Family Ties | Chapter 5

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The frustrating part about this case and the thing that really continues to bother me, or to bother me as an investigator, is that I picked up the case. It obviously had a lot of moving parts. It was, it was kind of convoluted. There were theories that had been going around everything with the Dylan Glass, all the way up to to Chino to. I've heard everything in the world as it relates to Justin coming up missing.

It was Ballou's son, Dylan Glass, who first came forward with information about being involved in the Gaines case. Glass is a self-professed gang member who is now doing federal time on drug charges.

He could look at you straight in the face, lie to you and not flinch, and body language is 80, 85 percent of communication. So when a guy has the ability to to actually mask his body language and to and to lie straight to you, that makes it very difficult to kind of figure out which way he's going and why.

Former Gwinnett County investigator, Colonel Carl Sims intricately knows the Gaines case. He was lead investigator, though he didn't work the case until several years after Justin's disappearance. He's very knowledgeable about all that's transpired and has personally interviewed several of the key witnesses and suspects involved, including Dylan Glass. This is the man Glass is accused of, coercing witness statements to implicate him.

I came in when he came into custody on a drug charge, a federal drug charge. He gave up a lot of information and then decided that he was going to confess. That's kind of where I picked up the case and started running hard with it, because several of the things that he said made perfect sense. One thing is that is that Dylan had actually went to a trailer park and spoke with a couple of people that morning, and the news media had not even reported, or nobody had reported, that Justin Gaines was missing. Nobody even knew he was missing at that time.

Sims speaks quickly and with conviction. He's intelligent and polite and welcomed me into his home when we spoke, which is decked out in a kind of posh Western theme. Sims told me that he came into this case with no preconceived theories and without assuming guilt on anyone at first, contrary to what Glass believes. Sims' own findings would lead him to believe Glass was involved in Justin Gaines' demise. One key witness in this case that strengthens that belief for Sims is Dylan's own mother, Tammy Ballew.

One of the biggest things that really kind of drove me, that that Dylan Glass had something to do with it, was that, after interviewing his mother, Tammy, a lot of the things that Dylan had said were actually corroborated with her. Now, keep in mind, Dylan and Tammy had been estranged for years. Tammy was a hardcore meth head, moved up to the Augusta area, been out of the loop for a while and really had not had the opportunity, in my opinion, to actually sit down and create a fabricated story with Dylan Glass. Not to the detail. that it was, because while some things were vague, other things were very locked in, that they were there that night in Andy Pickens' basement.

From Waveland, I'm Sean Kite, and this is Drowning Creek.

Once we talked to him, he was trying to. at that time in his life, he was trying to get himself back. He had just got out of prison. He was trying to get himself back or get life started in a way that it was not going to send him back to prison. And so he agreed to to talk.

Even with Justin Glass's help, Tammy was initially hesitant to speak on the matter. Her son urged her to cooperate by saying things like, come on, mom, tell them what happened. Tell them what you told me. And she did. It was a major break in the case.

Took a little bit of convincing, but she said, yeah, OK, I'll tell you. And she regurgitated basically the thing. She was there in the basement. Everything that was told to us, she laid out completely what was happening. It appeared to be unrehearsed.

else. I've not seen this recorded interview because neither Gwinnett County PD nor Walton County sheriffs can currently find the video.

It was in a dingy little rat trap trailer in the middle of I mean, it was horrible. The conditions of the interview, which she actually laid everything out to the point where you ask if you believe something and you read body language. At this point, I felt there was a lot of truth to what she was saying, because it just everything she was saying was kind of clicking into into what we had hypothesized may have happened that night, with everything with Andy Pickens and her living there and naming the names and the people in the night and the gunshots, and everything that she and what she saw was very articulate.

It was just there. Tammy told Sims and another investigator what happened that night, that she was in Andy Pickens house where she lived at the time, and that Justin Gaines, quote, came back later that night, leaving everyone to believe Gaines had been there earlier in the evening on November 1st. And remember, Justin's whereabouts have been unaccounted for for nearly four hours prior to him arriving at Wild Bill's. Is it possible that he had been at Pickens home earlier that evening? And if so, why?

So I got excited. I said, look, I can't let you go. I mean, you're not under arrest, but I can't let you go. I need you. I need you to come back to Gwinnett County with me.

Convincing Tammy Blue to come back to the station to give a formal interview in front of other officers and make a statement was a massive break in the case. Now it was real. And for the first time in nearly eight years since Justin's disappearance, investigators began to feel that they might be able to finally close this case.

prosecute. She sat there and she said, OK, I'll show you where the body is. We got everybody, we got a search team together. She took us right to where, allegedly where this well was. We spent almost two days with her, directing us where she remembered, where, where this body went to.

The body ain't here.

Yes. At that time, I truly believed at that time to be the truth. And I still believe there's a lot that that she told us was truthful. But now, in hindsight, because of the way she led us later, she led us down to again, right down and then back piss backwards on me. How much did she lie up front and how much is still?

