Hell and Gone: Murder Line

Six bodies were found in Wonder Valley between December of 2019 and January of  2021. Some of the bodies in the desert, including the disappearance of 37 year old single mother Erika Lloyd, started making local, then national, news. But there were no national news reports about James Escalante. 

We’re going to dive into the missing persons report and compare accounts from the last people who saw James to see if we can shed more light into what really happened out there in the desert on June 25, 2020. 

If you have a case you’d like Catherine Townsend to look into, you can reach out to us at our Hell and Gone Murder Line at 678-744-6145.

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On June 25, 2020, 56-year-old James Escalante, who also went by Blackhawk, left home on a red mountain bike to help Dee, a friend of his and his girlfriend Sherry’s, whose truck had gotten stuck in the desert. 

But he never made it back home, and no one reported him missing until September 7th. Heather Escalante and her husband Jon, James’ son, began their own search. 

After Heather started posting on social media and looking for information, she heard that remains were found in the desert on August 8th by a hiker. The body was a John Doe. Half his face was missing, he had long black hair and there was no ID found. 

Heather contacted the detective working the case to say that she believed that the body could be James, and on December 15th, the family’s worst fears were confirmed. They got a call from the coroner. James Escalante was dead. His cause and manner of his death were undetermined. 

What happened out there in the desert?

 

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On June 25, 2020, a 56-year-old named James Escalante, who had Native American heritage and was also known by his nickname, Blackhawk, left his home in Wonder Valley, California on his mountain bike

James lived with a girlfriend, Sherry, and she told law enforcement that he left the home that day to head down the road about 10 minutes from their place to help a friend of theirs named Dee whose car had gotten stuck in sugar sand, which is almost like dry desert quicksand.  

It’s hot out there; the average temperature for that part of the desert in July and August is 89 degrees and highs regularly top out over 100, or even 105. 

And out there in the desert it’s dry heat so it feels like you’re baking in an oven.

It happens every year - hikers go missing or people just wander off and get lost and don’t come back. But the terrain also means that when people do go missing under mysterious circumstances it can be easier for local law enforcement to write it off as just an accident. 

Now supposedly the friend, Dee, had been out looking for rocks near Highway 62 and Shelton Road east of Twentynine Palms. And James had lived in that desert for a long time, and knew the area well. So the plan was for James to meet her at a specific  intersection to rescue her. 

But once he got out there, according to Sherry, he couldn’t find Dee. So James called Sherry on his cell phone to figure out what was going on. At that point, Sherry called Dee on a three way call, and James told Dee to honk her horn so that he could find her. 

He seemed to think he could hear her, so he hung up. But he never got to Dee’s car. And no one ever saw James Escalante alive again.

If you have a case you’d like Catherine Townsend to look into, you can reach out to us at our Hell and Gone Murder Line at 678-744-6145. 

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On September 29, 2023, just over nine months after William Vick was found dead on his bedroom floor in Clarksville Arkansas, his house caught on fire and burned down under very suspicious circumstances. 

If you have a case you’d like Catherine Townsend to look into, you can reach out to us at our Hell and Gone Murder Line at 678-744-6145. 

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Christine Harron, a book-loving teenager from Hanover, Ontario, leaves for school in the spring of 1993 and is never seen again. A suspect emerges, confessing to her murder, but the case falls apart and Christine's family are left without answers.

In Season 9 of the award winning podcast Someone Knows Something, David Ridgen, along with Christine's mother, reopen the investigation and come face to face with the man who said he killed Chrissy.

Someone Knows Something is the investigative true crime series by award-winning documentarian David Ridgen. Each season tackles an unsolved case, uncovering details and bringing closure to families.

More episodes are available at: lnk.to/beLwSGEq

 

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On January 23, 2023, just six days after William Vick was found dead on his bedroom floor at 1954 County Road 3259 in Clarksville Arkansas, police did a welfare check on his wife Larenda’s mother, 72-year-old Martha McLean, who lived in a detached house on the property with William and Larenda.

They found Martha struggling to breathe with drugs including lorazepam and morphine around her. Martha had overdosed and was close to death, but paramedics administered Narcan, a drug that blocks opioids. So Martha's breathing improved, and she survived. 

Matt Foster with the Arkansas State Police wrote that Martha had a pen and a partially handwritten note in her hand when he found her. The note stated that Martha didn’t want to hurt anyone. And after he found her, he executed a search warrant for the  property, and he found a second handwritten note where Martha confessed to tampering with William’s medication and to killing him. 

But why did Martha kill William, and what really happened to her? 

