AL AL - J.B. Beasley, 17, & Tracie Hawlett, 17, Ozark, 31 July 1999 #2

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Could the person whom stated here earlier that they are with ABI contact me via PM. Thanks!
 
Can anyone say definitively that the driver of the white truck was identified and ruled out? I can't find anywhere that this is the case. One way or the other, it is pretty critical to understanding the situation and ultimately figuring out what happened.

However the abductor managed to get the girls to stop (I think they were posing as LE but there are other possibilities), he had to know that there we two "targets" in the Mazda. At night, you can not tell who is in a vehicle. Most likely he noticed them at the store and then waited around until the girls left so he would know which direction they would go. If it wasn't the white truck, I'll bet there was another vehicle stopped near the Mini-Mart.
 
LR1, I think you are correct, way back in the first thread I believe it was mentioned in a different article. With a link, but to find it would mean going through the entire thread.
 
Quick Question? If anyone knows how far is RT 60 from the store they stopped at? Specifically an inlet called Goldmine Hollow?
 
kemo said:
I hope my contribution is up to the standards you all have set.
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Now you're being silly


1) As in any homicide investigation, a certain amount of "investigation" must be conducted on the victims. An adequate investigation would require that any chance that the seman got on B.J.'s undies through "innocent means" be ruled out 99.9%. (in 1999, there was no way DNA could be obtained from fabrique after it had been washed). We have to be able to assume that this was done and we can conclude that the DNA belong to the killer..

2)I am satisfied that the narrative that they blundered into Ozark accidentally while trying to find the party or find their way back is essentially accurate. If they had some unknown reason to go there, it is irrelevant to solving the crime. By asking Mrs. Merritt for directions back to Dothan, they established that they were in a town they were unfamiliar with and they were intent on returning immediately. The odds of encountering someone they knew who meant them harm is virtually nil. The were victims of a stranger sexual predator.
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Its my opinion that the DNA found is related, I did entertain the thought that it might not be but this was mostly because its a small town where everyone knows everyone's business, the large number of peoples DNA they compared it to without a match, the early reports of them not being sexually assaulted and probably the biggest reason, the decade and a half with no arrest. As you point out, we don't know if they were able to account for JB's whereabouts for, lets say the 36 hours prior to the murders. This was Saturday night, did they go out Friday night as well? I'll take your word for the inability to find DNA after a wash cycle.

I'm not 100% convinced they were unfamiliar with the location they called from but I can see them getting turned around on some of the back roads. I have to disagree however about the possibility of them having some unknown reason to go there. If they did it could be very relevant to solving the crime.


I'm pretty sure our perp left his own vehicle on East Broad st; probably near Depot. He left the Mazda on Herring because it was within walking distance and no one would see him leaving the car. Until the actual abduction, he had no way of knowing in advance that he would need to have a discrete place to abandon a vehicle that night. Still, he knew about Herring St which, from what I can tell is a pretty obscure spot. Soldiers on base will venture into town for shopping and entertainment, but I don't see a reason many would be familiar with that area. I'm betting the guy was local.
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This seems to be the prevailing theory but if parked any other place but a driveway it would be conspicuous, if on the side of the road it would surely stand out. This had to take over an hour, possibly many hours. I've thought someone on foot would make more sense having no vehicle to deal with. That always leads to the question about someone loitering around, would he be packing a 9mm? this seems risky without the murders. unless it was planned and the girls happened to cross paths with him. I agree about the isolation on herring, one thing that might have at times drawn people not from the neighborhood there is the ball fields.
 
December said:
I have read several instances of different cities not having backlogs of DNA collected from rape kits tested for quite some time. If the perpetrator is a multiple offender, maybe he hasn't been identified purely for that reason. Detroit was one of the cities that had a huge backlog of untested rape kits. I really can't remember the other cities.
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Regarding the DNA not matching up to anything yet, I think its possible if it is related that this guy could be a offender who maybe did his time and was out but had been out for awhile and it was before the requirement to give DNA, maybe even before offender registration was required.
 
There is a county road 60 nine miles from the store the girls called from, and it is a turn off from that same road (Andrews Avenue turns into 105 at some point past the railroad tracks heading towards Skipperville). I have not heard of a Goldmine Hollow, but I can tell you that if you go left onto CR 60 there is a pond and a creek about a mile down.
 
Irishrose70 said:
There is a county road 60 nine miles from the store the girls called from, and it is a turn off from that same road (Andrews Avenue turns into 105 at some point past the railroad tracks heading towards Skipperville). I have not heard of a Goldmine Hollow, but I can tell you that if you go left onto CR 60 there is a pond and a creek about a mile down.
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Thanks what I wanted to know. Thanks a bunch.
 
TedMac said:
This is a very good post and you obviously have put a lot of thought into it. I would like to add the following:

BBM They were either forced to walk through a pond or perhaps a creek or they may have tried to escape running through a body of water in the process.

