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[Music] thank you welcome to True Crime garage wherever you are whatever you are doing thanks
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for listening I'm your host Nick and with me as always is a guy that has more of a winning culture than the entire
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Cleveland Browns organization he is the captain and a man that's 0-9 in your hearts the colonel it's good to be seen
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and it's good to see you thanks for listening thanks for telling a friend this week we are drinking Blue Mountain
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breweries classic lager by the good people at the Blue Mountain Brewery in Virginia garage grade 4 out of five
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lagered for six glorious weeks exactly and you compare this beer with just about any meal and this great beer was
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brought to us by these glorious guys and girls first up we have Christopher in Syracuse New York next up we have
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Alexander in London London next up we have a big thank you to Holly in Parts Unknown where newly elected mayor
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Captain is making Holly the parts Unknown Queen for a Day also in Parts Unknown we have Rebecca and Peter am I
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allowed to make people uh Queen for the day is that a power that I I have well you're the first mayor so there's really
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no there's really no rule book or textbook on how you're supposed to handle this
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hope I don't end up on CNN news or something oh oh it's going to happen man thanks
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there goes the garage all right we want to give a shout out to Lawrence and Montreal Quebec and we also have
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Danielle in Columbus Indiana to our friend Mike our thoughts are with you and your family here's one for your
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father Alex everybody gather around grab a chair grab a beer let's talk some true
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crime Auto school is in full swing the leaves start to change colors and the nights start to get cool
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and every Friday night students everywhere gather at high school football stadiums to experience the
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magic of the Friday Night Lights and cheer their team on to Victory [Music] on October 4th 2002
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at Galax high school that Friday night the students faculty and family members gathered around the field and under the
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lights to cheer on the mighty maroon tide one of their favorite student athletes
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was a gentle giant 320 pound senior football star Brandon Billings Brandon was dedicated to his fellow
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teammates his friends and his family and every Friday his parents attended the games
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on Saturday October 5th 2002 Brandon celebrated his 18th birthday for Brandon everything was falling into
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place he's halfway through another great football season the exciting times of his senior year a milestone birthday and
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planning for college that Saturday night Brandon went out to celebrate his 18th birthday with his
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friends his parents were shocked when Brandon failed to return home that night what was even more uncharacteristic he
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didn't even call to say he was staying at a friend's house it was a day that was supposed to bring
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joy and happiness and only left Brandon's family and friends heartbroken this is the case of Brandon Billings
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[Music] [Music] Kyle Brandon Billings was born October 5th 1984. he lived with his mother and
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dad this is Sherry and Kyle Billings and his sister Angie in Virginia we have two
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Kyle's in our story Captain we have Kyle Billings the father and his son Kyle Brandon Billings right and that's why
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everybody calls the sun Brandon Billings and not Kyle Brandon Billings now our story starts in 2002 in 2002 the
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Billings family was living in the Galaxy area full disclosure here Captain the newspaper articles on this case named
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several small cities and two or three counties and I'm not super familiar with that area so forgive me if I sound like
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a nitwit here but uh we're we are saying that the Billings family lived in the Galax area but the key thing here is
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Brandon attended Galax High School Brandon is a star on the football team we're going to say star because that
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seems to be one if not the most important thing to brand and Brandon was a big dude yeah big boy over 300 pounds
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he played I believe it was on the offensive line uh he also played a little bit of linebacker yeah it was
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weird because it seems like uh some reports would say he's a linebacker some people would say he's the lineman
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obviously there's you know there's a big difference but I mean 320 pound linebacker coming at you that's uh
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that's a scary sight yeah and I tend to lean with the thought here that he might
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have been offensive line because of it won his size and two his number number 79 that's typical offensive line number
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um but Brandon's dad Kyle he never missed one of Brandon's games he was at all of the games and he was also one of
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those fathers that would attend a lot of the practices whenever he could the Billings family they sat in the stands
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at Galax High School countless nights watching Brandon take to the football field the school's team is called the
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maroon tied and this is a very small area I mean the counties would have less than 20 000 people so October 4th is a
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Friday and just like most or all of the Fall Friday nights Brandon played on the
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varsity football team so Brandon had a football game that night the next day is Saturday October 5th this is Brandon's
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birthday Brandon Billings turned 18 years old on this day so a mild a milestone birthday yeah well on that
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Saturday Brandon let his father Kyle borrow his pickup truck that morning there was something called the Galax
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Lords acre sale some type of community event Kyle Billings had a funnel cake stand so
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Brandon let his father the truck so he could pull the stand to this event later that day once Brandon got his
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truck back he loaded up the bed of his truck and he delivered a bunch of firewood to his grandmother's house
