:18:19
So we have Justin's interview. That was just weird. And then we're interviewing
this man and it's even stranger.
00:18:29
We did check out the
vehicle at the car lot that he is working on. And it was definitely not
involved in the homicide
00:18:38
and in the murders
of the Billings. BUDDY NESMITH: The Crime
Stoppers people notify us
00:18:49
that they'd had a
tip about a red van parked at a yard behind the
house, close to the crime scene.
00:18:58
And I'm thinking,
that kind of makes sense because killers
are kind of lazy. An individual had called in
stating that that was his van.
00:19:11
He had sold it to
Patrick Gonzalez Jr. He said that the van was
staying at a Leonard Patrick
00:19:20
Gonzalez, Sr.'s residence. So we had the address. And we went out there. JOHN MALCHON: Leonard
Patrick Gonzalez, Sr.
00:19:30
Was a tough old southern man. There was no question,
he had it rough. He's got a lengthy past.
00:19:37
He's been arrested
multiple times. Nothing serious or
crazy, but multiple, multiple in and out of jail.
00:19:47
He had been estranged
from his son, from Junior, for a number of years. They had not had a
great relationship.
00:19:56
BUDDY NESMITH: I got there. It was an old mobile home. There was a tin
building in the back.
00:20:01
And you couldn't see anything. The van itself was
backed in behind a shed. You could kind of
see it sticking out
00:20:10
by the shed a
little bit, but it's nothing that you would
have noticed just driving up and down the road.
00:20:16
So we're wondering, how are we
going to get back there to look? We're trying to figure
out, when a car drives up.
00:20:22
And it was Ms. Brant,
who is Leonard Gonzalez, Sr.'s common law wife. And I stopped talking to
her and just asked her,
00:20:32
is there a van back there? And she said, yeah. I said, well, I
really like to see it.
00:20:36
And she said, well, go
back there and look. As they go on the property
with Gonzalez Sr.'s wife,
00:20:44
they made contact with two
men, which would be Gonzalez Sr. and Wayne Coldiron. Wayne Coldiron starts to run.
00:20:53
So patrol grabs him. And that's how he
comes into the picture. JOHN MALCHON: We knew
very little about him.
00:21:03
Wayne Coldiron was
originally from Tennessee. He had a criminal record from
Tennessee, had done time,
00:21:09
had come down here, was
living in the Florida area. Wayne Coldiron
and Gonzalez Sr.
00:21:17
are good friends because
they're neighbors. Wayne Coldiron was
behind Gonzalez Sr.
00:21:23
BUDDY NESMITH: Walked around
the corner, identified the fan by calling the previous
owner, who described
00:21:30
the inside, outside of the van. This is it because there's
no tag number, nothing.
00:21:35
They've done taken a tag off. This was very old Dodge van,
probably a 12 passenger van.
00:21:43
So there was a large open
cargo area, plenty of room for individuals and equipment.
00:21:48
Plenty of room to put
this small safe in. This was the right vehicle
for that type of job.
00:21:55
They had been trying
to spray paint certain areas of
the van to slightly change the appearance of it.
00:22:00
So that van was
seized and brought back to the Sheriff's Office. So we take DNA swabs
from door handles,
00:22:09
steering wheel, the gearshift
knob, anything like that. There was a partial fingerprint
on the back interior window
00:22:21
of the van. So I processed that fingerprint. As I was leaving on the
bar was just pile stuff.
00:22:29
But sitting there, on top of
all that, was this boot box. There's nothing
new in this place.
00:22:37
There's a brand new
box sitting there. I remember somebody
saying ninja. A ninja, suspect,
war ninja stuff.
00:22:46
And these were black
combat boot type things. So I asked her, I said, the box. She goes, yeah, my husband,
Wayne Coldiron, and Junior had
00:22:55
been to house and left the box. I'm going to throw it away. I said, well, I'm
walking outside.
00:23:00
Can I throw it away for you? Yeah, I don't care. So I just took the box
and went back to the car.
00:23:07
And I just opened the trunk
and threw the box in the trunk. BOBBY GUY: While Gonzalez Sr.
and Wayne Coldiron get taken
00:23:20
to the Sheriff's Office
to be interviewed, we were contacted by
the medical examiner.
00:23:25
They advised us there was
five gunshot wounds from Mr. Billings, one in each leg.
00:23:34
One in, like, the cheek. And then there was two very
close range headshot wounds.