BBM He either masturbated on JB or forced her to perform a sex act on him and "finished" on her. He may have done this to Tracie as well and finished on JB. If this act was performed on one or both of them, I believe LE is keeping that part of the investigation under wraps.

BBM I don't have the link in front of me, but I am pretty sure that the driver of the white truck was identified and cleared.
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I agree he did leave evidence not only on one area but another article as well and either LE has this article in their possession or he has it as a trophy.
 
Hi everyone, I am new to the group. It's taken me a LONG time to catch up on this thread but I've always wondered what happened to them from Day 1. I knew both JB and Tracie, I had several classes with both of them throughout the years and I went to church with Tracie. We weren't in the same social circles but they were both very sweet girls. I was in church the morning they found the car and Tracie's mom started crying. I remember thinking "this can't be real". Tracie was very sweet and would go out of her way to help someone. She had recovered from an auto accident during school (I think it was our Soph or Jr year.. cant remember for sure). Her and some friends left campus at lunch to ride up 431 to Mcdonalds for lunch (we weren't supposed to leave campus) and in turning back into school parking lot was broadsided on 431. I know Tracie had some head trauma and was out of school several months recovering. I didn't know JB as well but from a little time in class with her, she was also very sweet to most people, she had spunk but I wouldn't say she was manipulative at all, she would stand up for what she believed in. And yes, as far as her living with her dance instructor Patti that is true b/c of issues with her mom. I still see Tracie's mom from time to time, I no longer go to the same church, nor do I really see many people from school that would be in their circles. I moved out of Dothan early 2001 to attend school in Mobile. I returned late fall of that year and got married and moved to Abbeville.

I can remember back then most of us at Northview had cell phones, they were huge but we had them. I have followed this case from the beginning and I've heard so many rumors it's unreal. I started driving the beginning of my Soph year and can remember only driving to school, library, grocery stores and the mall. I know I wouldn't go anywhere, esp in the dark, without knowing where I was. Even one night on my way home from my co-op job at the civic center (JB was in my class for FBLA/co-op but I dont know where she worked for the class) I was on 231 near the little nursery garden across from Montana St when I ran over a brake drum from an 18-wheeler. I pulled off to the side of the road in a parking lot of a deer processing place and was freaking out. It was dark, I hit something that I heard go under my car, and didn't know if I did any damage to my vehicle. I called my parents and was on the phone with them when a guy knocked on my window scaring the crap out of me. I was taught to keep my doors locked and stay in the car, especially at night. The guy started saying "get out of the car, you're leaking gas" and repeated it over and over.. I didn't know if I should believe him or not and I told my parents what the guy was saying and they told me to get out. Thankfully he was a guy from the nursery garden locking up when he saw i was in trouble and came to help. But that was our frame of mind back then, be leary of anyone and keep your doors locked. I still tend to stick to that school of thought to this day. Tracie's parents lived about 5minutes from 431. If the party was in Haleburg as some reports say, they would have gone North on 431 to headland and turned right (across the street from the gas station they were spotted at). If they decided to continue on to the party why did they turn left instead of right? The intersection is well lit and the road signs were visable. County road 99 (to the right as you are going North on 431) would have led them to Tumbleton then once veered off there straight to Haleburg. Going left (as you are going North on 431) is 173 or 134 both of which lead away from Haleburg but further into Headland, Midland City and beyond. If they were lost and decided to just return home, why would they not turn around and go back the way they came on 431? It's a straight shot and even if they were not familiar with the area as i would not have been, I would be able to find 431, especially if I had just travelled on it.

I think about those two all of the time, even though I wasn't really close to them... this case is always on my mind and I pray for it to be solved.
 
By the way great info on all the previous posts! I'm glad I found this group and hope to give any insight that I can.
 
Mamahix said:
By the way great info on all the previous posts! I'm glad I found this group and hope to give any insight that I can.
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Welcome to Websleuths and it is always great to have someone with knowledge of the local area. Please feel free to write a post on anything you have knowledge of or interest in. Maybe someday this horrible crime will be solved.

Regarding the "wrong turn" they made on 431, some of us have thought they may have planned to go somewhere else prior to the party and that is when they crossed paths with their killer or killers.
 
LR1 said:
That always leads to the question about someone loitering around, would he be packing a 9mm? this seems risky without the murders. unless it was planned and the girls happened to cross paths with him. I agree about the isolation on herring, one thing that might have at times drawn people not from the neighborhood there is the ball fields.
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I brought this up before - what if they accidentally trespassed and the homeowner or whoever had a gun in the house? Is alerted to a car outside, gets angry and walks out with his gun, sees it's two young, pretty girls and decides to threaten them/have his way with them? Lives nearby so only needs to walk home from herring - can't keep J B's car at his own property...
 
