Morbid - Episode 422: The Murders of Billy Payne & Billie Jean Hayworth

Episode Date: January 25, 2023

The murders of Billy Payne and Billie Jean Hayworth were incredibly senseless. The case would end up being dubbed "The Facebook Murders" because of an ongoing feud between the victims and a woman named Jenelle Potter who had moved to their small town years earlier. Strangely enough, all three had been part of the same friend group at one time, but unreciprocated romantic feelings would tear the friend group apart. The case would involve catfishing, manipulation, Facebook.... and even the CIA.Thank you to the astounding David White for research assistance ReferencesDiaz, Joseph, and Alexa Valiente. 2015. "How a Social Media Feud Led to the Murder of a Young Tennessee Couple." ABC News, October 9.Ghianni, Tim. 2012. "Handguns Found at Home of 'Facebook' Murder Suspect." Fort McMurray Today, February 15.Lee, Murry, Ashley Sharp, and Slater Teague. 2021. Daughter, mother convicted in ‘Facebook murders’ case asking for new trials. July 12. Accessed December 23, 2022. https://www.wjhl.com/news/local/mother-daughter-convicted-in-facebook-murders-case-to-appear-in-court-tuesday/.Schoals, Gayle. 2016. "Tricked Into Murder: Obsession, CIA Conspiracies and Shocking Killings." The Sun, September 4.Sharp, Ashley. 2021. Attorneys respond to ‘guilty’ plea, reduced sentence of Barbara Potter in 2012 ‘Facebook Murders’. November 11. Accessed December 26, 2022. https://www.wjhl.com/news/local/attorneys-respond-to-guilty-plea-reduced-sentence-of-barbara-potter-in-2012-facebook-murders/.State of Tennessee v. Barbara Mae Potter. 2018. E2015-02262-CCA-R3-CD (Court of Criminal Appeals of Tennessee at Knoxville, September 26).State of Tennessee v. Marvin E. Potter. 2016. E2015-00013-CCA-R3-CD (Court of Criminal Appeals of Tennessee at Knoxville, March 8).Thompson, John. 2012. "Slaying Suspect's Daughter Interviewed ." Knoxville News Sentinel, February 10.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Hey, Prime members, you can listen to morbid, early, and ad-free on Amazon music. Download the app today. You're listening to Immorbid Network Podcast. Hi, I'm Lindsay Graham, the host of Wondries Podcast American Scandal. Our newest series looks at the Kids for Cash Scandal, a story about two judges who stood accused of making millions of dollars in a brazen scheme that shattered the lives of countless children. Listen to American scandal on Amazon Music or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey weirdo's amesh, and I'm Elena.. It's morbid. Yeah,'ve ever heard of this song. From the sounds of it, it's morbid.

Yeah, we were talking about this earlier. It's, uh, fucking crazy. This case is berserk. This, berserk, berserk. This case, as Caleb would say, goes crazy. I love when Caleb says that something goes crazy. He's like, that's the way he says it. That's why it's like a face that he makes when he says,

he's like, that was crazy. Yeah, but it's better. It's way better actually. It's just, it's a way. It's a way it's a vibe. It's a feeling. It's an emotion. It is, is what it is.

It's snowing here. It is, it's like a, it's like sleet and it's like fat snowing here. It is. It's like, uh, it's like sleet and it's like fat snow and like big snow coming down from the fluffy snow. It's flowing. It's flowing. It's flowing. It's flowing. It's flowing. It's flowing. It's flowing. It's slowly, slowly lost it. Well, because I added an L where one couldn't be. Yeah, no, no, you know, flowing sounded good, but snow and that does not have an element. Is it falling?

It would be foing if anything. Yeah. Guys, we're a little tired today. It's Friday. It's Friday. It's Friday. It's Friday, Yizzle. There you go.

You're like, I'm not saying that. It's all that. It's all the bag of chips. Okay, yeah, but we gotta get into this. My coffee has weamed the fuck off. Yeah, it's just one of those days, you know? It's after the holidays, getting back into it. It's a lot of recordings.

I'm gonna use, you're getting the like crazy punchy us. Yeah, I'm gonna start using like, you know, it's after the holidays. I'm gonna start saying that in like July. 100% it's still after the holidays. I'm just gonna say that to fuck with people. Van or you could say it's almost the holiday You know, it's almost the holiday. Yeah, you can just rest the fuck out because it's always Either after the holidays or almost the holidays at some point pretty much so I think it's valid I like it. I think it's pretty valid. I am into it. Do it.