00:23:40
Mrs. Billings was very similar. She had four. Two freckles were to her head. And they were at close range.
00:23:50
So that's what we were told from
the medical examiner's office. We're trying to get as
much information as we can
00:24:00
on Wayne Coldiron and Gonzalez
Sr. Who are these people? And why do they have the van?
00:24:07
And how are they tied
to Mr. Billings at all? It's a huge deal. We decided, since
Sergeant Nesmith had
00:24:18
made contact with
Wayne Coldiron and , they had a rapport with him. So he was interviewing.
00:24:27
BUDDY NESMITH: Where
do you get it at? I just stick to, hey, you
know, people got hurt.
00:24:33
We think that you're
involved in it. The van was at your house. Why is that van at your house if
you're not in the middle of it?
00:24:40
BOBBY GUY: We let Sergeant
Nesmith know what we had located on surveillance video.
00:24:46
When you see Mr. Billings get
shot, it's by one individual. And they're all
masked at the time.
00:24:54
But you can clearly see
there's only one individual that was doing the shooting.
00:25:02
BUDDY NESMITH: I'm thinking,
I got an ace in the hole. I call Ms. Brant. I meet her downstairs and
walk her all the way up there
00:25:09
and said, this is what I got. I said, I'm telling
you right now, he's involved in this murder.
00:25:13
And they've already
told us, Ms. Brant, that this is a
death penalty case. He's got a chance
to save his life.
00:25:20
JOHN MALCHON: Carol
Brant, I believe, was Gonzalez Sr.'s wife. She overheard discussions
between her husband
00:25:28
and Gonzalez Jr. about a
scheme to rob somebody, make a lot of money. BUDDY NESMITH: So
we went in there.
00:25:36
And she sat down
and told him, may I speak to the state attorney? GONZALEZ SR.: Everybody
jumps in, doors kicking open.
00:25:46
Freeze. On the ground. Gonzalez Sr. starts, basically
, telling us what took place.
00:25:58
Gonzalez Sr. tells us his
son, Patrick Gonzalez Jr., is involved. Gonzalez Sr. had had
contact with Mr. Billings
00:26:11
and had business dealings
with him in the past. JOHN MALCHON: Leonard
Patrick Gonzalez,
00:26:18
Jr., he had started a
business, a local business for kids in karate. A children's fight
type of program, where
00:26:28
he would bring in
children and teach them those self-defense skills. GONZALEZ JR.: We provide kidnap
prevention, abduction awareness,
00:26:34
training to children and women. He had made the news. He appeared to be a very
successful businessman
00:26:42
Mr. Billings had
donated and helped once with his karate studio. GONZALEZ JR.: He gave us $5,000.
00:26:49
BOBBY GUY: $5,000? Junior went back, I
think, a second time, trying to get more money to
help him with another project.
00:26:56
And Mr. Billings didn't want
to get involved in that. JOHN MALCHON: His karate
studio had gone under.
00:27:02
And he was losing money. His mother basically
purchased the red van and had given it to him so he
would have something to drive.
00:27:13
BOBBY GUY: Gonzalez
Jr. denies everything. And then he starts
telling us how his dad's--
00:27:19
don't believe anything that
Gonzalez Sr. says because he's incompetent, crazy. GONZALEZ JR.: You know the guy's
got brain damage, you know that?
00:27:28
BOBBY GUY: We start getting
stuff back from the search warrant at Gonzalez Sr.'s--
00:27:34
shoe box that was collected
there, that came from Walmart. So we go to Walmart. They post a video
showing Patrick
00:27:45
Gonzalez Jr., the son, and
three or four other individuals. So we get pictures of this
gold SUV from the Walmart
00:27:59
surveillance video. Probably more quickly than the
red van, we start getting tips.
00:28:06
We even start getting
some of these suspects call us wanting to
turn herself in.
00:28:11
And that's when we started
getting the second group, the Fort Walton group. So you had the Pensacola
group, that was Wayne Coldiron,
00:28:21
Gonzalez Jr., and
Gonzalez Sr. And then you have the Fort Walton group. Two individuals have come
forward by the name of Rakeem
00:28:37
Florence and Mr. Thornton. And their story is that
they were with the guys that did this invasion, but they
slept in the back of the van
00:28:46
and they didn't do anything. Frederick Thornton and Rakeem
Florence were two young--
00:28:55
I think they were
aged 17 and 16, very young, black male youths
living in Fort Walton Beach.
