0:08

School of Humans.

0:13

On the morning of March twenty second, nineteen

0:15

eighty four, at around six thirty am,

0:17

police came to the one story, nondescript

0:20

home in Fayetteville, Arkansas, that

0:23

belonged to a quiet, unassuming thirty

0:25

three year old pharmacist named Lee Dixon

0:27

and his wife Karen. Apparently

0:30

police had gotten a tip to do a welfare

0:32

check from the local prosecuting attorney, whose

0:35

name was Kim Smith, which is just

0:37

one of the many unusual facets

0:39

of this case that we'll go into detail about. Shortly,

0:42

Kim Smith had gotten a call that morning

0:45

telling her to get someone to check the Dixon home.

0:48

Now, Lee Dixon was already

0:50

on law enforcement's radar. He had

0:52

recently been embroiled in a scandal after

0:55

losing his job at Consumer's Pharmacy.

0:57

Apparently there had been an audit at that pharmacy

1:00

and there were drugs missing, including

1:02

pharmaceutical grade cocaine. So

1:05

a picture was emerging of the quiet,

1:08

polite pharmacist as someone

1:10

who was potentially involved in the drug trade.

1:15

So police got to the door and they knocked,

1:18

but Lee and Karen didn't answer. Finally,

1:21

a little two and a half year old boy Lee

1:23

and Karen's son came to the door. He

1:26

told police that his mother was sleeping

1:28

and that daddy went out. Police

1:31

entered the home looking for his parents, and

1:33

it didn't take long to find their bodies. Lee

1:36

was in the garage, lying face down. He

1:39

had been shot point blank. Police

1:42

later determined that Lee had been

1:44

shot first, then the

1:46

killer came for Karen. Police

1:49

found Karen in the living room. She had

1:51

been tied to a chair, and her legs

1:53

and wrists were bound together with masking

1:55

tape. Her wrists had also

1:58

been wrapped with three different types of

2:00

cords, an extension cord, a

2:02

telephone cord, and a black

2:04

cord that was a hatched to a recording device.

2:07

Her blue bathrobe and her nightgown were soaked

2:10

with blood. Police later discovered

2:12

that she had also been shot multiple

2:14

times, execution style, but

2:17

unlike her husband, Karen did not die

2:19

right away. Investigators believed

2:21

that her killer, after fatally shooting Lee,

2:24

told her to be still, then

2:27

shot her in the head. They found

2:29

aspirated blood in her lungs, which

2:31

meant, according to the autopsy report, that

2:34

she lived for several minutes after that,

2:36

but eventually, of course, her wounds

2:39

were fatal. There

2:42

was a gunshot wound to Karen's right

2:44

hand. According to the autopsy

2:46

report, one of her fingers had

2:48

been almost shot off. In her

2:50

left hand, Karen was clutching a

2:52

gray, white and red child's jacket.

2:56

Karen was eight and a half months pregnant, so

2:58

her unborn child became the third victim.

3:03

Fortunately, their little boy, the one

3:05

who answered the door, was unharmed. Police

3:08

later said that he had probably slept through

3:10

the whole thing. What

3:12

started as a family massacre

3:15

turned out to have ties to another mysterious

3:17

death, one of a man who drowned

3:20

in under three feet of water. Later,

3:22

there would be allegations that Lee, this

3:24

quiet local pharmacist at the Consumered Pharmacy

3:27

had been making backdoor deals with local criminals

3:30

to provide the power players of faet ball

3:32

with pharmaceutical grade cocaine.

3:35

I'm Catherine Townsend. If you have

3:38

a case you'd like me and my team to look into,

3:40

you can reach out to us at our Helen Gone

3:43

Murder Line at six seven eight seven

3:45

four four six' one four or five.

3:48

That's six seven eight seven four

3:50

four six ' one four five. This

3:53

is Helen Gone Murder Line.

4:26

The double homicide of Lee Dixon

4:28

and his wife Karen was shocking in its brutality,

4:32

but actually it wasn't much of a who

4:34

done it because police very quickly

4:36

announced that they were looking for a single suspect.

4:39

Lee's friend, forty two year old Dennis

4:42

Flowers. Neighbors told

4:44

police they had not heard shots that night,

4:46

but witnesses said that Dennis Flowers

4:49

was with Lee at around midnight,

4:52

hours before he was killed. Witnesses

4:55

also said that they had heard a vehicle at

4:57

the Dixon house at around twelve thirty am,

5:00

and that call that Kim Smith, the attorney,

5:03

made to police. She was tipped

5:05

off a man named Lamar Pettis, an

5:07

attorney who is the friend and landlord

5:09

of Dennis Flowers. When Lamar

5:12

talked to police, he told them

5:14

that Dennis had called him just after four am

5:17

with a wild story about how he.

5:18

Had killed two people and was holding

5:21

hostages.

5:22

We're going to get more into what happened with Dennis

5:24

next and how that night unfolded, but first

5:27

I want to go back and understand the history

5:29

between these two men, Dennis Flowers

5:31

and Lee Dixon. Let

5:35

me take a quick detour for a minute. We've

5:37

been covering the Gail Vault murder case for

5:39

the past couple of weeks, and we're

5:42

following some leads in that case. So

5:44

while we do that, I want to go back and explore

5:47

one of the theories we covered in last week's

5:49

episode, the one that involved the drug

5:51

trade in northwest Arkansas. Last

5:54

week, we talked about the three main theories

5:56

in Gail's case. One that

5:58

she was involved in some sort of drug trafficking

6:01

or that her boyfriend Ray was, and

6:03

that Gail was killed as a result of that. The

6:05

second theory was that Gail was killed as

6:07

a result of domestic violence.

6:10

The third was that.

6:11

It was something completely random, a

6:13

sexual assault by someone else, possibly

6:16

a stranger. As we

6:18

explore this drug theory and how things

6:20

worked in Northwest Arkansas, I

6:22

want you to keep in mind something that I've said before,

6:25

which is we talk about six degrees

6:27

of separation, but I think in the state

6:29

of Arkansas you get two degrees

6:31

at most. This case, I believe,

6:34

really illustrates that.