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so I probably exchanged like hey deliver this firewood I'll give you the truck so I think just you know looking at that
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Friday and Saturday we get a pretty decent idea of what kind of dude we have here in Brandon Billings a a dedicated
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football player and someone that could have you know he could have been out running around with his friends or just
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doing whatever on that Saturday however we have him helping out his father and then later helping out grandma Yeah and
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normally when it is your 18th birthday I mean he might have partied a little bit
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on Friday night after the game uh there was normally always somewhere to go after the games in my town anyways and
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then uh but we see him that he wakes up at a decent time and he starts doing some chores and whatever he needs to do
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because he he does want to hang out for his birthday that night well after delivering the firewood to his
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grandmother's place he came home Brandon came home and he took a nap apparently according to Brandon's parents Brandon
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must have overslept because when he woke up he was he was in a hurry to leave the
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house okay he basically went running out the door despite hearing his parents calling for him to you know wait a
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minute where are you going those typical questions right Brandon just simply saying I can't I gotta go and with that
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he was off well Brandon may have been late to join some friends for a birthday dinner would
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be my guess right because we have a friend of his his name is Jason Cole a good friend of Brandon's they had dinner
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together that night at a Mexican restaurant so we we know that Brandon hung out with
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several friends that night uh Jason Cole who he had dinner with we also have Seth
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Greer and Joseph Wright two other close friends of Brandon's and Brandon hung out with his girlfriend that night as
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well and her name is Elizabeth Edwards they were going to be partying that night and in part to celebrate Brandon's
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birthday at some point Elizabeth his girlfriend takes a photo of Brandon that evening
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wearing a party hat Brandon is going to be hanging out well past midnight that night so now it's early morning hours of
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Sunday October 6th Joseph Wright says that he saw Brandon Billings at the on the way that's the name of a a small
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convenience store uh he saw them and he talked to Brandon briefly he said that Brandon Billings
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appeared to be in a good mood he didn't say anything out of the ordinary and after they talked for a little bit
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Brandon got in his truck and he pulled out of the parking lot and he headed west on U.S 58 towards independence well
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now a lot of these small towns they have a strict curfew so normally the curfew for anybody under 18 is I think midnight
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uh you can actually get pulled over and arrested for being out past curfew but now you know Brandon's an adult now so
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maybe this is one of the reasons why he chose to hey I could you know I can stay
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past curfew well the thing here is like you said Brandon Brandon is by himself reportedly by himself according to this
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Joseph Wright who saw him at the on the way convenience store and this is 3 40 a.m so it this is very
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kind of out of the norm out of the norm for Brandon yeah and at this point we kind of lose track of Brandon Billings
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but there seems to be like you said some questionable things going on here first
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this seems late right late at night for a young man that reportedly from both of
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his parents stated that he observed the curfew laws and he would call if he would be late or if chain if plans were
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to change right and he was going to stay the night but like you point out here we
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have something interesting going on because this is the first night that he's 18. who knows what who knows what's
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you know what has changed for him maybe he thinks you know I don't have to call anymore well I don't have to observe the
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curfew laws how were your parents in high school um so my I lived with my father when I
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turned 18 and he he spoke with me and he basically said this he's like look you're 18 now you can kind of come and
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go as you please um you know if you come in late at night I'm that's not going to bother me as
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long as a you don't wake me up you know and you know as long as you're not rude about it uh what about changing your
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plans calling and changing your plans do you have to call um no I didn't I didn't have to call for
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for that once I once I was 18. now when I was under 18 I I was to kind of keep the parents involved in what I was doing
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and and you know up to date yeah because I was lucky just to I mean I could call
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at any time and they would just you know what whatever I said was fine they never questioned it I remember one
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time I I you know I got hammered and I shouldn't have been that drunk and I remember calling my father and saying
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I'm drunk and uh and I was real nervous too because it was like you know 11 o'clock at night and I was like oh God
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but I felt like I gotta call him because I'm not obviously coming home and it was
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simply you know I'm drunk and he was like okay uh are their parents there and I was like
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no he goes well just don't leave and they they hung up the phone never talked about it after that that was it well
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that's what's strange here though Captain because the Brandon's parents their concerned that he's not home but
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maybe this just kind of slipped through the cracks maybe it didn't occur to them
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hey Sun's turning 18. this is a conversation that we need to have or or maybe they expected them to be out a
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little bit later you know and maybe they're already in bed they're already asleep so they don't even know that he's