I don't have anything else. All right, so my case. My case is like I said, it's pretty fucking out there. We are heading over to Mountain City, Tennessee, which is one of my favorite states to spell. It's actually my favorite state to spell. Really? Spell. Spell. I didn't smell. I bet. I've never smelled it. I've never bought a Tennessee. I would have, I would to spell. Really? Spell. Spell. I didn't smell that. I've never smelled it. I've never been to Tennessee.

I would assume would smell really good there. Yeah, probably. Nashville. The whiskey. Yeah, Nashville's got a smell great. Yeah, I want to go to Nashville. Me too. I think everybody does at some point.

We should do that. Yeah, totally. She's just got to Nashville. I think I've said this on the podcast before, but I got to do a project about Tennessee once and it made me happy. Like in school, remember the state project? I do remember that.

Mine was Tennessee and ever since then, I was like, I like Tennessee. Mine was Wisconsin. Boring. Yep. Sure was. Loses entire Wisconsin, listener base. I love you guys, I did you proud.

I'm just kidding. No, Wisconsin, is there a cheese in Wisconsin? Yeah, cheese is a very big part of a not boring at all. Yeah, I love cheese. Yeah, worked out for me. I love it there. All right, well yes. So we're gonna talk about a case

that became known as the Facebook murder. Oh, yes. I don't know if I know this. I don't know if you will, but I think you'll start. If you do know it, I think you'll know pretty early on that you know it. If you know you know. It kick. There you go. So this case has like a little bit of everything.

It's a little smorgasbord, if you will. There's a family murder plot. A CIA agent. Oh. Facebook. Facebook. Manipulation. Catfishing and conspiracy theories go lower.

Wow, everything after Facebook is all describing Facebook. Yeah, of course, manipulation, catfishing, conspiracy theories totally. Yeah, that's just like, what will I find on Facebook? Well, I think I still have a Facebook. I gotta get rid of that. Mine's gone. Mine is gone.

I wanna like download my picks. Yeah, and then you eat it into a movie. And they get out of there. Yeah. But sadly, this case back to it. Sadly, in January of 2012, two bodies were found in Mountain City, Tennessee. They were the bodies of 36 year old Billy Bill Paine and his 23 year old girlfriend, Billie Jean, Hayworth. For the sake of a story, I'm gonna refer to Billie Payne-Morris Bill and Billie Jean as Billie Jean. Okay.

So Bill Payne's throat had been cut and the couple had both been shot in the face. Wow. When they were found, their seven month old son was still in his mother's arms, luckily found alive and unharmed. Oh my God, that's awful. But found sleeping in his mom's arms, luckily found alive and unharmed. Oh my God, that's awful. But found sleeping in his mom's arms, still.

Oh, horrible. That's the worst part of this entire thing. Oh my God. Now it only took the police a week to arrest the men responsible for these murders. They were Jamie Curd, Bill Payne's second cousin, and Marvin, better known as Buddy Porter.

The latter man's daughter, Janelle, had originally been friends with the couple, but more recently, they had become her mortal enemies. Now the case seemed pretty simple at first. It seemed like a father, seeking revenge for his daughter, who claimed that the murdered couple had been behind a string of online bullying and threats directed at her. But this case would turn out to be incredibly more convoluted and so much more bizarre than anyone could have ever expected. By the time the detectives got to the truth,

an entire family would be behind bars and the small serene town of Mountain City would be absolutely gobsmacked. Whoa, you really set that up. I did. Damn, I feel like I felt like I was entering into a date line episode. Well Keith is over there and you know what?

He's looking at me all proud. He is, yeah. Keith is standing next to us with his hands in his pockets. Keith Morrison is standing next to us. Yeah, conversant. He's just here in the pod lab all the time. Yeah, I always. And he's standing there in his converses with his hands in the in the pod lab all the time. Yeah, I always any stand there in his

Converses when the sands in his pockets and he's looking at you like Gobsmacked nice of it. Yeah. Yeah. I like it. Well at the center of this case is a young woman named Janelle potter Excuse me. She was in her late 20s to early 30s during the time that we're gonna talk about today But there are a lot of different ideas and arguments about if Janelle was really operating with a 30-year-old's brain. According to her mother, she had the brain of an elementary school child, but obviously looked to be a grown woman. Janelle was born to parents Barbara and Marvin, like I said, better known as Buddy Potter. And she was born in Pennsylvania in 1981. According to her sister Christine, Janelle was quote, a little bit slower in learning and in developmental capacity.

Meaning she struggled academically. She had some uncomfortable moments with her peers throughout teenage years especially. Yeah, and she was also managing type one diabetes. She had been diagnosed when she was younger and it was something that really affected her self-confidence. She was said to have many health issues in addition to diabetes, but it doesn't seem like those were ever elaborated on or specified.

