AL AL - J.B. Beasley, 17, & Tracie Hawlett, 17, Ozark, 31 July 1999 #1

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Has this possible link to the killer been discussed yet, the Welborn and Bullock murders, very similar to our girls.

OZARK, Ala. (AP) -- The execution-style shooting deaths of two teen-age
girls at a rural Mississippi site are similar to a double slaying in
Alabama seven months ago, and Ozark police want to know if they are
linked in any way.

The bodies of Amanda Welborn, 19, of Laurel, and Kelsey Bullock, 18, of
Stringer, were left by the side of a rural road in Jones County, Miss.,
on Feb. 26. Authorities said they had been shot in the head.

Seven months ago, the bodies of Tracie Hawlett and J.B. Beasley, both
17 years old and from Dothan, were found shot to death in the trunk of
Beasley's car beside a road in Ozark. Both had been shot in the head.

Like Hawlett and Beasley, the two victims in Mississippi had been
riding around in a car the night they were killed.
Click to expand...


Police tracked him through several states before locating him in Jones
County. Welborn and Bullock were slain in Jones County the day after
authorities picked the man up.

https://groups.google.com/forum/?fr...asley/alt.true-crime/Ce_ggcnuui0/Yu6CfJ3ZaR0J
Click to expand...
 
weird

Investigators in the case of the murder of J.B. Beasley and Tracie Hawlett are headed to Jones County Mississippi next week to look into the similarities of a double homicide that occurred there last weekend. The bodies of Amanda Welborn,19 of Laurel, and Kelsea Bullock,18 of Stringer were found about three feet off the road. Both victims were shot execution style. Two Laurel Mississippi men, Paul Evans Jr. 19, and Nanthan Townsend 18, were arrested on Thursday March 1.

Similarities in the case are:

All of the victims were shot execution style

Robbery wasn't a motive in the cases

All of the victims were out riding around the night that they were murdered

All of the victims had dirt on their clothes

All of the victims had dark hair

All of the victims were about the same age

All of the victims were last seen around 11:30 p.m.

All of the victims were found three feet off of the roadway

*** but off of which roadway are the bodies of the teenage girls Freeman and Bible (nameswith karma)?

and how does this fit in: "Ashley Freeman is described as ....and ``dishwater blonde'' hair."

Here‘s more on the shotgun officer (2/23/00):

Undersheriff Hayes said Tuesday that he took the polygraph last week and that his brother took it the week before. They were the only two in the Sheriff's Office to take the test, he said.
An OSBI spokeswoman cited confidentiality rules and would not comment Tuesday about any polygraph tests.

Undersheriff Hayes said he told the OSBI from the start that he would take the test. ``I had nothing to hide,'' he said. ``I feel a lot better about it since taking the polygraph. I was hesitant to get involved in it (the investigation) until then.''
Since passing the polygraph, Undersheriff Hayes said he has been more actively involved,
helping check out what few tips exist.
Click to expand...

https://groups.google.com/forum/?fr...asley/alt.true-crime/j1sGaKtm1Fs/lK1K_DWa8hAJ
 
Wow, great work Wondergirl! You've uncovered so much new information in these links you've found and posted.

Wondergirl said:
Wth????

The driver of the white truck shown on the security camera at the
Big/Little store has been identified and cleared of any involvement.
Click to expand...

https://groups.google.com/forum/?fr...asley/alt.true-crime/-LHyeUuDRAA/HIysYkrk3wIJ
Click to expand...

This is HUGE.

It appears this post comes from the Chronology of Events as originally posted online. It's my understanding through another forum that a poster who went by the name "Pat" put together and maintained the Chronology of Events over the years, carefully writing up and posting summaries of MSM articles concerning the case as they appeared in the news.

The Chronology of Events we've been working with here in the thread is only a portion — from 8/2/99 through 5/19/02 — of the full CoE as originally posted online. The linked post concerning the driver of the white truck being identified and cleared looks to have been a CoE post dated July 18, 2004 — well after the end of our partial CoE.