After two days of searching wells in Barrow County, Tammy Blue walked back her confession. She said she had lied. Tonight, a woman is in jail and she's charged in connection with the case.

This is the first time we are seeing criminal Tammy Blue. He is charged with lying to investigators about Justin Gaines remains and basically leading them on a wild goose chase.

Martin Wilkie was also arrested.

The arrest of Martin Wilkie on concealing a death charge as investigators scoured high shoals in Walton County looking for Gaines remains. The Wilkie arrest.

Wilkie's charges for concealing a death would later be dropped. But Sims is still convinced that Tammy's confession was real, at least most of it.

There was no reason for her to to take us and move us in that direction. There was. she had nothing really over to gain by lying to us at that time. But I think she just realized that if they find this body and I take him to the right spot, that's it, I'm done. And she realizes that she is an absolute material witness and or accessory to this, this murder, and that she would probably get indicted as well.

know, the death penalty. I have been trying to reach Tammy for months with no luck. I've called and emailed every number and address I can find, and I've even sent letters to the physical addresses I could find. I want to see what she says now. While working to track her down, I had a little stroke of luck.

Hey, this is Bridget, I was told to give you a call about Dillon, if you can call that.

And remember, Bridget is the young girl who Dillon claimed was the sole reason his name was ever brought up. in Justin Gaines's disappearance. He said she was a crackhead who was looking for a reward and nothing more. It was Dillon who insisted I needed to talk with her. I've been trying for weeks to get her to speak with me, but no luck.

How did you come about to even finding Dillon to talk to him about everything? What have you been told, as far as with my name, what have you heard?

She says, like, a lot, which I think is her being nervous. Bridget seemed more concerned about what I knew initially. But as we chatted, she became more comfortable with me. And that's when the interview really got interesting.

This is when it first happened. I've seen it on the news.

One of the things Dillon tells me about. when I asked him about this, he said she was looking for a reward.

It had nothing to do with that. I grew up not having money. He said, like, money ain't, I don't care about the money. When I first seen it on the news, I don't know, it was just this feeling I got. And that's when Leon comes about.

Like what things?

Just that they're not going to find him.

This message that you sent, though, to your brother, and now you're telling me that you sent that because you were hearing these rumors and you had a feeling. Can you remember what made you get that feeling? that Dillon could have been responsible for this, you know, for Justin Gaines's death or disappearance?

The conversation got brought up, with the boy being missing or whatever. And that's when the comment was, you know, made that he ain't going to be found.

Bridget and I discussed the things that she was hearing shortly after Justin's disappearance hit the news. She was a part of Dillon's clique, which also included Leon, Shane, Andy Pickens, and a host of others. She told me flat out that she was never interested in a reward. And this makes sense to me because, again, if it was about money, she likely would have at least tried a little harder and she would have told someone other than her younger teenage brother. And she also made him promise not to repeat what she told him.

I don't even like, that's not even the type of kid that, like Dillon, would hang out with. He's a like a white boy that had a good life for his mom and dad and had, you know what I'm saying? Like, that's just not somebody that Dillon would be around. Maybe Leon, you know, I could see Leon, maybe being, cause. he's like a little preppy white boy, you know?

The things she began to tell me actually seemed to match up with what I'd heard from Dillon. Like when I asked if he'd ever been to Wild Bill's that she knew of.

Dillon's not a club person. If he's going to, like, if he's going to do it, he's going to go to a house party before he would a club.

Dillon was adamant that he never went to clubs. I begin to wonder, could there be truth in what Dillon Glass was telling me? Or was Bridget just covering for him? Would you say things to protect him?

Uh, I really, I don't know. I can't even really speak on that. I would have done anything back then to stand by Dillon and defend him, you know? I can say that I'm not hiding anything to help him.

I found out that Dillon had spoken to Bridget after he and I first discussed her. Actually, I found out he had reached out to a few people we talked about before I could get in touch with him. Was he prepping these people? What to say?

With me, he didn't like reach out to me. It just so happened. I was around someone that he was on the phone with. He didn't even like tell me like what to say, what not to say.

Though Bridget told me Dillon just casually mentioned that I might be calling her. Could this entire interview now be tainted? To find out, I had one last ace up my sleeve.

I wish he could be on the call with us.

Things changed in my conversation with Bridget after she heard this. I could tell that she was hurt by what he had said and slowly she began to divulge more information. I could also tell that she still cares for Dillon. She married his brother, Justin Glass, who's also in prison and has intimate knowledge of the rough upbringing the two men had. I asked Bridget outright the question I really came to get answered.

At first, no, not really. But then, I mean, at this point, Dillon's, you know, admitted to it. But of course, I guess they can't charge him because they don't have a body.

Well, and he's now saying that his confession was a lie.