6:36

Now.

6:36

I won't say that this is related to Gayle's

6:38

case, because there's no evidence that it is, but

6:41

I do think it's tangential because

6:43

at least one of the names that came

6:46

up in Gayle's case is also

6:48

mentioned in Lee and Karen's case.

6:51

And again, I want to take a much.

6:53

Closer look at this alleged drug mob

6:55

that was working at that time in Arkansas and

6:57

crossed over into Oklahoma. A

6:59

lot of the drug deals were made by biker gangs.

7:04

The private and investigator Marty, who

7:07

told me about Gail's case, also

7:10

has an interesting backstory connected

7:12

to Lee and Karen's murders. Marty

7:15

is married to the daughter of the main suspect

7:17

in the case of Lee and Karen Dixon's

7:19

murders, Dennis Flowers.

7:22

Obviously, I've been talking to your husband for a

7:24

while. I wondered if you could just tell

7:26

people sort of how you and he got

7:29

involved on this case. Well,

7:31

yeah, it's a strange situation.

7:34

This is Nana.

7:35

He's always had a passion for

7:37

cold cases and you

7:40

know, watching unsolved mysteries and

7:42

all those shows that are on TV. And finally

7:45

I told him when we were dating, I said, you

7:47

know, I can't watch these with you anymore,

7:49

because you know, I've

7:52

lived this, and he I had. At that time,

7:54

I hadn't told him anything about my past because

7:56

it's something really Catherine that you

7:58

know, I've always been ashamed of and

8:01

guarded you know, with who I shared

8:04

that with. I was never open about

8:06

it. It was just something I really kept close to

8:08

my heart. And part of it was

8:10

fear, you know, at one point in my life,

8:12

it was fear of who was still out there

8:14

and and what did they know about me? And

8:17

you know, they think I knew more than what I did,

8:19

and that kind of stuff. Whether

8:23

it was real or not, you know, it was it was still

8:25

a fear and you know, a shame

8:27

on our family name, you know, the Flowers

8:30

name. Anyway, I just kind of told

8:32

him, you know, I've lived this. I can't I

8:34

can't watch these shows anymore with you. I can't be involved

8:36

in that part of you know, your entertainment

8:39

or your you know, your hobby. But you

8:42

know, a few months into our dating, I kind

8:44

of shared with him, you know, my thoughts

8:47

on you know, what happened to my

8:49

dad and the history of you

8:51

know, Northwest Arkansas at the time, back

8:53

in the eighties. And I think he was skeptical

8:56

because I was his daughter, you know, I'm his daughter

8:59

that I've found. I thought he was

9:01

innocent, and I you know, that's what I claimed,

9:03

and told told him that, you

9:05

know, I think my dad, Jennison, I know

9:07

he is I know he didn't do it. I know he was framed.

9:10

I know he was a setup. And

9:12

he said, well, do you mind if I look into

9:15

it? And I was like, well, no, that would be great.

9:17

You know, I've never had anybody offer to,

9:20

you know, look into it for me. And as

9:22

an adult, you know, I could see things in a different

9:24

light. And the more he dug and the

9:26

more he looked into it, he was like,

9:29

I agree with you, and I think he really had

9:31

to change of heart.

9:34

This case has been called for years,

9:37

but in twenty sixteen, the news

9:39

station KARK did a special

9:41

report on the case, and as part of that

9:43

they talked to Karen's brother, Tommy Bryant.

9:47

Tommy told Kark that the

9:49

question of what had really happened the night

9:51

is pregnant sister was viciously murdered has

9:54

never left his mind. He talked

9:56

about what a wonderful person Karen was,

9:59

but he did admit to the reporter Ashley

10:01

Keats Nolan, who by the way, has helped

10:03

us out in the past a lot on Helen Gone,

10:06

that he was not fond of

10:08

the guy. She eventually married Lee Dixon.

10:12

Karen and Lee dated in high school.

10:15

Lee Dixon was this nerdy, somewhat

10:18

shy guy. He ultimately became

10:20

a pharmacist and got the job at Consumer's

10:22

Pharmacy. He married Karen

10:24

in nineteen seventy two. After

10:27

Karen and Lee got married and relocated to

10:29

northwest Arkansas, they wanted to start a family.

10:32

She got pregnant with their son, and then just

10:34

a few months before she died, Karen

10:37

had learned that she was pregnant again. Dennis

10:40

Flowers had known Lee since the early eighties.

10:44

According to early reports, police

10:46

were focused in on Dennis Flowers for

10:48

a few reasons, first because

10:51

he had been seen with Lee shortly before

10:53

the murders. Secondly because

10:55

he had a long criminal record, and

10:58

as we'll get into now, there is a

11:00

lot more to this story because

11:02

Dennis and Lee, even though they were very

11:04

different, had one very important

11:07

thing in common. They were both addicted

11:09

to drugs, especially pharmaceutical

11:11

grade cocaine.

11:14

According to the Southern Fried True crime

11:16

podcast, who did an episode on this case,

11:19

Dennis Flowers had a tough childhood. He

11:21

lost his mom when he was young, and he spent time

11:23

at a juvenile facility after he got caught

11:25

stealing, But his life seemed

11:27

to kind of turn around when he met a woman

11:30

named Betty Joe Murray. Betty

11:32

Joe already had a daughter from a previous

11:34

marriage. Dennis and Betty Joe

11:36

raised that daughter, who Dennis adopted.

11:39

They later had two children of their own, Dana

11:41

and Marcus. Dana

11:43

said that when she was young, her dad

11:46

was a great father. She said she

11:48

had lots of happy memories from that time. For

11:51

a while, Dennis's life seemed to

11:53

have turned around for the better.

11:55

He got a job.