I wonder if the rest of the original CoE is floating around out there somewhere. Obviously it could contain other information that would have a major impact on our investigation/discussion.

For easy reference, here's a summary of new facts/info gleaned from the 7/18/04 CoE post:

  • According to Chief Spivey, evidence reveals that the killer likely suffers from a sexual dysfunction which leaves him unable to perform normally. Cited as some of the aforementioned evidence is the fact that neither of the girls was raped although semen was present.

  • As of July 2004, at least 100 people had been cleared through DNA testing.

  • As of July 2004, investigators were still awaiting forensic testing results, including soil samples on the girls' clothes.

  • And perhaps most importantly, the driver of the white truck shown on the security camera at the Big/Little store was identified and cleared of any involvement.
Wondergirl said:
There is a whole bunch of information in the 2 articles beneath the ultra-creepy case summary by "Joe" here. There is more detailed info regarding the timeline that I haven't read here yet.

https://groups.google.com/forum/?fr...asley/alt.true-crime/BEG0n2XHfyA/QJmYq1kRcDcJ
Click to expand...

"Ultra-creepy" isn't overstating it one bit. I got a very bad feeling reading this person's introduction to the two articles.

While the first of the articles is a very useful one I had found elsewhere, and from which I've quoted several times in the course of our discussion, the second one is new, and full of information we've never seen here before.

Again, for quick and easy reference, here a summary of facts/info from that second article that is brand-new to our discussion:

From The Mobile Register, "Determination Will Bring Killer To Justice," July 23, 2000:

  • The article states the girls were killed sometime between 11:40 p.m. July 31 and 8:00 a.m. August 1. A Birmingham News article from earlier in the year (January 20, 2000) had stated that preliminary autopsy results placed the time of death at 12:30 a.m. to 2:00 a.m. It was later pointed out that Chief Spivey was quoted in a MSM article from 2004 that because of the heat, it was impossible to determine a time of death. Thus the longer time frame reported in this article.

  • Neither girl had any enemies that anyone knows of. Very important.

  • J.B. was named after her father, Hilton Lanier Beasley, and his buddy, J.B. Green, said her mother. Her actual first name was "J period B period," Burgoon said, and J.B. wasn't afraid to let anyone know it. (I've looked and looked for this information, always wondering what the J. and the B. stand for. This article is full of such amazing background information on the girls. Tracie wanted to be a doctor; J.B. wanted to be a pediatrician. The more one reads of this type of personal information about J.B. and Tracie, the more one's heart breaks at the immense loss of potential. I strongly believe it is information like this, distributed to a wide audience, that could cause a person who knows the name of the killer to finally break down and come forward. This is one of my driving reasons for wanting to write a book on the case. —DD)

  • Tracie worked until about 9:20 that night at JCPenney. At around 9:00, J.B. stopped at the nursing home where Tracie's mother worked and asked if Tracie could accompany her to the party. Plans were made for J.B. to spend the night at Tracie's and go to church with them the next morning.

  • Tracie was tired that night and told co-workers she didn't really want to go to the party, her parents said. J.B. didn't seem excited either. Still, they said, J.B. felt that she should make an appearance, since the party was in her honor.

  • Tracie and J.B. had gotten directions back to the highway from two women at the convenience store, which had been closed since 11, Tracie told her mother from the pay phone.

  • The next morning when it was discovered that Tracie and J.B. had never made it home, Tracie's stepfather Mike Roberts drove to Ozark, thinking he might spot a car accident. He found nothing. Tracie's parents called all the area's hospitals and police departments, but no one had reported a car wreck involving Tracie and J.B.

  • At the time of the murders, Chief Spivey was in his fourth year in the position after nearly two decades on the force. (He is still Ozark's Chief of Police today.)

  • The establishment of nearby Fort Rucker in 1941 was a catalyst for growth in the Ozark area, which led to the arrival of serious crime in the area by the 1980s.
Again, great sleuthing Wondergirl! Thank you!
 