This case has haunted me since I first got caught up on it.
1. It has to be MORE than a coincidence that their vehicle was found so CLOSE to where they were last seen alive. To me, this is the essence of the case.
2. Ask yourself why dump the car there??? There are SO MANY other places within 5 minutes drive time that are much more desolate than Herring St. WHY? Because there was only one killer and he was on foot. He parked it where he could get back to his vehicle or walk home. I believe this more than anything. Another killer and/or vehicle and they would have dumped the car way out of town.

They were stalked, hijacked/carjacked, conned or persuaded by someone near the service station... someone who lives/lived there OR they were possibly buying pot or some recreational type drug in that immediate area. That is not something they would have advertised. I wonder if either was believed to have had any cash, paycheck or allowance on them that week. I've heard robbery was not a motive.
 
kemo said:
Can anyone say definitively that the driver of the white truck was identified and ruled out? I can't find anywhere that this is the case. One way or the other, it is pretty critical to understanding the situation and ultimately figuring out what happened.

However the abductor managed to get the girls to stop (I think they were posing as LE but there are other possibilities), he had to know that there we two "targets" in the Mazda. At night, you can not tell who is in a vehicle. Most likely he noticed them at the store and then waited around until the girls left so he would know which direction they would go. If it wasn't the white truck, I'll bet there was another vehicle stopped near the Mini-Mart.
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I can't say for sure when but I remember when it was reported...there were news reports either on tv or in the Dothan Eagle that said they white truck was cleared.
 
TedMac said:
Regarding the "wrong turn" they made on 431, some of us have thought they may have planned to go somewhere else prior to the party and that is when they crossed paths with their killer or killers.
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Tracie's mom has said that neither of them really wanted to go out that night, so I don't believe they had planned to go somewhere else when they couldn't find the original party. I wonder what kind of directions JB got from Janna's sister? I think they tried to find the party but got even more lost and that's when it went south. But instead of going in the right direction to the party in Haleburg they went the opposite direction towards Headland and the square. Something happened between the stop in Headland and the stop in Ozark. If I'm lost I wouldn't go more than a couple of miles before turning around and going back the way I had come. The theory that someone got into the back seat somewhere between the two stops and if already in the car in Ozark told them to act normal or something would happen to them or their families. That is the only thing that I can think of for them to drive that far being lost and acting normal at the Ozark gas station.

At the time, the area off 431 was not as populated as it is now. There was the gas station, subway sandwhich place (currently the new 3 Pigs BBQ), and I think that's really it on 431 at that intersection, further south was Hardees, a couple more gas stations (one of which had a Domino's pizza inside). Then even further down was apartments and then businesses even further. Someone may have snuck inside the car while they were calling from the payphone in Headland without them noticing, but you would think security footage from those gas stations would show something.. I never have seen footage from them being at the gas station in Headland.

Another thing on my mind is - what if our perp did something else after this happened and now is in prison and has been since... do they regularly re-run dna of inmates to see if it matches any other open cases? Or do they only run dna if they think they are a suspect?
 
Could it be possible that the girls decided to run by someone's house on the way to the party? But not stop, just drive by. This might have made them turn off the road that would've been an easy ride to the party, but when they tried to cut back over to the right road, they got going the wrong way? Anyone who knows the area see any possibility in this?
 
I am very analytical. Sometimes I need to see things visually laid out. Although you can never rule out possibilities in an unsolved case, I feel the need for some of us to pick a direction and roll with it. Looking at the flow chart I just threw together... what is your input? What would you add? What would you delete as a viable path?
Ozark Flow Chart.jpg
 
easongt said:
I am very analytical. Sometimes I need to see things visually laid out. Although you can never rule out possibilities in an unsolved case, I feel the need for some of us to pick a direction and roll with it. Looking at the flow chart I just threw together... what is your input? What would you add? What would you delete as a viable path?
View attachment 57064
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Thank you for the flow chart. You have obviously put a lot of time and thought into this case. I too feel that they key to the case is the location of the vehicle.

I believe it the killer acted alone and was unknown to the girls. He was probably not a resident of the area, but may have knowledge of it by doing business there or had family there.

Somehow he was able to get control of their car. I have wondered if maybe J.B. & Tracie got lost again or were not clear on the directions given to them at the convenience store where they stopped earlier. All of this is just MOO, but they may have stopped again at a different location (another store or perhaps a party they drove past?) that we are not aware of and asked for directions and the killer was there or at a minimum saw them there. Could he have been there and convinced them to give him a ride there as well? I don't really see them picking up a stranger, but perhaps he was able to some how convince them to give him a ride and he could guide them to the location of the party they were trying to reach?

I have always thought the motive was sex, a thrill-kill or both. According to LE, neither girl was raped in the traditional sense, but they may have been sodomized as evidenced by the DNA found on J.B.'s underclothes. LE made it know that only J.B. had it on her, but it could have been found on Tracie as well and LE chose not to publicize it?

Again, all of this is just my theory and there are certainly other possibilities.
 
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