11:56

He went to work at the VA, so he had

11:58

steady employment and a happy marriage and what

12:00

seemed to be the perfect family. But

12:03

then in nineteen seventy five, the

12:05

marriage fell apart. Dennis

12:08

was in Las Vegas when he met a woman named Linda

12:10

Dientton. He fell for her, had

12:12

an affair with her, and later filed for

12:14

divorce. Eventually,

12:17

he and his wife divorced and he and Linda got

12:19

married. Dennis got a tattoo

12:21

to mark their anniversary in nineteen seventy

12:23

seven. Then Dennis's

12:26

life took a dark turn. In nineteen seventy

12:28

nine, he fell down at work

12:30

and hurt his back, and this would

12:32

turn into a chronic pain condition.

12:35

His family says this was kind of the beginning

12:37

of the end for Dennis because that's when

12:39

he became addicted to pain medication.

12:42

My parents are actually divorced. When

12:44

I was seven years old,

12:47

and so I started going to

12:50

my dad's on weekend spring break during

12:52

the summer. And so I was fourteen

12:55

when this happened. I was in ninth grade and

12:57

it was so it was the spring break of the eighty

13:00

four when everything

13:02

happened. But I was a daddy's

13:05

girl named after him.

13:07

My middle name is Denise, his is Dennis,

13:10

and so, you know, it's just I

13:12

thought he hung the moon. Still do. But

13:15

you know, like any man, he any you

13:18

know, we're all human, we all make mistakes and

13:20

we trust people. Maybe that don't,

13:23

you know, deserve our trust. And he was

13:25

no angel by any stretch of imagination.

13:28

But he was a good man. He had

13:30

values and family, friends,

13:33

you know, he was trustworthy. I think

13:36

he just put his trust in the wrong

13:38

folks and he got caught up

13:41

in a lot of what

13:43

was going on at the time in northwest

13:45

Arkansas. If you want to

13:47

describe it as the Dixie Mafia. You know

13:50

something I don't say lightly. It was

13:52

clearly the wild Wild West back in the

13:54

day.

13:58

In the early eighties.

13:59

As all this was going down, Dennis

14:01

was introduced to Lee Dixon by Ronnie

14:04

t Again, my sources

14:06

say that Ronnie Tigue is a key player

14:08

in the drug trade in the area at the time. And

14:11

I mentioned before that Ronnie Tig

14:13

is a name that came up in Gaile Vaught's

14:15

case. Remember Gail's friend

14:17

Sheila. Sheila is the

14:20

friend who Gayle believes she was supposed

14:22

to hang out with on the weekend right after

14:24

she was murdered. If you listen

14:26

to the Gail Vaught episode, you know that Sheila

14:29

was not actually in town when Gayle was murdered.

14:32

But she did talk to police afterwards,

14:34

and when she did, she mentioned

14:37

Ronnie Tigue's name. She said that

14:39

Ronnie had made some comments to her about

14:42

Gail getting what she deserved, about her

14:44

killer running over her more than once,

14:47

and Sheila indicated that she

14:49

was scared of Ronnie and his associates.

14:52

Now, it was never proven that

14:54

anything that Ronnie said had

14:56

anything to do with Gaile's murder. There were

14:59

no details that only the killer would have known.

15:01

Nothing like that, but it is

15:03

a name that has come up. We

15:06

know that Ronnie was friends with several people

15:08

who were alleged to have been big players in the

15:10

fayette drug trade, and

15:13

Ronnie Tigue was the guy who introduced

15:15

Lee and Dennis Flowers.

15:19

Lee seemed to.

15:20

Have kind of a similar trajectory to Dennis.

15:23

He had a good job, He was happily married

15:25

to his wife, Karen, who taught elementary

15:27

school. They wanted a family, and

15:29

they were thrilled when Karen got pregnant for

15:31

the first and second time. But

15:34

this was the eighties and cocaine

15:37

was definitely the drug of choice. So

15:40

Lee's job gave him access to something

15:43

that was like gold dust.

15:45

And suddenly this pharmacist

15:48

who had been kind of this shy, slightly nerdy

15:50

guy, suddenly he's got access

15:52

to all the movers and shakers in Fayetteful. So

15:56

they started a business transaction. Lee

15:58

would provide the pharmaceutical grade coke and

16:00

Dennis would move it. Pharmaceutical

16:04

grade cocaine, by the way, was kind

16:06

of the best of the best back

16:08

then, and to this day it is

16:11

used in surgeries because it's still an

16:13

excellent anesthetic and also a vasoconstrictor,

16:17

so it was used in nasal surgeries

16:19

and all types of surgeries.

16:20

And it still is. Unlike

16:23

some of the street stuff that's cut with a.

16:25

Lot of cheap additives, pharmaceutical

16:28

grade cocaine is up to ninety

16:30

eight percent pure. The

16:32

only way to get access to it was to have access

16:34

to someone with either a medical license or

16:36

a pharmaceutical license.

16:39

So Lee and Dennis for.

16:41

A while were running what was probably

16:43

a very lucrative business side

16:46

note here. In addition to dealing drugs,

16:49

there were also rumors that Dennis was the

16:51

guy to call if you wanted to book a sex

16:53

worker, and the rumor was

16:55

that Dennis supplied these women to powerful

16:57

men at parties. Some

17:00

people, including Ronnie Tige, called

17:02

Dennis the flim flam Man or flimflam

17:05

Flows because he always seemed

17:07

to be running some kind of scam.

17:10

I didn't know that it was strange. I didn't understand.

17:13

I didn't put a lot together. There was definitely some

17:15

red red flags that I would come home

17:17

and tell my mom, like, well,

17:20

there was this party, you know, and or

17:22

I went to a club with my dad, and you

17:24

know, there was just a lot

17:27

of things that didn't

17:29

add up, you know, especially as you're growing

17:31

up and you're like, oh, you didn't go to

17:33

a club and you didn't dance

17:35

with grown men, you know, And

17:38

yeah, it was just, you

17:40

know, there was I was putting into

17:42

a lot of dangerous situations. And I'm

17:45

very thankful that I

17:47

came out where I did, because I

17:50

don't think my dad meant to put me in those situations.