That's weird. Too much adds up, you know? Just from what I've been told, after it happened, supposedly, like, it really fucked with Dillon's head and he would, like, at that guy Andy's house, it was like, I guess it was like downstairs, kind of off the, maybe the garage. They said, Dillon would just, like, sit in that room and just kind of, like, be locked in space because of what happened.

Who said that?

Shane.

Do you think Shane had some role in this?

Maybe, I'm honest, yeah.

And again, Shane's name enters the picture. I have a feeling that this guy could be more important to solving this case than I thought.

He's more important than what any of us have gotten, I think.

When investigators learned that Dillon was in Shane's truck when the two were allegedly looking for a place to hide out and at the pawn shop, they wanted to search it to see if Justin had ever been inside. By the time this information about Dillon and Shane came to light, though, Shane was in a local jail and his truck had disappeared, but Bob Pullno is determined to track it down.

I got a tip that he was being let out of jail on a certain day. So I waited for him and followed him to his vehicle.

That old fashioned PI work is what gave Bob the jump on. Shane. You heard some of the interview in the last episode.

Believe me, just to put an end to all this, if I heard anything or knew anything,

I'd come forward with it, you know, but I don't know anything.

And I know Dillon didn't have anything to do with it.

Now, in the conversation, Shane tells Bob that he has no knowledge of Justin Gaines or what happened to him. He sticks up for Dillon and says he's absolutely innocent. After his encounter with Shane, Bob learned he no longer owned that truck and that it had been salvaged. Caught intuition, but this stood out as very odd to Bob.

And I called every salvage lot, every possible entity that would salvage a car or auction it.

Knowing that Andy Pickens' van and houseboat were both MIA, Bob knew finding this truck was extremely important. And after extensively searching, he found the man that bought the truck at an auction. The title listed the truck as having been totaled.

It was very suspicious because I don't know why an insurance company and the owner, the new owner of that truck said he had no idea how it was ever told. He said essentially there was nothing wrong with this truck. It just had some dents. And Shane told me when I asked him about the dents in the truck or totaling of it, he said he hit a deer and he hit a mailbox.

Finding this vehicle was a small victory for investigators. If there was any evidence that proved Justin Gaines had been in it, case closed. The truck was towed to Gwinnett County Police Headquarters and forensically processed. But there was no evidence Justin had been in the vehicle. Why did these people all get rid of their vehicles and even a houseboat immediately after Justin disappeared?

I've been retired almost three years now, so about a year after I retired, after I left Gwinnett County, I was actually in Walton County in civilian clothes in the Home Depot shopping for something. As I was in the aisle, I felt somebody standing next to me staring at me, you know, you just get that that thing. And I knew, but I turned to look and initially I didn't. I knew I knew him, but I didn't recognize him. It had been a while.

There just had to be something more to Shane. Why does his name keep coming up? Why did he get so emotional after all this time discussing Justin Gaines?

Now he's, now. he's being deceitful, and you know, he's being deceitful, but why is he being deceitful? So I never could pin Shane down.

Suddenly I'm struck with a dose of reality. If an experienced investigator like Carl Sims can't get much out of someone like Shane, what hope do I have? It astounds me that so many people in this case could be a part of a crime like this and not have talked, given themselves or someone else up or flat out, just made a stupid mistake, big enough to result in an arrest for murder. How is this possible?

The question you just asked me is the reason I didn't want to talk to you. So, because, whether you want to accept this or not, myself and the other investigators involved in this case, we're, we're human. now that I'm talking about this again, you just pulled the scab off the wound, you know, now it's, it's back in my mind again. I'm reliving that investigation. I'm reliving the, the part of the answers.

Like Justin's family, investigators like Sims and Bob Pulno have been worn down little by little by this case. The emotional strain of being so close, yet still so far from solving this case, eventually takes its toll.

There would be so many nights in a row after chasing these people from hell and high water, just to find them to talk to, to get them to give you this much, and then you lay in bed at night and, and then, you know, your, your family goes, what's wrong with you? What are you thinking about? Oh, nothing. I'm good. No, you're not good.

The biggest question of all to me is one that I often find slowly creeping into the back of my mind. Is this case even solvable anymore?

I can't be more adamant about this.

But just as things seem more bleak and confusing than ever. I spoke to Erica Wilson about Justin and the case as a whole. Through the course of our talk, she confided in me something that she had been recently given a new lead on a possible location of her son's body.

I had a gentleman reach out to me and said he spoke with someone that used to date Martin Wilkie, and this guy said he asked the girl, hey, what about Justin Gaines? And the girl says, yeah, everyone knows, they put them in the toolbox and they moved him to this location. They gave me a specific location.

The lead Eric is talking about pointed to a particular cove at Lake Lanier. The lake on which both Andy Pickens and Martin Wilkie's houseboat sat and where, we're told, Justin was submerged after being placed in a toolbox. So much of this case revolves around this particular lake. And now we have a lead on an exact spot. The worst thing that could happen if we follow this lead is we spend a little time and money and find nothing.