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not back yet but we should also point out that his according to his friend Joseph Wright Brandon Billings didn't
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appear to be speaking or doing anything out of the norm well and this is 2002 so I'm
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assuming that Brandon doesn't have a cell phone right especially because it's a small town so even back then I would
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it would have been odd for any of my friends to have a cell phone um maybe a a pager or something well and
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the other thing that I want to point out here is that according to this report uh
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by his friend that Brandon would have been heading would have most likely been heading in the opposite direction of his
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home so it doesn't look like he was planning on returning home at 3 40 a.m now on Sunday October 6th we have a man
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this is Ricky Stewart he's in his 30s he's with his wife Arlene they are on the property of Larry carrico a property
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off of Rock House Lane this is a very rural area now Ricky and his wife are there with Larry's permission to deer
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hunt on the property this is something that Ricky had done many times now Larry lives in a house at the top of the hill
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Ricky and his wife are they're not on the top of the hill they are down by the creek this is around 11 30 a.m to about
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noon on that Sunday Ricky said that he didn't see anyone else in the area and for whatever reason
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I found this to be a strange observation but like I said Ricky had hunted in this
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area many times and he said that he found the area to be unusually clean I guess there were
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usually you know like trash strewn about they were out looking for deer for about two hours or so
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and Ricky Stewart said that he and his wife decided to head back toward the road this is when he saw what he thought
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was the reflection of either sunlight off of a windshield or sunlight off of a tail light
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this caught his eye through the brush then when he studied it more he was sure he was seeing a section of a vehicle
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so Ricky Stewart said that he went down through the brush to what he could clearly now see was a pickup truck
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as he got closer he saw a body partly hanging out of the driver's side door the person was obviously dead
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but Ricky Stewart did not know who this person was he said he was incredibly startled and
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shaken by this discovery obviously I don't think anyone leaves the house expecting to find a body
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he tells his wife to call 9-1-1 but her cell phone would not get any service down there by the creek
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so they drove up to his boss's house uh Larry's house at the top of the hill and he asked Larry's wife to call 9-1-1
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which she did well they stayed at the house for about five or ten minutes and then they went back down to where they
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had found the truck right so first on the scene was uh EMTs then we have officer Barnett
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he says he reported to the scene about 10 minutes after the call came in the first thing that the officer noticed was
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that the truck that held the body of the at this time Unknown man it was sitting in the soft dirt of the
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creek the tires were sunk into the dirt almost almost all the way up to the steel rims of the tires
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there were some tracks around the truck but they were quickly able to determine that those were from the First
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Responders here's one thing that's going to upset you a little bit Captain there was there
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was one what they're labeling as one good footprint in the soft mud that was of interest to the investigators
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but before they could take an impression of this it was accidentally stepped on by the
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medical examiner Fami Malik Jesus no uh but small town so I mean uh you know probably not that many murders
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take place in this County so uh you got to give them somewhat of a leeway on not
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knowing how to um you know they might know how to investigate a scene but that doesn't
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mean that they've done it enough where it's going to be you know a hundred percent to the book well and the other
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thing here is the the medical examiner is not showing up hoping to destroy evidence uh the medical examiner
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probably hopefully not yeah what I'm assuming is 99.9 times you know it sounds it sounds
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bad that that he or she was the one that stepped on the the footprint but let's keep in mind somebody else one of the
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investigators or somebody already on the scene could have pointed it out hey don't step there yeah or you know roped
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it off yeah there you go how that's an idea yeah there you go okay so officer Barnett uh he didn't get much of a
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chance to investigate the actual scene where they found this truck in the body because he was sent to interview people
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up and down the street up and down the road there to see if they knew anything regarding
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their findings but no one that lived on that street had seen or heard anything uh that seemed of
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any of importance nobody heard any gunshots we'll get to that because there's some information here but nobody
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saw anything that day is what you're saying correct as far as officer Barnett goes while he's investigating and
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talking to these The Neighbors in this area they've not seen or heard anything now they asked Ricky Stewart and his
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wife the two that had found the body if they had seen or heard anything of importance now Ricky said that when they
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were heading out of the Creek area to go up to the house to call 9-1-1 they saw a
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little silver or gray Nissan coming into the area so a small car but they had just glanced at it what
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does that mean into the area into the area where the truck was yes yes so that this area that the truck was in
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um this was kind of known to the kids as like kind of a make out alley type thing
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yes not really Ally but it's kind of like a country road but you know hey we can go by the creek and uh it's a