Wondergirl said:
Has this possible link to the killer been discussed yet, the Welborn and Bullock murders, very similar to our girls.
Click to expand...

This was briefly mentioned early on; I myself didn't post much on it since the perpetrators of the Mississippi murders had been apprehended and cleared in the Beasley-Hawlett case. Pretty mind-blowing that there could be such strong similarities in cases that turn out to be completely unrelated, isn't it?
 
Do you remember when I put out my scenario when this came to light a few weeks ago?
The fact that I was so close kinda creeps me out.
 
That is creepy for sure!

And mind blowing-out of the blue about the white truck! Is there any documentation anywhere stating the source of that article?

And the Freeman/Bible connection-that is surprising. I was confused- to me the article wasn't very clear on that? How did you all take that comment?
 
I didn't know the white truck had been identified. The link I posted awhile back to the CoE was what I thought was the last update. It turns out that the last update on that page was 8/14/05. I haven't seen it mentioned anywhere else that the wt was cleared. Did Pat get that info himself from Spivey or is there an article somewhere we're missing? We need to know if they have cleared the white truck.

Pat was the webmaster for wiregrass.com I believe, I'm not sure if he sold the domain when they changed the format or if he still ownes it. I believe he was a Ozark resident and went by his real name, first and last when he posted on the old format. As I mentioned before some comments can still be read in the readers comments section of the old wiregrass.com page.

Last week when Dime posted the facts as we know it back on page 1, I thought it might be a good idea to send that post to the investigators or maybe spivey himself to see if they would be willing check the facts that Dime posted and make any corrections that need to be made and edit where needed to the point they feel comfortable with without giving away things they dont want to put out. I still think it would be helpfull but unsure if they would be willing, I do know it is needed, after all there's little to no places in the public domain where people can go to get the basic facts of this still unsolved case.

Here is a link to as best I can tell the last update on the old CoE on 8/14/05.
It talks about tracies parents hiring a PI.

http://web.archive.org/web/20051111015932/http://www.wiregrass.com/Ozark/chronology.html
 
LR1 said:
I didn't know the white truck had been identified. The link I posted awhile back to the CoE was what I thought was the last update. It turns out that the last update on that page was 8/14/05. I haven't seen it mentioned anywhere else that the wt was cleared. Did Pat get that info himself from Spivey or is there an article somewhere we're missing? We need to know if they have cleared the white truck.

Pat was the webmaster for wiregrass.com I believe, I'm not sure if he sold the domain when they changed the format or if he still ownes it. I believe he was a Ozark resident and went by his real name, first and last when he posted on the old format. As I mentioned before some comments can still be read in the readers comments section of the old wiregrass.com page.

Last week when Dime posted the facts as we know it back on page 1, I thought it might be a good idea to send that post to the investigators or maybe spivey himself to see if they would be willing check the facts that Dime posted and make any corrections that need to be made and edit where needed to the point they feel comfortable with without giving away things they dont want to put out. I still think it would be helpfull but unsure if they would be willing, I do know it is needed, after all there's little to no places in the public domain where people can go to get the basic facts of this still unsolved case.

Here is a link to as best I can tell the last update on the old CoE on 8/14/05.
It talks about tracies parents hiring a PI.

http://web.archive.org/web/20051111015932/http://www.wiregrass.com/Ozark/chronology.html
Click to expand...

We need as many facts as LE is willing to give us. We have spent time on things such as the white truck when it's possible we didn't need to.

I still want to know if there is documentation of that article that states the white truck has been ruled out.
 
In Dime Detective's summary back up the page(I can't seem to get the hang of quoting w/o using the entire post) he outlined what the girls did from the time Tracie got off work until they got to Ozark. That convinces me they told the truth about getting lost and ending up in Ozark at the time they did. The time frame fits perfectly and although it's been awhile since I have been in the area where they were supposed to have gotten lost, I believe just a wrong turn would have been all it took for them to have ended up in Ozark rather than Dothan.