17:52

But definitely there was some there

17:54

was some bad things going

17:56

on. I was not there

17:58

to party, I wasn't doing the party, and I

18:01

was just exposed. You know, I might be in the bedroom

18:03

watching TV and eating pizza and the party

18:06

was going on around me. Or you

18:08

know, we were going to a club and things

18:10

are going on in the back room. You know.

18:12

I can remember going to one and

18:14

they said that it was snowing in

18:17

the back room. Well I'm you

18:19

know, at that age, I'm like, what, you know,

18:21

I don't know that there's cocaine

18:23

going on in the back room, But now

18:25

I do, you know, then you put it together.

18:29

So just numerous things like that

18:31

that I was exposed to it

18:34

at a young age.

18:36

For a while, As we said, business was pretty

18:38

good. But, as it so often

18:41

happens in cases where people become involved

18:43

in drug dealing, Dennison Lee

18:45

got in over their heads, and

18:47

investigators were already following

18:49

the drugs and the money.

18:52

It turned out that about a week before the double

18:54

homicide, State auditors

18:56

were at Lead Dixon's pharmacy. They

18:58

were counting drugs and Lee came

19:00

up short. When

19:05

Lee developed his addiction to pharmaceutical

19:07

grade cocaine, according to

19:09

multiple sources, he started

19:12

to violate what I call the Scarface

19:14

rules. They're from the movie

19:16

Scarface, from the scene when

19:18

Frank, the gangster who took Tony under

19:20

his wing, is at the nightclub. He

19:23

says something that I think is very applicable.

19:25

Even though this isn't over the top movie, I

19:27

can say, as someone who's investigated

19:29

fraud and murder for a long time now, this

19:32

advice is actually very sound and

19:34

very applicable to people in the drug trade.

19:37

So Frank tells Tony two things. He gives

19:39

them two rules. One, don't

19:41

underestimate the other guy's greed. Lesson

19:43

number two, never get high

19:46

on your own supply. Lee

19:48

seemed to be violating this rule. He

19:50

and Dennis were both addicts by the

19:52

winner of nineteen eighty three, they owed

19:54

a lot of money to their suppliers. According

19:57

to the Southern Fried Homicide podcast, they

19:59

owed around forty thousand dollars, which

20:02

in today's money would be around one hundred and twenty

20:04

five thousand dollars. The people

20:06

they owed money to were looking to collect.

20:09

Dennis was scared. He reportedly

20:12

checked himself into the hospital for back pain, but

20:15

Ronnie t came to visit. After

20:18

that, Dennis called Lee and Lee brought

20:20

him a gun. After

20:26

leaving the hospital, Dennis went into rehab

20:29

and it seemed like he actually made

20:31

progress while he was there.

20:33

They involved a family on intervention

20:35

days, and it was a lot for

20:37

him to go through that through the amount

20:39

of time. You know, I've never done

20:41

drugs or I've never been through a rehab like

20:43

that, but I know it's not

20:45

a picnic, but definitely for the emotional

20:48

side of it, for people to come in, you

20:50

know, your loved ones and write letters to

20:52

you and tell you how their

20:55

drug abuse and their alcohol abuse

20:57

you know affected them. You know, the tears

20:59

that were shed, you know during that during

21:02

that time, you know, it was just it was a

21:04

really painful. But at the same time healing

21:07

experienced because we had we were

21:09

so hopeful that

21:11

things were going to get back on and even

21:14

kill you know, that we

21:16

were going to kind of have a rebirth,

21:19

you know, if anything, just

21:22

back to a norm of

21:24

him, you know, not relying

21:27

on the drugs and the drinking, and

21:30

we were getting ready actually to move closer

21:32

to him, and

21:34

I was just really hopeful at the time.

21:38

Dennis was released on March fourteenth.

21:41

He'd gotten out to rehab and

21:44

they were living in Fadeville at the time, and

21:47

spring break came up just right

21:50

after that, and so we went down

21:52

for the week of spring break, and

21:55

it was just a real loving time, you know,

21:57

because we had

21:59

really bonded and shared some close things,

22:02

just our feelings about how

22:04

he had heard us, and you know,

22:06

I think he was really trying to make amends

22:09

on spring break. I

22:11

really felt like that in my heart, and

22:14

really, you know, we had some great memories,

22:16

you know, ordered pizza and you

22:19

know, watch movies and just hung out. Just

22:21

just that precious time that you look

22:24

back and think, thank the Lord

22:26

that you had.

22:31

Now I know that a lot

22:33

of people who were deep into addiction are

22:35

definitely capable of incredible highs

22:38

followed by crushing lows, but according

22:40

to people around Dennis, he did seem

22:42

sincere. But then on

22:44

March sixteenth, Dennis and Lee

22:46

were hit with some more bad news. Auditors

22:49

were coming to Lee's workplace, Consumer's

22:51

pharmacy. The auditor

22:53

found there were a lot of drugs missing, over

22:56

eight ounces of pharmaceutical cocaine,

22:59

as well as a lot of pills and other drugs.

23:02

At this point, Dennis and Lee knew that

23:04

the house of was about to fall down, so

23:08

Dennis and Lee apparently hatched a plan. At

23:10

this point, they decided that they would

23:12

rob the pharmacy. They would steal drugs

23:14

and give the drugs to Dennis's wife, Linda,

23:17

to drive across state lines and sell in Oklahoma.

23:20

Then they would have one.

23:22

Of their associates send a kid

23:24

over to kind of ransack the pharmacy so

23:26

that they could stage a burglary there. But

23:28

their plan hit some snacks. Linda

23:31

was supposed to rent a car to drive to Oklahoma.

23:33

When she got to the rental car place, she

23:36

had no credit card, so she could

23:38

not get the vehicle. Secondly,

23:40

there was a problem with their fake robbery. In

23:43

the early morning hours of March eighteenth,

23:45

a kid did show up and throw a rock

23:47

through the pharmacy window, but

23:50

when police got to the scene, they pretty

23:52

much knew immediately this had been an inside job

23:54

because all there was was a fairly

23:57

small rock sized hole in that window.