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secluded spot back there do some tongue battling so maybe I'm not describing it good enough but we have the truck that
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was found with the body in it is basically in the Creek area okay and they had to Ricky and his wife who found
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the body they have to leave the area they have to go back up to the house so they they can call 9-1-1 when they're
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heading up to the house this little car is driving in toward the creek toward the truck but it could just be somebody
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turning around yeah there was a turnaround in that area now he said that he couldn't tell
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um he couldn't recall anything about the people inside the truck inside the Nissan or even how many people were in
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the car uh he said he just glanced at it he also said that when they went back down to the area of the crime scene he
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did not see the Nissan again but the sheriff's deputy's car was already there by this point so Ricky
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Stewart told the officers that when he got closer to the truck that he had spotted he could see the driver's side
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door was slightly open not this the door wasn't open all of the way just a little
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bit yeah and he also said that driver was hanging out he said that there was nothing in the way of the door so it
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could have been opened all the way but it had not he said that the young man's body was
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partially outside of the truck on the driver's side and Ricky actually went up and he checked the body for a pulse but
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he said that there was none as for the small Nissan car now Ricky when questioned about this car
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he said that he tried to actually flag down the car he wanted to you know kind of warn them right about what they had
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seen he said that the vehicle was going too fast that they they may not have noticed
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that he tried to wave at them he decided not to follow the vehicle not to follow
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the Nissan because they wanted to call 9-1-1 as soon as possible now at this point after having called 9-1-1 remember
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at the scene we have EMTs there we have the officer that responded first officer
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Barnett right we have the medical examiner dancing all over evidence actually I don't think by this point the
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examiner has arrived but we have another officer that arrives at the scene his name is Terry Anders
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now Terry Anders very quickly tells officer Barnett this thing looks like a homicide and not like a traffic fatality
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to him the thing here is you got to keep in mind Captain we have a truck with with a
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body in it that's down in the creek basically it could have potentially been a traffic accident or a traffic fatality
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we don't see any signs of a wreckage on the vehicle right and well and but we also don't see any bullet holes in the
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vehicle either there was some damage to the truck my guess is that it wasn't until after
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this officer Anders arrived that officer Barnett would have been sent off to interview people up and down the street
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well what kind of damage are we talking about see I don't know that oh I know that there was damage to the vehicle
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there's normal wear and tear damage I mean uh trucks are notorious you know anybody that owns a truck knows that
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people like to hit you like you know normally when somebody's backing out like in a parking lot or something
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they'll hit the bed of the truck so you'll see a lot of trucks that have little dings and stuff on the bed
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because somebody wasn't paying attention and didn't see the bed well some of the first observations that
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this officer Anders makes the driver was wearing a t-shirt the deceased was wearing a t-shirt and it had been pulled
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up over his head the seat belt on the driver's side appeared to have been cut he saw what
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appeared to him to be two gunshot wounds behind the deceased ear the truck itself
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he figures out that it's registered to a Kyle and Sherry Billings so I'm assuming
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the officers are going to call the Billings house well let's go to the Billings house so
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we have we have Sherry and Kyle Billings who they're concerned because they've discovered that their son had not come
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home from that Saturday night right Sherry Billings she started to call around to Brandon's friends the morning
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after to find out where he was they're probably pretty worried but not probably super worried because it was his
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birthday so you got to kind of take that into account it sounds like the and this
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is kind of a typical situation I'm guessing it sounds like Mom was pretty concerned
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and it sounds like Dad had just thought well it's his birthday he probably just got a little wild maybe a little crazy
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and he went and did something that uh he normally wouldn't have done at some point that evening
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a vehicle drove up to their home and it parked behind the home just where Brandon would always Park his truck
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well at this time Sherry called out to her husband Kyle and said hey your son's finally home
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so they both walked to the back door where they didn't find Brandon as they had expected but they found Sheriff
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Wilson along with investigator Glenn Hyatt Sherry's mind immediately leapt to a car
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accident yeah she was totally unprepared for what they were about to tell her that they had found Brandon he had been
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found shot to death around 2 30 p.m on that Sunday October 6th just one day after his 18th birthday
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foreign [Music] [Music] we're back cheers mates cheers let's get into this investigation Captain because
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we have this situation where we have 18 year old Brandon Billings he's been killed he's been found dead in his truck
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in a creek near the New River we'll buy a creek by the creek and now they've identified their victim and now we have