00:29:02
It's really kind
of sad about them because, in essence, while they
had a supportive family as kids,
00:29:08
they seemingly were
going nowhere fast. They like to smoke marijuana. They skip school.
00:29:19
BUDDY NESMITH: We talked
to Rakeem Florence. I ain't do nothing. I'm used to it.
00:29:23
I mean, that's the
way it happens. It's a game you play. I'm not getting anywhere.
00:29:28
Right now, I know he's involved. And I talked to the
other investigators that are interviewing Thornton.
00:29:35
And he's bellied up. And he's talking. And he has named Florence. I knew his mom was there.
00:29:44
And I just told her. There's a double homicide. And it's a death penalty case,
just like I told Ms. Brant.
00:29:51
Best thing to do is talk
or he's going to get wrapped up in the middle of it. You know, in my
experience, squeaky
00:29:58
wheel gets the best deal. JOHN MALCHON: And very
rapidly, the investigators were able to break them
because, in essence, their story
00:30:08
that they were in
the back doesn't fit with the video evidence. Rakeem Florence and
Frederick Thornton
00:30:20
started also naming names. JOHN MALCHON: The young
men talk about getting a call from Gary
Sumner, who they
00:30:28
meet up in Fort Walton Beach. Mr. Stallworth also gets
involved with them also. And then they drive to Walmart,
where Gonzalez Jr. meets them.
00:30:43
Gary Sumner was older. I would say he was in his late
30s, early 40s at the time.
00:30:52
He owned a business
called Fifth Dimensions, which is a paint and body shop. From outside looking
in, it appeared
00:30:59
to be a successful business. But again, his business
was not as profitable. I think there was
significant money
00:31:04
problems that was happening. Donnie Stallworth was a staff
sergeant in the US Air Force
00:31:14
on active duty, stationed
at Eglin Air Force base. He had a family,
was living on base.
00:31:22
His involvement is
even more puzzling because if anybody should have
known better, he should have.
00:31:29
BOBBY GUY: They start telling us
the story about what happened. They're upset because no one
was ever supposed to get hurt.
00:31:40
So they start spilling
the beans pretty quickly. Originally, Gonzalez Jr. Had
pitched to the whole group
00:31:46
that they were going to go in
this house and be millionaires. They're going to be able to
get this huge sum of money.
00:31:54
He describes this house
of horrors, so to speak, that Mr. Billings was
a money launderer.
00:32:03
And that he was abusive to kids. And he was a drug dealer. And that he kept in a
vault inside the residence
00:32:12
$13 million. This was a home invasion done
for the purposes of obtaining $13 million that Mr
Billings was supposedly
00:32:24
stashed inside the residence. Gonzalez Sr., Florence, and
Thornton, and Stallworth
00:32:36
were all in the red van. Coldiron and Gonzalez
Jr. are in the woods. The plan is for Gonzalez
Jr. and Coldiron
00:32:47
to go through the side entrance. Stallworth is supposed
to go up in the middle, through the front entrance.
00:32:52
And then Florence and
Thornton are going through the side entrance. Gonzalez Jr. then fires
a shot into Byrd's leg,
00:33:00
still yelling out,
we need the money. We want the money,
that type of thing. Gonzalez Jr. then drags
Mr. Billings and Melanie
00:33:08
Billings into this the bedroom. Florence and Thornton
heard multiple gunshots. They get a small safe.
00:33:16
And they all get in the
red van and then leave. They ended up in Alabama
and basically transfer
00:33:26
the booty to another van. And then they proceed
to an antique store location in Gulf Breeze.
00:33:32
Florence and Thornton described
this young woman as being P-Lo. That was her nickname.
00:33:37
They transfer the guns
and the safe to her. And everybody splits up
at that point in time.
00:33:48
Based upon the information
that has come forward through Florence and
Thornton, our arrest warrants
00:33:54
are put together for
Patrick Gonzalez, Jr., Patrick Gonzalez,
Sr., Gary Sumner, Mr.
00:34:06
Stallworth, and Mr. Coldiron. Florence and Thornton are
both also getting arrested.
00:34:16
Now we start trying to
locate the safe, and the guns, and trying to locate this
lady who may have helped them.
00:34:24
JOHN MALCHON: We brought
in Gonzalez Jr.'s wife, Tabitha Gonzalez, to
describe, again, the link
00:34:30
to Pamela Long Wiggins. Pamela Wiggins, she was
involved in real estate and had a antique business
here in Gulf Breeze, Florida.