23:59

There was no blood or sign of a struggle, no

24:02

shelves were disturbed, the door was still

24:04

locked, and there was there's no way that anyone

24:06

could have gotten inside and taken those drugs because

24:09

they could not have crawled through that tiny hole in

24:11

the window. The

24:14

bottom line was that police were not fooled.

24:17

They knew immediately that this was Dennis and

24:19

Lee. The walls continued

24:21

to close in on them both. Two

24:23

days after the botched burglary, on March

24:25

twentieth, Lee was fired from Consumer's

24:28

Pharmacy. So

24:30

now Lee had lost everything. He

24:32

had lost his job, He knew that he

24:34

was probably going to lose his pharmaceutical license

24:37

and maybe his freedom.

24:40

According to some sources, it

24:42

was at this point that Lee started

24:45

asking around about possibly making

24:47

a deal to avoid prison. But

24:49

Lee never had that option because

24:53

just over twenty four hours later, Lee

24:55

and his wife were found dead.

24:58

So, as we said before, police

25:01

immediately zeroed in on Lee's partner

25:03

in crime, Dennis Flowers.

25:07

You know, again, it's spring breaks, so I'm staying up late.

25:10

But the last time that I saw him, I was reading

25:12

in bed. I'm an avid reader, always

25:15

have been. And he came in and

25:17

it was late, it was about midnight,

25:21

and he came in and he told

25:24

me we had plans for the next day, and we talked

25:26

about the next day, that what we were going to do, and

25:29

he gave me a kiss and that was it.

25:31

And I woke up the next morning and he was

25:33

gone. So that's kind of

25:35

how we ended it. So, I mean, we had plans for the

25:37

next day, So there's no signals

25:41

for me that anything was, you

25:43

know, anything but normal in the time

25:45

of the death. I mean, he tucked

25:47

me in at midnight. So

25:50

when I was interviewed by the detective, you

25:53

know, after the murders,

25:56

you know, I could account for his whereabouts because

25:58

he was with me and my brother at

26:00

the time, you know, as

26:02

of midnight. Now clearly what happened after

26:05

that, you know, I don't know all

26:07

the detailed, but I could tell

26:09

you that he chucked me in at midnight and

26:11

that murders were supposed to have happened,

26:13

you know before then or

26:15

you know right around then.

26:20

What's the last thing you remember?

26:22

Just him tucking you in?

26:24

Yeah, yeah, I mean, like like I said,

26:27

we made plans for the next day.

26:29

We had a full schedule planned and

26:32

you know he told me that he left me and gave

26:34

me a kiss and shut the door. That

26:37

was it.

26:41

Police were trying to piece together what had happened.

26:43

In the early morning hours of March twenty second.

26:47

At around four am, police

26:49

had gotten a call from a chicken farmer near Fayetteville.

26:51

His name was Orrin Tisdale. Oren

26:54

said someone had broken into their family home.

26:57

The man had a gun, and Oran

26:59

and his wife said that this man had a syringe

27:02

sticking out of his arm. They said that

27:04

he went out to his car, a white Ford

27:06

Tempo, but when

27:08

the man tried to get away, they said the man's car

27:11

stalled and that he had started walking

27:13

after that and then vanished. Police

27:15

quickly determined that this man had been Dennis

27:17

Flowers. Police went to

27:19

the Tisdale farm. They found

27:22

the white car that belonged to Lee

27:24

and Karen Dixon.

27:25

There.

27:26

It was stalled and there was a forty

27:28

four magnum pistol inside the vehicle. They

27:30

never confirmed if this was the murder weapon,

27:33

but after Dennis left the Tisdale home,

27:36

he disappeared and police launched a

27:38

massive man hunt for him.

27:41

Police got another.

27:42

Tip from one of Dennis's longtime associates,

27:44

the attorney named Lamar Pettis, who we mentioned

27:47

at the top of the episode.

27:49

Now, what exactly went down in this phone

27:51

call between Lamar and Dennis Flowers

27:54

is a story that has changed over

27:56

the years, so we're gonna look at this in depth.

28:01

At the time, Lamar told

28:03

police that Dinni had called

28:06

him at around four thirteen am that morning.

28:09

He said Dennis told him that he had killed

28:11

two people and had another

28:13

two people hostage. Lamar

28:15

told police that he urged Dennis not

28:18

to hurt the hostages, to leave them alone,

28:20

and to walk away. Police

28:22

based a huge part of their investigation on

28:25

this information from Lamar. In

28:27

fact, this was a big part of the

28:29

reason why Dennis became their main and

28:31

really their only suspect.

28:34

One thing that's a little bit strange, and

28:36

the Southern Fried True Crime podcast calls

28:38

us out as well, is that there was a delay

28:40

because this phone call happened at

28:42

four thirteen am between Dennis and Lamar,

28:45

Yet police did not come to the Dixon

28:47

home until around six thirty am. Lamar

28:50

told police that after he hung up

28:53

with Dennis, he started researching

28:55

what his obligations were

28:58

under attorney client privilege, and

29:00

only after some delay and some research

29:03

did he decide to make some phone calls. I've

29:05

I find this really unbelievable

29:08

because I understand that

29:10

there's such a thing as attorney client privilege,

29:12

and that this was his friend and his tenant.

29:14

But Dennis had allegedly confessed

29:17

to killing two people, and also Lamar

29:19

knew that there were potential hostages there

29:21

in danger, and I cannot imagine him

29:24

not calling the police right away. But

29:28

Dennis's family did not believe

29:30

that he would have been capable of something like this. They

29:33

just did not believe he would be capable of viciously

29:36

murdering not just his friend Lee,

29:38

but Lee's heavily pregnant wife. Police

29:41

charged Dennis Flowers with the murders

29:44

of Lee and Karen Dixon. They

29:46

launched a man hunt, and the

29:48

search for Dennis Flowers went on for

29:50

another ten days. Finally

29:52

they found him, but they couldn't

29:55

get any information.