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an investigation that's going to take place we mentioned that they went to the Billings home and told the parents that
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Unfortunately they had found their son dead now they're going to ask them of course when was the last time they had
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seen Brandon right they're going to tell the investigators the story of Brandon oversleeping the day before waking up
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saying he was running late for something and basically rushing out the door right
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but we're assuming that's his birthday dinner correct because later his parents said later that day they had seen his
00:27:03
pickup truck parked outside of a Mexican restaurant in Galax that evening so this
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obviously is where he was having dinner so I think this is important for a couple of reasons one the parents having
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seen Brandon's truck parked in the parking lot so obviously it corroborates the story of Brandon having dinner with
00:27:23
his friend but we also have a situation where Kyle Brandon's father said that he could see
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the truck clearly and it did not appear to have any damage on the vehicle at the
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time that he saw it in the parking lot right now we we do have some witnesses you asked about if there were any
00:27:41
Witnesses or if people had seen or heard anything the witness we have this is Albert
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Barkley Jr he's 68 of Huntersville North Carolina he and his wife were camped across the river from the scene of the
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crime in their RV Barkley said that he had heard what sounded like three gunshots around 4 a.m which he knew
00:28:04
because they checked the time when they were startled awake by the noise so these gunshots startled you awake and
00:28:11
you don't call the cops but maybe you don't call the cops because this is an area that people hunt in so maybe you're
00:28:18
just assuming that there's Hunters out early on the weekend well yeah I found that a little confusing too now Barkley
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said that after hearing the first set of shots he then heard a second round of shots this time two gunshots and he saw
00:28:33
lights in the dark across the river at what would later be identified as the actual crime scene now he went back to
00:28:41
bed after the second round of shots and while in Betty her heard a final shot he
00:28:47
got up again so he he hears a total of how many shots three and then another round and then another single shot
00:28:55
correct so so by this point he hears three then two then one according to his account so a total of six shots yeah
00:29:02
maybe you don't call the cops just because you hear the gunshots but once you see the lights from a vehicle I
00:29:09
would assume at that point that you would call the cops yeah he told them he that he saw again he saw lights from
00:29:14
what appeared to be a vehicle they asked him if he could describe the vehicle he
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said that all he could say is that he saw lights he couldn't tell you what it was he thought that it might be a truck
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but he wasn't he couldn't say for cert now Albert Barkley and his wife they said that later that morning they left
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to go visit some friends in the Elk Creek area when they came back by this time it was the afternoon and this is by
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then they had already stumbled upon the crime scene so the crime scene was being
00:29:42
investigated at that point and that's when he reported having heard these shots in the wake of Brandon's death the
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police pursued leads and interviewed more than 100 people looking for Clues while they awaited for the autopsy
00:29:58
report investigators met daily to discuss their findings stating that we we answered all the tips that were
00:30:05
coming in at the time anytime anyone calls they went out and checked out the tip meanwhile friends and family began
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raising money for the funeral turkey knob Church where Sherry Billings was a member held a bake sale to raise money
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family friend Sherry bear began another fund drive setting up donation jars at businesses to collect money her daughter
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Holly was a classmate of Brandon's at Galax High School the delps studio this is one of those photo studios donated a
00:30:38
16 by 20 portrait of Brandon to the Billings family and the owner provided photos of Brandon to all members of the
00:30:47
Galaxy football team and the senior class let's get into some of the evidence Captain so Brandon Billings was
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found shot today shot to death from multiple gunshots but his truck had no bullet damage right
00:31:02
the truck was in a small Creek near the New River on Rock House Road off of Patton Mill Road by a creek because we
00:31:10
keep saying in a creek but it was just by the creek well I think I actually think that both descriptions might be
00:31:17
correct just depending on who's giving it and that sounds like a be both correct yes I I think they can it sounds
00:31:22
confusing but this is a confusing crime scene and actually the way that it's described in the newspaper accounts
00:31:28
doesn't help to clear much up in my mind here's what I can gather okay so we know
00:31:34
that the tires were found in what's reported as the soft mud or soft dirt near the creek yeah see I wonder if it's
00:31:42
like a service road that you have to go down and that you know because like I said I mean this was kind of known as
00:31:48
like a makeout area for the local kids or like the high school kids would you know you don't have a place to go make
00:31:53
out at your parents house or whatever so you go to these Service Roads and that's
00:31:58
kind of what I'm envisioning in my head because I know in my town we had a couple Service Roads that people would
00:32:03
you know go do naughty stuff there well my parents always made sure that they had a special spot at our house for
00:32:11
children to make out now so that sounds so bad the way that it sounds to me Captain is okay so we know the truck was
00:32:18
off the road um it was it was in the dirt or mud however you want to describe it where
00:32:24
some people may say to be in the creek you have to physically be in the water right it wasn't in the water however it
00:32:31
may have been damn near close to it where others might describe that as well the truck was found in the creek so I
00:32:39
think that's the reason for the confusion and I think that maybe um we can use some of this this autopsy
00:32:47
that the police are waiting on to help clear up some of these questions that you and I have so as you had said this
00:32:54
was a favorite Party location for the local teens oh Party location also that's what the the locals refer to it
00:33:01
as Party location now the police state that they didn't know whether the vehicle had wrecked before or after
00:33:08
Brandon was shot okay so this would be clear because I wasn't clear before there was definitely some sign of
00:33:14
wreckage there was some sign of wreckage to the vehicle there was no uh bullet damage found on the truck itself I'm
00:33:21
unclear as to what the damage the wreckage damage was on the truck right this was a tough case I mean there was a
00:33:28
lot that was not clear but we do know that it was wrecked because the police outwardly say we don't know if the wreck
00:33:35
occurred before or after he was shot because he could have been in the driver's seat the vehicle on in drive
00:33:43
you get shot and then you let your foot hit the pedal and take off or you or you
00:33:48