00:34:45
She was very similar to Patrick
Gonzalez, Jr., had a business, appeared to be very successful.
00:34:51
However, that turned
out not to be as true. BOBBY GUY: We
learned that Patrick Gonzalez rents his personal
home from Pamela Wiggins.
00:35:03
We know that she has 5, 6, 7
rental properties that she owns. And she also owns
like an antique mall.
00:35:12
And so everything's
starting to come together. So we put Ms.
Wiggins on the news.
00:35:17
We get a phone call within hours
that she is in Orange Beach on a boat with her husband.
00:35:27
So we send Orange Beach County
Police to the marina right away. And they were about to leave.
00:35:34
So we made it probably within
minutes of them leaving. JOHN MALCHON: We interviewed
Pamela Wiggins and her husband.
00:35:44
And basically through that,
along with other information, got wind of where the
murder weapon was located.
00:35:56
Now, we're probably
four or five days after. I was directed to this
automotive shop in Pensacola.
00:36:05
When I got to the location, the
main investigators were there. They had already removed a car
cover from this 1971 Buick.
00:36:13
The gun was very well hidden. It was up underneath the
seat, up inside the springs
00:36:18
because you have
to remove the seat. And then the
package itself, it's got just brown paper around the
outside with some tape on it.
00:36:26
Then there was some white
plastic, like, possibly shopping bags or something like that.
00:36:30
Obviously, some
effort had been taken to try to conceal that weapon. And when I opened
up the packaging,
00:36:37
it was a Springfield
9 millimeter gun. JOHN MALCHON: All
the spent cartridges that were recovered from
inside the home and projectiles
00:36:44
recovered from autopsy
were fired by that 9 millimeter Springfield pistol. So forensically then we
had the murder weapon.
00:36:56
The safe was
eventually found buried underneath some bricks
in a black trash bag
00:37:01
in the backyard of a residence. That residence belonged
to a Pamela Long Wiggins.
00:37:07
It was still closed. We opened the safe. And inside, we just
found personal effects,
00:37:13
some prescription medication
for the children, just personal papers, things
of that nature, really
00:37:20
nothing of any financial value. This was a small safe,
probably the size of a large microwave oven.
00:37:26
I mean, certainly not a safe
that would hold $13 million. It turns out there was
another safe in the residence.
00:37:35
It was not a safe that
anyone could move. It was on the second floor. It was huge and well secured.
00:37:42
And it did have a relatively
large amount of money on it, but certainly nowhere near
the millions of dollars
00:37:51
that these rocket surgeons
thought they were going to get. JOHN MALCHON: They
were all charged
00:37:56
with first degree murder. Two counts-- one for
Byrd, one for Melanie. And then a count of
home invasion robbery.
00:38:06
BOBBY GUY: We go and retrieve
the safe from the backyard of Pamela Long Wiggins' home.
00:38:12
We make contact with their
friends in Mississippi. JOHN MALCHON: Just a guy who
worked with Hugh Wiggins,
00:38:20
offshore, a guy
named Eddie Denson. And they took the guns,
that was two shotguns
00:38:26
and the AK47 and the 357. We arrested them
on gun charges also, but we decided to use them
as witnesses to help us.
00:38:36
So huge, huge
evidentiary benefit for us because we have located
the weapons, the safe,
00:38:43
and the murder weapon. [music playing] The build up to the
trial was really-- it was a challenge
because, in essence, we
00:39:00
had an incredible
amount of information, an incredible amount
of information, which we had to assimilate.
00:39:09
So you talk about visual-- the video evidence, the phone
records, the forensic evidence,
00:39:16
the evidence from the gun. Look at DNA, fingerprints,
this mountain of evidence to pull together.
00:39:27
And you have to, basically,
also personalize it to each individual defendant. And so you're taking that task
to just pull all that together.
00:39:37
So there was a lot of
work, to say the least. So the state decided
to seek the death
00:39:46
penalty on Gonzalez
Jr. only because he was the actual shooter. And they decided to use
the other ones to help
00:39:57
and prosecute Gonzalez Jr. Death penalties are a little
more stressful because you're
00:40:03
talking about somebody's life. So there is always pressure when
you do a death penalty trial.
00:40:10
We decide to allow Thornton
and Florence to plead to second degree murder,
felony murder, which
00:40:18
has a potential life
sentence, to two counts of that and home invasion. And what they have to do
is testify truthfully.