29:56

Out of him.

29:57

Dennis Flowers was found floating

29:59

face down in a pond just one hundred

30:02

yards away from the Tisdale farm.

30:04

He was found where a.

30:05

Red and blue plaid shirt with a white pullover

30:07

shirt, corduroy pants, and

30:09

cowboy boots. He had three hundred

30:12

and fifty one dollars and some change in his back

30:14

pockets, as well as two cigarette

30:16

lighters and a spoon. The

30:18

medical examiner, doctor Fawmi Malik,

30:21

ruled that Dennis had died by drowning in

30:23

less than three feet of water. The

30:26

cause of death was listed as drowning

30:28

associated with cocaine toxicity. The

30:31

manner of death was suicide.

30:38

After Dennis Flower's body was found,

30:40

the medical examiner, doctor Fowmi Malik,

30:42

determined that he had died by suicide as

30:44

a result of drowning in less than three feet

30:47

of water. We mentioned

30:49

doctor Malik, who is notorious

30:51

in the state of Arkansas for his mini

30:53

botched autopsies back in the day. So

30:56

often I sometimes feel like we need

30:58

to do a Hell and Gone very Special episode

31:00

just to cover all of his cases. Needless

31:03

to say, back in the day, he was known

31:05

for tailoring his forensic conclusions

31:08

on what law enforcement said they wanted, and

31:10

many people believed that this case was

31:13

no exception. Some people

31:15

wondered why it took so long to find the bodies

31:17

that were so close to the potential last

31:19

place where Dennis Flowers was seen. But

31:22

honestly, as an investigator, that's

31:24

not really the part that I find strange,

31:27

because sadly, I've seen many other

31:29

cases where unfortunately police

31:32

failed to find bodies that were nearby. I'm

31:35

thinking of Ebbie Stepek's case. Ebbie's

31:38

body was found in drain pipe just

31:40

a few feet from her abandoned car in

31:42

a West Little Rock park, almost

31:44

three years after she went missing. And

31:47

sometimes many times bodies

31:50

do sync to the bottom of bodies of water

31:52

and then float up a few days later as gases

31:55

are released.

31:56

But even though the.

31:58

Autopsy mentioned skin slippage,

32:01

I have seen the autopsy report, and I've

32:03

seen photos of the body, this

32:05

body appears to have no distortion

32:08

or bloating that one would expect if

32:10

Dennis's body had been in the water for ten

32:12

days. Tommy Bryant

32:14

told k r K that one

32:16

of the law enforcement officers who had been on

32:19

the scene made a comment and

32:21

said something like he looked like

32:23

he'd been in the water for ten hours, not ten

32:25

days. According

32:28

to the autopsy, Dennis had needle

32:31

marks in his arms as well as crystals

32:33

in his lungs, and this was indicative

32:36

of long term drug use. Of

32:38

injecting drugs, Dennis's

32:40

blood tested negative for alcohol and for

32:42

other drugs. Dennis had over

32:44

ten times a fatal dose of cocaine

32:46

in his blood, but Dennis

32:48

had a massive amount of cocaine

32:51

in his stomach according to

32:53

the autopsy report, over twenty ounces,

32:56

and he also had a lot of water

32:58

in his lungs.

33:00

The autopsy report.

33:01

Noted something called emphysema

33:03

aquasum, which means

33:06

that the lungs were very heavy and very

33:08

spongy. According to some literature

33:10

that I was reading on drowning deaks, this

33:12

often happens when someone is conscious

33:14

and struggling to live. They're

33:17

fighting for their life and so they end up

33:19

fighting to breathe and ingesting a lot of

33:21

water. This seems

33:24

like a horrific way to die,

33:26

and this led a lot of people to believe

33:28

that Dennis did not kill himself voluntarily,

33:31

that someone had forced him to take those drugs

33:34

to od and then to make sure

33:36

that he drowned in that pond.

33:39

They also wondered if he had really been out

33:42

there for ten days, because there

33:44

were reports that this area had already

33:46

been searched. Rumors started

33:48

to circulate that people

33:50

in the drug trade, potentially bikers,

33:53

had held him hostage for several days

33:55

and then finally drowned him in the pond. But

33:59

there were elements of physical evidence that,

34:01

at least on the surface, appeared to match

34:03

Lamar and the Tisdale stories. The

34:05

Tisdale's saying he showed up at the house, the

34:08

fact that Dennis was with Lee

34:10

that night, and the things that Dennis

34:12

had said in front of the Tisdale's

34:15

to his attorney on the phone about two

34:17

people being dead, one of them working

34:19

at consumer pharmacy. The stuff

34:22

that he said did lead police

34:24

to believe that he had been the killer. It's

34:27

definitely possible, in fact almost certain,

34:29

that Dennis was there when Lee and

34:31

Karen were murdered, but Dennis's family

34:34

have serious doubts about whether Dennis

34:36

was the sole person responsible. They

34:38

wonder whether he was forced into something.

34:41

They also don't believe that he drowned in under

34:43

three feet of water. In a

34:45

lot of online forums, a lot of people are

34:47

wondering if the manner of death suicide

34:50

should be changed to our canicide.

34:52

There was another podcast called Coroner

34:54

Talk. They did an interview with the coroner

34:57

in this case, and they also

34:59

talked to some experts and seemed to come to the same

35:01

conclusion. They don't believe

35:03

that the evidence supports the fact that the body

35:05

was out in the water that long. The

35:08

Coroner Talk podcast is very interesting.

35:10

We're going to put the link in this episode, and

35:12

if you're curious about more of the forensics,

35:14

I highly suggest that you check it out.

35:19

There were other pieces of evidence that didn't seem

35:21

to make sense.

35:21

First, there were the things that were missing, including

35:24

a gold watch that Dennis always wore,

35:27

and then there were the things that were

35:29

in plane sight. Dennis's

35:32

wallet was found near Lee

35:34

and Karen's bodies in that house, but

35:37

his family considers this the ultimate

35:39

sign of a stage murder scene.