let up off of the brake and the vehicle heads down towards the creek right all these things are possible the police
00:33:54
also said that there is no evidence that Brandon was abducted or forced to drive
00:34:00
to Rock House Road okay they said that yeah because the big question here you got to start with why
00:34:07
was Brandon out that late what the heck was he doing and he was by himself like yeah I could understand if
00:34:14
he was with his girlfriend or with some buddies that would make sense to me but it sounds to me like he's driving away
00:34:19
from his home right and he's by himself yeah he's heading somewhere where is he heading to and he wasn't this is not a
00:34:26
kid that was reported to have any missed dealings you know it said you know all of his family and friends
00:34:34
basically said he was a gentle giant he was the kind of dude that if he saw trouble he would just turn and walk away
00:34:40
I'm not trying to I'm not trying to throw shade but you see this happen a lot of times in cases where somebody Is
00:34:47
tragically murdered and and they were an angel in the community and they were the
00:34:52
perfect person and then sometimes if you do some digging that you find out not so
00:34:57
much in this case though there's no wavering on this this guy was uh you know basically a big teddy bear well and
00:35:05
it's not just his parents saying that he was an awesome guy it's his friends as well you know his his contemporaries are
00:35:11
saying he didn't do drugs and he yeah he did party a little bit they said he would attend parties and he'd probably
00:35:17
I'm guessing would consume a little alcohol at these parties but what the friends had said was he was the type of
00:35:23
dude that only went to the parties to be with his friends he wasn't like the Wild
00:35:27
guy that was leading the party you're showing up with bottles of booze right you know he wasn't that guy
00:35:34
um what else did the police find so they found that his body was bruised and I don't know the locations of these of the
00:35:41
bruising but the police did say that these bruises could have resulted from either a truck wreck or from
00:35:50
Brandon having played a football game that Friday night right so I'm I'm assuming that these bruisines are on his
00:35:57
chest or shoulder so again anybody that's been in a pretty difficult car wreck you'll a couple days later you're
00:36:04
gonna see like bruising across your chest from the seat belt but also anybody that's played you know Sports
00:36:10
you know you wake up on on Monday and kind of notice bruises especially football you know you get hit with a
00:36:17
helmet and the ribs and then next thing you know your whole side is is bruised well we both played a little football
00:36:23
growing up and I were pretty good oh man I was like I was like the Bo Jackson of
00:36:28
Columbus Ohio The Glory Days no but um he would run up walls and stuff it was great but the thing is when you when you
00:36:36
play football not just the bruising the ribs but remember that you would you'd wake up losing of the ego you'd wake up
00:36:42
a couple days later and you would have like like purple and blue marks and black marks on your on parts of your
00:36:48
arms and your forearms yeah yeah that you don't even they weren't things that hurt at the time during the game or
00:36:54
during practice you didn't even recall that and why would it have bruised so much
00:36:59
um but but I'm assuming when they say bruising on the body I'm assuming chest or stomach area uh not so much the arms
00:37:08
because I think they would have stayed it as such well you you could be right but the reason why I went ahead to point
00:37:13
that out was that these could be taken either way these are very obvious bruises that I would expect to see
00:37:20
someone having played a football game that Friday but they would also be obvious bruises of someone I would have
00:37:26
expect for like defensive wounds if there were some kind of altercation if he was in some kind of fight well or or
00:37:32
the wreck if there was a wreck that could you could have sustain those injuries so there's three options and
00:37:40
that makes it even more difficult here's another here's a weird thing and I'm telling you Captain the last
00:37:46
couple nights I've laid in bed and I've thought about this crime scene and it just doesn't make there's I can't make
00:37:51
any sense of it so all right sorry I just I let you in my head there for a minute but I don't
00:37:57
want to be in your head Brandon's wallet was missing but police did come out and
00:38:02
said that they they did not assume robbery was a motive for his murder well his parents would know if he had a bunch
00:38:09
of money on him or like birthday money on him but uh you're talking about an 18 year old kid I mean
00:38:16
why would you rob a 18 year old kid you're not hitting the lottery with that well the medical examiner who performed
00:38:24
the autopsy on Brandon Billings uh stated that Billings had sustained two bullet wounds on the left side of his
00:38:32
head and one on the right side as well as a shot to the neck three that doesn't make any sense three
00:38:40
of these shots were from an indeterminate range she estimated that one that the one on
00:38:48
the right side of Brandon's head was fired from a distance of about 6 to 12 inches so we have we have four bullet
00:38:56
wounds we have three that they cannot determine the distance from which the the bullets were fired right and one
00:39:03
that appears to have been shot at close range 6 to 12 inches the back of his left wall and which one
00:39:11
was the six to 12 inches uh that was the one on the right side okay so he's in the driver's seat
00:39:20
six to 12 inches you either have a pretty long arm because this is a Ford Ranger
00:39:26
so it's it's not a huge truck so you could actually reach in with your arm and shoot somebody and be six to 12
00:39:34
inches away you can reach in through the passenger side window right so then my question would be is that window was it
00:39:41
open or shut and determined on how much his his face was turned his head was turned the shock could have come from
00:39:48
the driver's side window or remember he was found partially outside of the the vehicle door right and him being
00:39:56
partially outside of the vehicle door may explain why there was no bullet damage to the truck that's the problem I
00:40:03
have here I can't I look at this crime scene and I go through the autopsy and we got plenty more to get to here I
00:40:09
can't determine if he was in or outside of the truck at the time that the shots took place yeah because he could have
00:40:15
been shot by uh you know an individual or two individuals and they and they place them back into the truck or half
00:40:22
back into the truck I mean you know he could have been standing by his truck when this attack takes
00:40:30
place and he's a big boy and maybe that is one of the reasons why he only got half back into the truck you
00:40:38
know I mean because because he was such a big boy the back of his left hand had gunpowder grains on it so this
00:40:45
suggesting that his hand was possibly up when he was shot you know maybe kind of
00:40:50
trying to defend himself okay so or Shield himself in some way just to throw this out there and tell me if I'm
00:40:57
ludicrous uh okay so he has gunpowder residue on his hand is there I mean did they do any testing to see if
00:41:07
he fired uh anything uh it's it's actually described as gunpowder grains which I
00:41:14
don't know if that's different than gunpowder residue but I'm guessing that it is because it's described as such
00:41:20
um we should call it our buddy Austin he would have told us yeah so my guess is that they seem pretty certain the
00:41:27
medical examiner she seems pretty certain that that this would have been him kind of shielding his his face or
00:41:34
his head from from possibly somebody approaching him with a gun now she surmised that Billings was first shot on
00:41:45
his left side and the neck wound was probably the last and that one was coming from his right
00:41:52
side um well here's what they State they state that he his head was probably in a
00:41:59
downward position when he was shot in the neck um and the medical examiner believes
00:42:05