I know we speculated earlier on that getting lost might have been a cover story for the girls to stay out later or meet up with someone in Ozark. But after reading this information, I am more convinced than ever that this was not a cover story by the girls, they were really lost.
 
killarney rose said:
In Dime Detective's summary back up the page(I can't seem to get the hang of quoting w/o using the entire post) he outlined what the girls did from the time Tracie got off work until they got to Ozark. That convinces me they told the truth about getting lost and ending up in Ozark at the time they did. The time frame fits perfectly and although it's been awhile since I have been in the area where they were supposed to have gotten lost, I believe just a wrong turn would have been all it took for them to have ended up in Ozark rather than Dothan.

I know we speculated earlier on that getting lost might have been a cover story for the girls to stay out later or meet up with someone in Ozark. But after reading this information, I am more convinced than ever that this was not a cover story by the girls, they were really lost.
Click to expand...

KR, I would encourage you to check out the map shown 1:03 - 1:27 in Part 1 of the Haunting Evidence episode:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xinS0wn_Ca4

I spent a lot of time looking at this segment of video trying to figure out exactly which routes the girls took to Ozark. (I'm assuming the route traced on the map is the one known or believed by LE to be the one they took; surely the girls' earlier stop at the BP helped in determining this.) Maybe since you're more familiar with the area you'll be able to identify their route.

At this point I tend to agree with you, KR, that the girls were genuinely lost that night. The fact that neither girl was excited to go out to the party speaks volumes to me and has the ring of truth to it. The more I learn about J.B. and Tracie, the more convinced I become that they were really good girls. I know J.B. was having a tough time; I also know that anything is possible. But my gut tells me the girls were being genuine and honest when they called to say they had gotten lost.

Supporting this, as I've stated before, is the fact that they actually asked for directions at the Big/Little Store. If they were up to something else and knew where they were, this step would've been absolutely unnecessary, as a phone call home would've sufficed as a cover story.
 
Here are screen caps of the map tracing the girls' route from the Haunting Evidence episode. After image 1 there was an edit to an interview clip with Tracie's mother so it's difficult to tell which way the girls went at the large fork coming out of Dothan; to my eye it looks like they went straight ahead, splitting the two larger routes to the right and left. In images 2-4 the girls are moving right to left. I've outlined the highlighted route in red to make it easier to see:


731Route1.jpg



731Route2.jpg



731Route3.jpg



731Route4.jpg
 
On the top map, it shows 3 main routes leaving Dothan.If you picture those 3 routes as the postion of hand on a clock, and the circle around Dothan as the clock face, the one at about the 1:00 position would be Hwy 431. That is the most direct route to Headland from Dothan-it runs straight through Headland.

The route to the left of that, is hwy 231. It is slightly to the left of the spot marking the party. It seems to me that the girls should have taken 231 as the closest way to get to the party. But its probable the ended up taking 431 instead. I say that for several reasons.

People from Dothan know that 431 is the road to get to Headland. 231 does not go to Headland. It goes in the opposite direction to Midland City and Ozark.

However-

This party was a field party which means it was in the country. If people in that area of the party call where they live Headland, this might have been how the girls became confused and drove to the party on the wrong hwy.

Once they were actually in the town of Headland, they were confused. If they continued north on hwy 431, they would have come to the intersection of hwy 27 and hwy 431. This is most likely how they came to be on hwy 27 and ended up in Ozark as this would have been the first town they came to after turning on to 27.

The timing is right. I can see them turned around and confused about where they are. They are most likely annoyed at the entire situation- a party neither really wanted to attend, they got lost trying to be polite and put in an appearance, they have missed curfew and are worried about that....their guard is down which led most likely to them not being as caustious as they should've been.

And there they are- it's almost like they were led to their killer.
 
Lots of great talk going on here. The DBK theory is interesting. But those statements about ruling out the white truck should be taken with a grain of salt, could have come from anywhere, it also basically said that they were still waiting for forensics to come back... FIVE YEARS LATER... i mean c'mon did they send the evidence to China?
 
killarney rose said:
On the top map, it shows 3 main routes leaving Dothan.If you picture those 3 routes as the postion of hand on a clock, and the circle around Dothan as the clock face, the one at about the 1:00 position would be Hwy 431. That is the most direct route to Headland from Dothan-it runs straight through Headland.