00:40:26
So they plead, but they are
to be sentenced at the end when we finish the case. So there's a carrot at
the end of the stick
00:40:35
that they have to cooperate and
testify truthfully on everybody and tell the story.
00:40:41
And then their
cooperation will be taken into account by the
judge when they sentence.
00:40:49
The jury went out
for deliberations. As I recall, it was several
hours, three to four.
00:40:55
And they came back and they
found Patrick Gonzalez, Jr. guilty as charged. That being of two counts
of first degree murder
00:41:02
and one count of home invasion
robbery, which is exactly what we wanted to have happen.
00:41:08
He is on death row presently. They are going to have to
redo the death penalty phase
00:41:15
because it was a
10-2 decision, a 10-2 recommendation at the time. The law has changed since then.
00:41:22
And it has to be a
unanimous recommendation. Donnie Stallworth, he
was ultimately convicted,
00:41:29
sentenced to life in prison. Coldiron, he was found
guilty, sentenced to life. Gary Sumner and Gonzalez Sr,
they elected to enter pleas.
00:41:42
And we allowed them to plead. And they were given 20 plus year
sentences for their involvement.
00:41:49
These are the
lookouts, the drivers. We had a trial involving
Pamela Wiggins as an accessory
00:41:54
after the fact. She was convicted and
sentenced to 20 years. She ultimately died in prison.
00:42:04
Florence and Thornton received
almost 30 year sentences for their involvement. What's important to note is that
those two individuals, Florence
00:42:12
and Thornton were armed,
and kicked down the door, and entered the house. So there's a significant
level of culpability
00:42:21
when you go and you start going
into the house of somebody versus somebody who's a
lookout or a getaway driver,
00:42:27
so to speak. And that's why the
judge, I think, ultimately entered the
punishment that he did.
00:42:36
BOBBY GUY: All three
were convicted. Was there ever enough justice
for something like that?
00:42:39
Not really. Killed execution
style like that? No. What can you say? Or what could be enough?
00:42:54
I don't know that
there could be enough. WAYNE WRIGHT: I'm lucky
we had a great team.
00:43:04
And we were able to present a
very good picture to the jury that this was a good family.
00:43:10
That evil just visited
at their home that night. I don't know if
we'll ever really
00:43:15
know definitively
why Leonard Gonzalez, Jr. pulled the trigger. My own hypothesis
ranges from the fact
00:43:29
that possibly that
in their discussion, Byrd Billings recognized him in
some way, shape, or form, either
00:43:35
by voice or whatever. And that he thought,
at that point in time, that he needed to execute
them and leave no witnesses.
00:43:44
That's one hypothetical. Maybe he became enraged over
their lack of cooperation and the fact that there--
00:43:53
he was finding out there wasn't
$13 million in the house. Look at Ashley, the
daughter of Mr. and Mrs.
00:44:03
Billings, how her life changed. I think about that, too. She went from a young wife
with one kid to 13 overnight.
00:44:16
Think how their life changed. And that's now the
new stresses that they have and deal with on top
of losing their parents.
00:44:24
She didn't want them
kids to anybody else. And she knew how much
her mom loved them.
00:44:31
This was a crime that
was motivated by money. This was a purely
financially motivated crime.
00:44:38
And frankly, it just makes
it that much more heinous. But it's very clear
that these children
00:44:45
heard what was going on. Some of them saw parts of it
because you can see-- in some
00:44:52
of the videos, you see
when the red van is there, one of the young girls
looks out the window.
00:44:58
And you can see
them walking around. And while they had the
issues, there was no question
00:45:03
that they had to have in some
been impressed with this tragedy that happened that night.
00:45:11
There's always a
family left behind. And nobody deserves
to be killed that way. It's just horrible,
just thinking about it.
00:45:21
Just right now, just
thinking about the-- looking at that little
boy watch his parents
00:45:26
get killed like that. My heart got stopped. But just thinking about
what these kids saw,
00:45:34
it's just horrible. Horrible. That's the stuff that'll
stick out in my mind. BUDDY NESMITH: They took those
kids' life away from them.
00:45:45
They took somebody that cared
for them, much like someone taking your mom away from you.
00:45:50
And it just-- and it's
like over senseless. It's senseless. What did she have to do with it?
00:45:58
Nothing because
they're evil people. [theme music]