If you have a case you’d like Catherine Townsend to look into, you can reach out to us at our Hell and Gone Murder Line at 678-744-6145. 

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On January 17 2023 at 11: 22 PM the Johnson County deputy coroner arrived at 1954 County Road in Clarksville Arkansas and found the body of 53-year-old William Vick. 

The case of death on William’s autopsy was listed as a combined mixed prescription and illicit drug toxicity. Manner of death: homicide.

William’s family was suspicious of his wife, LaRenda, but someone else confessed: LaRenda's mother, Martha McLean. She was in her late seventies, terminally ill with throat cancer, and lived in a separate structure on William and LaRenda's property. And she had written a letter confessing to the murder.

So why would LaRenda’s 72 year old mother want to hurt William. And with her supposedly being frail and ill, would she even be physically capable of something like that? 

If you have a case you’d like Catherine Townsend to look into, you can reach out to us at our Hell and Gone Murder Line at 678-744-6145.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On January 17, 2023, 53-year-old William Vick was recovering at home in Clarksville, Arkansas. William was in good health. He loved making videos for his YouTube channel. But William had gone in for tonsillectomy operation the week before, and had been experiencing some complications. He had texted his daughter, Ashley to say that he believed that something inside him was broken and that he was throwing up a large amount of blood in the sink. 

Ashley was worried, and told her dad that this didn't seem normal to her - she encouraged him to go see the doctor. But LaRenda had worked as an ER nurse and Ashley believed that her stepmother was taking care of her father.

A lot of what we know is pieced together after the fact from coroner’s reports and case notes. We do know that  at 11: 22  PM, the Johnson County deputy coroner Dave Cogan arrived at 1954 County Road responding to an unexpected death.  They spoke to LaRenda who, according to the coroner’s report, told the deputy coroner that she had been staying in a separate room because she had been sick recently and was worried about COVID. 

The deputy coroner noted that William was already in full rigor mortis; meaning that he had been dead, lying on that floor, for a long time. William Vick was fifty three years old. He went in for what was supposed to be a routine operation, and a few days later, he was dead. And this  was just the beginning of an investigation that involves charges of insurance fraud, two mysterious deaths, and a family torn apart.

 

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Last week, we talked about the mystery regarding whether or not Deputy Blake Hassell ever went out to the area in Kingston where on August 5th at 12:34 AM, a 911 caller reported that she heard a woman screaming - that it sounded like she was being raped or tortured. 

The dispatch report reads, "A caller advised she believes that she heard a woman in the woods behind her house yelling. Stated she believes at one point the woman screamed for help. Caller advised there is not a physical address but it is in area where a bunch of homeless people were camped out.” 

We know that the caller waited all night for the Madison County's Sheriff’s Office to respond, but no one ever came. 

And that a few weeks later on September 9, Taylor Barksdale’s remains were found just a few hundred feet from where that 911 call was placed. Her death was labeled a homicide. The Madison County Sheriff’s Department said that only one deputy, Blake Hassell was working the overnight shift from August 4 to August 5. And Sheriff Ronnie Boyd said that Blake Hassell  told dispatch that he responded to the call when he didn’t. 

Later that same day, August 5 when his supervisor Sergeant Drew Scott questioned him, he said that he didn’t respond to the call because he ‘had just been out to that area 30 minutes or an hour earlier.”  But is that true?

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We’ve been trying to figure out what happened to Taylor Barksdale in the last few weeks of her life that led her to Kingston, Arkansas

At 12:34 on August 5, a 911 caller reported that it a woman was screaming on a rural property in Kingston  and that she sounded like she was being raped or tortured. 

Just over a month later, on September 9, Taylor’s remains were found in a field near where the 911 call was made. 

We have made some headway in finding out what was going on in Taylor Barksdale’s life during the last few weeks of her life.

We know that she had been staying on and off with her ex-boyfriend, Kenny. 

Apparently, Taylor and Kenny got into an argument. After that, Kenny's neighbors say that they didn't see her come back to Kenny's residence. After July 20th, Taylor was staying on and off with different friends, and two of those friends who she was hanging out with were men. Men who were also, and two of those friends who she was hanging out with were mutual friends of hers and Kenny's.

One of the men lived in a camper on a piece of land near where the 911 call originated from.  So who are these men? How do they know Taylor, and what happened to Taylor on that last day of her life that ended with her remains being found in a field? 

If you have a case you’d like Catherine Townsend to look into, you can reach out to our Hell and Gone Murder Line at 678-744-6145.

 

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.