The route to the left of that, is hwy 231. It is slightly to the left of the spot marking the party. It seems to me that the girls should have taken 231 as the closest way to get to the party. But its probable the ended up taking 431 instead. I say that for several reasons.

People from Dothan know that 431 is the road to get to Headland. 231 does not go to Headland. It goes in the opposite direction to Midland City and Ozark.

However-

This party was a field party which means it was in the country. If people in that area of the party call where they live Headland, this might have been how the girls became confused and drove to the party on the wrong hwy.

Once they were actually in the town of Headland, they were confused. If they continued north on hwy 431, they would have come to the intersection of hwy 27 and hwy 431. This is most likely how they came to be on hwy 27 and ended up in Ozark as this would have been the first town they came to after turning on to 27.

The timing is right. I can see them turned around and confused about where they are. They are most likely annoyed at the entire situation- a party neither really wanted to attend, they got lost trying to be polite and put in an appearance, they have missed curfew and are worried about that....their guard is down which led most likely to them not being as caustious as they should've been.

And there they are- it's almost like they were led to their killer.
Click to expand...

Excellent post, KR! Thank you.
 
Did they run the DNA through CODIS? I would assume so- so wouldn't it match the DBK?
 
deca said:
Did they run the DNA through CODIS? I would assume so- so wouldn't it match the DBK?
Click to expand...

I've read that LE in Daytona Beach have run the recovered DNA of the DBK through both the State of Florida Databank as well as CODIS; Ozark investigators have done the same with the DNA recovered from the Beasley-Hawlett crime scene. As I understand it, when a check is made the DNA of these two unsubs are being checked against the DNA of all known violent offenders/felons. So the thing is, I'm not sure if it's common practice for investigators to compare the DNA of two unsubs unless they strongly suspect the cases are linked.

Hopefully someone can shed some light on this for us so we can rule out a possible connection between the DBK and the killer of J.B. and Tracie.
 
The party to my understanding was near Haleburg. That's on hwy 95, ten to fifteen miles east of Headland. LE talked to people who were there and they said the girls never showed up. They also wanted to talk to people who might have went to a party in Ariton which is north of Ozark. This is all mentioned in the coe early on. It looks like The pictures from the haunting evidence show has the party location at county road 75 in Midland city. so I guess you can take your pick, I don't know what is accurate and what is not.

The route from the show has the girls traveling from headland towards Midland city on 134 and turning onto county road 73 just north of Napier Field then turning west on CR-14, finally turning north on CR-59 which would have took them to hwy 27. Again we have no way of knowing how accurate this is or what brought them to this conclusion.

They left Tracie's shortly after 10pm and was seen at the BP in Headland at 10:30. It's 10.5 miles give or take from the center of Dothan to the BP via 431, about 8 miles of it is four lane. From the time they left Tracie's, and I don't know exactly where that is nor do I want to but for this discussion lets call it the center of Dothan. By the time they left the house, stopped at a few red lights and made their way to where the four lane started I can see that eating up 10 minutes or so, and from there another 10 minutes to the BP. This route in my mind is established because its the only way they could have got there between the time they left Tracie's and the time they were seen at the BP.

But from here routes and plans are not as clear. Did they go on to try to find the party or did they go to plan B and decide to do something else in the short time they had before curfew that was quickly approaching. we do know they showed up at the big little in Ozark around 11:30. I don't even know if there would be any relevance in the route they took other than if it was found out that they took 134 to 231 and then up to Ozark this would tell me they went there as a matter of purpose rather than just showing up there lost. At this point I have no reason to believe that they weren't lost like Tracie told her mom, and getting directions to 231 certainly points to them being lost. Ultimately its the route they took when they left the store and more importantly who they ran into that has this case at a stand still.
 
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