that the first shot that hit him was one of the shots on the left side of Brandon's head so if if
00:42:12
anybody close to Brandon out there if you were listening you might want to tune this out for for just the next
00:42:17
couple minutes here because I kind of want to clear this up the way that it sounds like the medical examiner
00:42:23
understands this to have gone down so she states that one of the first shots would have been those two shots to
00:42:31
the left side of his head which we already know is from an indeterminate range so we don't know the distance of
00:42:39
where those were fired from but then we have the next shot would be the one to the right side of his head which is
00:42:47
estimated to be from a distance from 6 to 12 inches right and then the final shot would be that of the one that hit
00:42:54
him in the neck while his head was down so the way that I'm guessing that this goes down according to the way that she
00:43:01
has kind of figured this out and pieced it together all these shots came from the same gun
00:43:08
so it sounds like he was probably fired upon twice the gunman then approached him to get closer to to hit him from
00:43:16
that 6 to 12 inches range I'm guessing at that point is when he probably put up his hand
00:43:23
and received those gunpowder grains to the hand when that close range shot hit him he may have been dead before he was
00:43:31
even hit that fourth time or or in the process of that and that's where he was slumped down and then shot in the neck
00:43:39
okay so we have the autopsy coming in and they're saying that they believe that this all these
00:43:47
shots came from the same gun right so what does that tell us do we then assume there's one individual I
00:43:55
would guess so I'm guessing that this went down fairly quickly and here's why we know that he was reported to have
00:44:02
been leaving the on your way convenience store at 3 40. and that's not just that's not just the uh his friends
00:44:10
saying he left at 3 40. we have surveillance footage of him leaving at 3 40. what did he buy there
00:44:17
that I don't know they didn't give they didn't give the particulars of that in this statement right because he's not
00:44:24
old enough to buy buy booze so yeah and the thing too is you know sometimes they
00:44:29
call these things convenience stores and you know different parts of the country
00:44:34
seem to call things different things you know where here like we might say somebody may have stopped at a
00:44:39
convenience store but you and I know if there's a gas pump in front of that convenience store it's a gas station to
00:44:44
you and I we don't care how big the store is inside and how many things they sell we would always refer to that as a
00:44:51
gas station right so is it possible that he that he filled up some gas is it possible he just stopped in there to get
00:44:57
something to drink that I don't know but we do know he left at 3 40. what we also
00:45:03
know is that these shots were first heard by the guy that was camping with his wife in the RV at four o'clock right
00:45:10
so a 30 minute window 20 minute window so oh yeah 340 sorry yeah and the you can't feed me beer and expect me to do
00:45:19
math well in the the I don't have this right on me right now we'll get to it later because I know it's in the notes
00:45:25
somewhere but the drive time this would not have left a whole lot of time for something to go down so whenever he
00:45:32
arrived at this location he was shot fairly quickly after arriving at this location
00:45:38
so okay a couple questions that I have and that we have so far is where was he heading why was he out
00:45:47
that late um was there more than one individual was he in the truck or out of the truck
00:45:53
uh and why did he pull off that road you know and then I guess the other question is was the damage
00:46:03
um before the attack or was it after the attack the damage to the vehicle yeah yeah and that's one thing that the
00:46:11
police seem to really be focusing in on because they questioned the medical examiner quite a bit about this they
00:46:17
wanted to know that would he have lost Consciousness after the first shot or the first two shots
00:46:24
they're trying to determine if the crash if he crashed the truck before or after
00:46:29
he was shot the medical examiner could not necessarily clear that up for the detectives she simply reported that he
00:46:37
most likely would have lost Consciousness he would not have been able to be alert or to do anything with
00:46:45
purpose and what she's stating there is he could have been operating the vehicle
00:46:50
in some form some fashion after having been shot but he would not have been doing it with any purpose or or he would
00:46:58
not have been alert doing this meaning like we said earlier his foot could have just simply came off the break or went
00:47:05
to the gas pedal and he moved the vehicle after being shot after attack well I wonder if the vehicle was found
00:47:11
in park or not hmm that's a good question that that's a really good question something that they
00:47:18
left out of the report um the Pathologists also found that Billings had suffered blunt force trauma
00:47:26
and a laceration to the face stating that he struck an object or an object struck him
00:47:35
okay again you wonder because we don't know what the injury is is this possibly an injury that could
00:47:42
have taken place during during a game [Music] um I'm I'm guessing this I'm guessing not
00:47:48
but no this to me sounds like something that happened that night that that either and probably during this attack
00:47:55
or the result of the truck uh wrecking right I failed to mention this earlier but
00:48:02
when they were going through the crime scene after the police had been there for some time remember the homeowner the
00:48:08
Larry who had let the people hunt on his property him and his sons eventually came down to the crime scene at some
00:48:15
point and one of his sons uh noticed that there was a rock that had what appeared to have been blood on it uh and
00:48:22
they cleared this up in the in the lab test in the autopsy reports it was a blood it was actually blood that was on
00:48:30
that rock and the rock is reported to have been found about 100 feet from where the truck came to rest okay so we
00:48:38
should put in point out that the medical examiner is not a blood spatter expert but she stated it was possible that one
00:48:47
or two wounds may have occurred at the location of the Rock The Blood On The Rock was later identified as that of
00:48:54
Brandon's right or The Rock was a weapon I mean he got smashed in the face with something
00:49:00
they also found a cigarette butt in the area um this was found at the scene this had
00:49:06
Ricky Stewart's DNA on it uh Ricky Stewart had been smoking and in his statement said he had been smoking and
00:49:13
tossed the cigarette out before he found the body that's always something that I
00:49:17
think about is if you do find if you stumble upon a crime scene and you're the one that reports it to the
00:49:24
cops that you're gonna be the one question obviously yeah and I can't remember there is a there is a certain
00:49:31
percentage that comes with that that people having reported finding a body are actually the one that put it there
00:49:37
right um but how about this Ricky Stewart don't let her buddy yeah yep all right don't throw your cigarette butts
00:49:44
in the woods and you can prevent forest fires there Ricky Stewart yeah and how about your buddy is nice enough to let
00:49:52
you hunt on his property and you're out there flicking your cigarette butts all over the place litter bug
00:49:57
I'm gonna make a call to Larry I'm gonna make a call to Larry we're gonna shut this Ricky guy down yes Tom hey yeah and
00:50:03
you notice remember when uh he was saying uh I noticed it looked very clean that's because you haven't been on the
00:50:10
property littering everything that's exactly littering everywhere you litter bug uh five days after Brandon's body
00:50:18
was discovered a fisherman putting a boat in the New River this is near the crime scene he looked down and he
00:50:25
spotted two items in the water all right there there are almost always these strange stories and coincidences
00:50:33