35:42

They wonder could Dennis have really

35:44

been dumb or high enough to leave that wallet

35:46

out in plain sight, or could

35:48

someone have.

35:49

Planted it there.

35:50

There were reportedly thirty two different

35:53

fingerprints taken from the Dixon home. None

35:56

of them were a match to Dennis flowers.

35:59

There was only one single

36:01

print that was a match to Dennis, and it was found

36:03

on a full seven up

36:05

can, So there was one

36:08

single perfect fingerprint.

36:10

The soda can was full.

36:14

We come back to what Tommy Bryant said to KRK

36:17

in twenty sixteen, because after

36:20

he explained that one of the officers

36:22

said that man hasn't been in the pond for

36:24

ten hours, let alone ten days. Apparently,

36:27

according to Tommy, the officer

36:29

also made another comment. He said, quote

36:32

someone paid a lot of money for that hit.

36:34

End quote.

36:36

KRK also talked to the attorney

36:38

Lamar Pettis in twenty sixteen, and

36:40

it's interesting because Lamar told Kark

36:43

a different story than the one that can

36:45

be found in the transcripts in the case

36:47

file. He told Kark

36:50

in twenty sixteen that Dennis had

36:52

made a comment telling him that two people

36:55

were killed and that he would never

36:57

hurt a child. So when Lamar

36:59

talked to KRK, he said

37:01

Dennis did not confess to the two murders.

37:04

And as we all know, saying two people

37:06

were killed is completely different than

37:08

saying he killed two people. Lamar

37:12

told the news station he thinks Dennis got

37:14

mixed up with a bad crowd, but he does

37:16

not believe he's capable of murder. I

37:20

took another look back at the case file, the part

37:22

that's been made public. There's a transcript

37:25

of Lamar's interview with the investigator Doug

37:27

Fogley. There's no audio

37:29

of that transcript, but we have to work

37:31

with what we have. In the transcript,

37:34

Lamar is quoted is saying that

37:36

Dennis did say he killed two people,

37:39

and Dennis said he had two

37:41

hostages there that.

37:42

He didn't plan to hurt.

37:44

Lamar told police that at that time,

37:47

Dennis was also concerned about

37:49

his wife, Linda, getting money for her and

37:51

the kids, and also for his first

37:53

wife. He apparently said that he loved

37:55

her and that he had regrets, and

37:57

then he said something else. According

38:00

to Lamar, Dennis Flowers said that

38:03

he never wanted to kill anyone, but that

38:06

quote, someone was trying

38:08

to blackmail me.

38:09

End quote.

38:10

The investigator Doug Fogley asked Lamar

38:12

to clarify this. Lamar said again,

38:14

Dennis told him someone was trying

38:17

to blackmail me. Lamar

38:19

said that after he hung up, and this was around four

38:21

fifteen am, he told his wife

38:23

Dennis said he just killed two people. He

38:25

said he was going to call around and see what he could

38:27

reveal due to attorney client privileges.

38:31

Then Lamar called his law partner

38:33

and during that conversation, he said

38:35

Dennis had told him, quote, I've

38:38

killed two people.

38:39

They were blackmailing me. End quote.

38:42

So which is it?

38:44

Did Dennis say that he killed two people or

38:46

that two people were killed? Was that something

38:48

that Lamar thought he heard? And then he sort

38:50

of attributed to Dennis when he made the next phone

38:52

call. Figuring out this phone tree

38:55

is such an important part of figuring out

38:57

this case. And also what

38:59

did he mean about that blackmail when

39:01

he said that? Was he referring to Lee and

39:04

Karen or he referring

39:06

to someone else, maybe someone who

39:08

forced Dennis to leave his wallet there for some reason.

39:14

Tommy Bryant has made it clear that he

39:16

believes that Dennis Flowers did not act alone.

39:19

He said to KRK, quote the

39:21

idea that a man would brutally murder two

39:23

people, tie one of them up, and yet was dumb

39:26

enough to leave a thumb print on a seven up can.

39:29

I don't know how you pick up a can with your thumb

39:31

with no other fingerprints. Tommy

39:33

called the murders, cold calculated, and

39:35

point blank. He said he believes

39:38

law enforcement wanted to close this case fast,

39:41

so that's why after Dennis's body was found,

39:43

police were very quick to rule this suicide

39:46

and put an end to what they believe was a very

39:48

ugly affair in their town.

39:50

He believes that for political.

39:53

Reasons, the authorities wanted to

39:55

get this case off the front pages of the newspaper.

39:58

Tommy said that after he asked for a copy

40:00

of the case file, he was shocked

40:02

at the lack of evidence he said police had. He

40:05

said the thing that struck him most was that

40:07

the one fingerprint they had was the single

40:09

one on the seven up can.

40:11

He said.

40:12

When he asked police about the evidence and

40:14

how they knew that they had the right guy,

40:17

he claims police told him, quote,

40:19

he left his billfold there so we'd find

40:21

it so we'd know it was him, end quote.

40:24

And Tommy has made clear he does not believe

40:26

that that is a satisfactory conclusion.

40:28

He said he doesn't buy that theory.

40:30

Dennis's family also does not believe

40:33

that Dennis, after leaving

40:35

the Tisdale home, took a massive

40:37

amount of cocaine on his own drowned

40:39

himself in a pond and floated there for

40:42

ten days. I'm

40:46

going to circle back for a second to Gail Vaut's

40:48

case because some people

40:51

who've contacted me have pointed out that

40:53

some of the names that have come up as being involved

40:55

in the drug trade that Gail's boyfriend

40:57

was allegedly involved in, came up

40:59

in this double homicide.

41:02

Now, after this case, we

41:04

can clearly see that the people who

41:06

sold drugs in Fayettebule did seem to be

41:08

able to make things happen, to make

41:11

people pay, and to make them disappear.