in these cases that just make you scratch your head and this is one of one of them you know I read the scratch in
00:50:39
my head I read this report and it really screwed me up and I had to do some really interestingly boring fact
00:50:47
checking here how can it be interesting and boring well it was tedious my friend because
00:50:53
listen to this okay it's something that really doesn't matter at the end of the day but well thanks for wasting
00:50:59
everybody well I mean it kind of It kind of matters but let me tell you this okay
00:51:03
okay just tell us what the situation is the fishermen that spotted these items in the New River his name are you ready
00:51:11
for this yeah is Ricky Stewart what yeah Ricky Stewart this is Ricky Eugene Stewart Ricky
00:51:18
r-i-c-k-y as compared to our other Ricky Stewart which is r-i-k-k-i okay so two different completely
00:51:27
different Ricky Stewarts are involved in the same so that you get now why the the fact checking was pretty
00:51:35
boring on that one yeah but was Ricky Stewart like some kind of race car driver like he's like a famous guy in there
00:51:43
like back in the day and then like a bunch of people named their kids after way to put me on the on the put me on
00:51:50
the spot here to to name something strong I think you know I know there was a Jimmy Stewart there you go
00:51:56
anyway so the items that Ricky Stewart found in the water five days after Brandon's body was found well it was
00:52:03
Brandon Billings driver's license and a credit card okay so he decides to place these items on
00:52:11
the front of his boat and he continued to fish for about 15 minutes or so while he was trying to figure out what he
00:52:18
should do yeah stop fishing he decided that he was going to get the boat out of the water and he was going to call in
00:52:25
the evidence that he had found well when he's exiting the water he ends up finding another item and this is
00:52:33
Brandon's maroon tied ID card from his uh High School yeah so Ricky Stewart drove up the hill to get a cellular
00:52:42
signal and called his brother who in turn called the police I'm surprised with you know these counties being such
00:52:48
a small County and it's also like I said uh you know this is time I'm familiar with most of my friends and most people
00:52:56
I knew didn't have a cell phone there's a lot of cell phones in this case so the
00:53:01
the officers having this information and this new evidence uh they they went the
00:53:07
next day to wear this item where these items were recovered yeah and they were searching
00:53:13
the area and they ended up finding Brandon's wallet in the river uh it stated that it was found quite a
00:53:21
ways away from the crime scene but not in a direction that it would have been carried by the river itself right they
00:53:28
also used metal detectors to search part of the New River for a gun or other evidence but it did not find a gun or
00:53:36
any other evidence I'm assuming there was no money in the wallet yeah I don't think there was anything in the wallet
00:53:42
there was nothing reported as having been in the wallet so it almost looks like somebody had the wallet pulled out
00:53:49
the ID cards and threw them and then then through the wallet so they probably weren't thrown together
00:53:55
right they somebody was going through it somebody took the time to go through the
00:54:00
wallet discard these items it looks it sounds to me like they threw them all out roughly and about the same place in
00:54:06
the same location but this shows us we have somebody who is discarding evidence um how did they get that wallet they
00:54:16
must have pulled it from either his truck or from his pant pocket after having shot him
00:54:22
and now they're a ways away quote unquote a ways away from the crime scene in their disposing of evidence and I'm
00:54:30
sure some people are scratching their heads you and I had this conversation off of uh you know in the garage when
00:54:36
the mics were not turned on a lot of well I have a surveillance on you at all times but the the you know people
00:54:44
their heads wondering okay this fisherman finds these the ID the driver's license of a guy that is known
00:54:51
to have been killed in the area and then he gets in the boat and he goes fishing
00:54:55
for a few minutes while he decides what to do is Sean man fish on well I actually don't find any problem with
00:55:03
that I think I think that I look it's not ideal right you would you you would think that even in that situation all of
00:55:11
us would immediately rush to call the authorities he then calls his brother instead and then brother calls the
00:55:19
authorities I don't find anything wrong with that just because I think some people get scared I think some people
00:55:24
they they stumble across something they didn't expect to find yeah and it just it startles them it just it it unnerves
00:55:31
you a bit and you don't think clearly for a few minutes well it's probably the reason he called his brother first to go
00:55:36
hey I found this what what should I do right to get some confidence yeah I don't know what to do here bro tell me
00:55:42
what to do now the other thing I'm actually happy that he waited a few minutes just because he ends up finding
00:55:49
more evidence when he's exiting the water so who knows had he not found that if he would have chose to do differently
00:55:57
the the um Brandon's Funeral was one of the largest ever accommodated at the local
00:56:03
Funeral Home in Independence with an estimated 1200 people attending for Christmas that year the family
00:56:12
received a headstone that they placed at their son's grave this was a gray granite in the shape of a of a football
00:56:22
the twin County Crime Stoppers this is unfortunate the twin County Crime Crime Stoppers did not have enough funds on
00:56:29
hand to pay a one thousand dollar reward to offer a reward for information in the
00:56:35
case but not a lot of crimes in this area right so I mean it is a shame though they
00:56:42
appealed to the County Board well but here's what's more sad is why we need to put a dollar amount on you know doing
00:56:49
the right thing if you have information on somebody's death you come forward and
00:56:54
if you don't then I just question your morals in general or your character yeah they they appeal to the county board for
00:57:02
money for a reward uh the board decided against using public funds for a reward and they kind of threw it back at the
00:57:09
public to make donations and that's why it's so important you know we mentioned some of the donations and the
00:57:15
fundraising earlier uh but friends planned a benefit for the reward fund this started in January the January
00:57:24
after Brandon was killed and many local businesses and individuals did donate to
00:57:30
this fund while the County's decision not to contribute to the reward fund was upsetting to the Billings family
00:57:36
Brandon's mother Sherry said that her biggest fear was that without an arrest another teen could die or be killed
00:57:44
stating that the killer may think hey I got away with that one Brandon's mother said she wanted closure she wanted to
00:57:52
know why her son died and who was responsible for killing her son Brandon Billings
00:57:58
[Music] all right a lot more to get to in part two of the case of branding Billings and
00:58:12
we teamed up with some awesome guys over amn clothing they helped us out and made
00:58:17
some really cool t-shirts these guys are real artists with great designs and you
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can check those out at their website what Captain what is their website it's amandclothing.com or you could go to
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truecrime garage.com and click on the store Page they'll be available for a limited time a limited number so you
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want to get them now and they come in multiple colors but I think everybody will really dig the logo all right thank
00:58:41
you Captain and thank you to everybody out there for listening and for telling a friend and for the five star reviews
00:58:46
we will see you back here tomorrow bring your butt back to the garage until then
00:58:51
be good be kind and don't litter yeah Ricky Stewart [Music] [Applause] [Music]