41:14

I believe that there is a

41:16

substantial body of evidence that does point

41:18

to the fact that Dennis Flowers

41:20

may not have acted alone. There are a lot of questions

41:23

and a lot of red flags

41:25

in these murders, But when

41:27

it comes to Gail Vought, I still

41:29

don't think, at least according to what we've seen

41:31

and found so far, that there is any

41:34

evidence that the drug trade was involved in

41:36

the same way in Gail's case. Again,

41:39

I believe that there are compelling reasons why

41:41

other people may have been involved in Dennis Flower's

41:43

death.

41:44

There were the heavy.

41:45

Lungs, the signs of struggle, the fact

41:47

that the body showed very few signs of

41:49

being out in the elements after ten days. There

41:51

was also the circumstantial evidence, the

41:53

fact that we know that Lee was

41:56

desperate, that he, with the help of

41:58

dentists, had robbed his own workplace, and

42:00

that to avoid jail time, he may

42:02

have started asking questions about how to become

42:04

an informant. And even if he didn't, the

42:06

people that he was running drugs for may

42:08

have been afraid that he would start asking those questions.

42:11

There are compelling reasons why people

42:13

high up in what they call the Ozark drug mafia

42:16

could have wanted Lee and Dennis Flowers

42:18

dead. Another

42:22

commenter on a story about this case actually

42:24

at the bottom of the Coroner Talk podcast episode

42:27

says that it's from a former

42:29

police officer, and this person claims

42:31

to have worked in the area in Arkansas when Lee

42:33

and Karen were murdered back in the day. He

42:36

said, back then he believed

42:38

some of his colleagues thought that police

42:40

suffered from tunnel vision. When it came to

42:42

this case, he said he

42:44

had his own theory, which actually

42:47

I find somewhat plausible, so I'm

42:49

going to repeat it. This person

42:51

said that he always believed that

42:53

motorcycle gang members from Oklahoma City

42:56

were the ones who really killed Lee and Karen Dixon.

42:59

He said he believed they forced Dennis Flowers

43:01

to ring the doorbell that night at the Dixon

43:03

house because Ifnis

43:05

was there, these guys knew Lee and Karen

43:08

would answer the door. Then this

43:10

person believes they got Dennis to

43:12

leave his wallet there as sort of collateral. They

43:15

tied Karen to a chair and forced

43:17

Dennis to go with them as a hostage.

43:20

What happened after that is unclear.

43:21

Maybe Dennis was supposed to come back for Lee and

43:23

Karen, maybe he couldn't, or

43:26

maybe he got scared and ran.

43:28

There are other possibilities too.

43:30

It is possible that with all this going

43:32

on, that Dennis did leave his wallet there in a panic,

43:35

but the timing still doesn't

43:37

make sense. I believe it's very possible,

43:39

based on the condition of the body, that

43:41

Dennis was kept hostage for several

43:43

days by someone else.

43:47

What do you think he meant by he was being

43:49

blackmailed? Well,

43:52

you can take it probably several different ways.

43:55

But you know, I think that him and Lee

43:57

were involved in some shady

44:00

business as far as the cocaine

44:03

and the pharmacy came up short, and

44:06

I don't know if it's money that he owed my

44:08

dad owed somebody some money, or

44:11

that's I mean, that's speculation on my

44:14

part. I don't know what

44:16

the black male comes down

44:18

to. And I don't even doubt you

44:20

know that they could have been threatening to us,

44:22

you know, as his children being

44:24

there. You know, I don't know. I don't know what

44:27

the black mail per se is. It's

44:29

aft speculation and

44:32

what we you know, we'll never know exactly what

44:34

happened, and I've come to terms with that.

44:36

I would like to I would like to hope there's

44:38

still people alive that do know

44:42

exactly what happened, But you know, I've

44:44

come to terms with I may never know, other

44:47

than I know that, you know my dad, he

44:49

would have never killed anyone,

44:52

let alone a pregnant woman. And

44:55

you know, his fingerprints were not on the tape

44:58

that balance over, you know.

45:00

I mean, so that in itself

45:03

is like you know, you scratch your head,

45:05

well, there's fingerprints on it, but they're

45:08

not his. So why can't we run those

45:10

friends and find out who they belonged to.

45:15

After KRK did their report, they

45:18

reported that the State Crime lab did find

45:20

several other sets of fingerprints at that crime

45:22

scene. They were tested in the

45:24

nineteen eighties, but there were no matches. Then

45:27

KRK reported that in twenty fifteen,

45:29

Fayetteville police ran the Old Prince

45:31

again, but apparently

45:34

there were no matches found. But

45:36

all of these families, Lee's, Karen's,

45:39

and Dennis's believed that somewhere

45:41

out there, someone knows something about

45:43

an entire family being murdered in one

45:45

night, a little boy left without parents,

45:49

and another man's children wondering

45:51

what really happened to their dad out

45:53

in that pond.

45:56

You know, he was the life of the party

45:59

as far as if you knew him, you

46:01

loved him. He made you feel special, he made

46:03

you feel listened to. You

46:06

know, he could make you smile instantly.

46:10

He was just a great guy. And I

46:12

think he was definitely a people person, and

46:15

I think that's a great

46:17

quality. And also I think for him

46:19

it was his demise.

46:21

At the same time, Tommy

46:25

told k r KAY that his sister

46:27

Karen's unborn baby was a girl. He

46:30

said that every time he visits those three

46:32

graves, he hopes that someone

46:35

might come forward someday. I'm

46:38

Catherine Townsend This is Helen

46:40

Gone Murder Line. Helen

46:44

Gone Murder Line is a production of School of Humans

46:46

and iHeart Podcasts. It's written and

46:49

narrated by me Catherine Townsend and produced

46:51

by Gabby Watts. Music contributed

46:53

by Ben Sale, Executive producers

46:56

of Virginia Prescott, Brandon Barr, and

46:58

Elsie Crowley. If you have a

47:00

case you'd like me and my team to look into, you

47:03

can reach out to us at our Helen Gone Murder Line

47:05

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47:07

four five that six seven eight seven

47:10

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47:29

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