To many, she came off as quote, a little bit odd, especially when it came to reasoning and interactions with others. So yeah, since she had her fair share of struggles, she wasn't always comfortable in social social situations and she spent a lot of time either by herself or just hanging out with her parents Her sister Christine said that Janelle was very coddled. She was the word coddled by her parents and said that the parents never really taught Janelle how to deal with her problems directly and instead most of the time they would resolve issues that she was having for her. Instead of showing her, like, this is how you can take care of that. She felt like her mother, Christine, felt like her mother in particular, emphasized Genelle's social, physical,

and intellectual disabilities. And it seemed like this really fed Genelle's negative self-image and exacerbated her inability to develop any kind of healthy relationship or any kind of really social skills. Yeah. Now at the same time, Janelle sister wasn't solely placing the blame on their mother. She also felt like Janelle knew how to manipulate her parents, as well as other people into doing what she wanted them to do. And because Christine didn't really agree with most of what was going on and how it was being handled, it put a strain on her relationship with her family,

especially Janelle, that these two sisters did not get along at all. Okay. Now in late 2004, their father, buddy, decided that it would be a good idea to relocate the family from Philadelphia to Mountain City, Tennessee. Christine and Janelle's relationship at this point

had become so deteriorated that Christine actually decided not to go with her family. She ended up moving in with her grandmother, and at this time she actually took out a restraining order on her sister due to her sister's harassing and threatening behavior. What? Yeah.

I don't know if the move was like solely to help Janelle, like if her parents thought a change of scenery might help her struggles, or if it was like for various reasons, but it really didn't seem to help her in any way. She felt like it was even harder to make friends out in Mountain City. She said because she wasn't born and raised there and that the people there didn't like outsiders. This was really also like around the boom of social media, so that became Janelle's cocoon, if you will. Instead of having to go out and make friends and make connections face to face,

she could log into the internet, craft any persona she wanted, and communicate to anybody anywhere from the comfort of her own home. Yeah, and that is the first step into why social media is terrible. It is a force. Yeah, I like that word. So that was pretty much the only way Janelle the first step into why social media is terrible. Is a farce. Yeah.

I like that word. So that was pretty much the only way a genel communicated with the outside world until like 2009. Wow. Now at some point in 2009, she ran out to the local food lion to pick up a prescription and a woman named Tracey Greenwell was working there. And she could kind of recognize that genel was a bit awkward

and didn't necessarily have fantastic social skills. But instead of avoiding Chanel, she decided like, what am I trying to friend her? She doesn't seem like she has a lot of friends. And she has, like, she's kind of not new here, but she's been here a while and hasn't made friends with anybody. Tracy went out of her way to call Chanel. She would invite her out with her own friends so that she wouldn't be cooped up at home all the time, with like just her parents as companions. I say, in a world full of assholes, be a Tracy. Oh, there you go. So Janelle's parents who have been described many, many times over as very overprotective, they wanted Tracy to come over to the house for

a couple times before they allowed to Janelle to go out with her. Okay. Now remember, she's in her 20s, 30s, so. Yeah, so that's like a different scenario. Because at first I was like, I get that, but then she's not a teenager. She's not a child. Yeah. According to her mother, she is a child.

But I, yeah. So she's very convoluted. Yeah, exactly. So once they were confident though, that Tracy was good company, they did allow Janelle to go out with her. And it wasn't long before Janelle bonded with Tracy's group of friends.

She was regularly hanging out with them. They took her rock climbing. There's like pictures of them hanging out together. It looked like they all had a great time. Yeah. Now, part of the friend group was Tracy's brother, Billy Payne. Janelle immediately took a liking to Billy,

who like I said, was also referred to as Bill. Whenever the group would go out, both Tracy and Bill would also bill two went out of his way to include Janelle. He was like a good guy, just like a sister. The district attorney who would later become involved in this case, Dennis Brooks, felt like it was during this time that Janelle developed feelings for Bill Payne. Oh. He, quote, included her in social occasions, like I said, going rock climbing or just hanging out to someone like Janelle who led such a boring

and sheltered life, that must have seemed like something special. Yeah. That's what he said. That's what he said. Well, and he's just a nice guy. Exactly. So he's just like a very, very decent, very nice guy.

The way he was described was a nice guy who had time for anyone. Oh, so I've won him. I, of decent, very nice guy. The way he was described was a nice guy who had time for anyone. Oh, well, I, of course, I'm looking at pictures and he just has like a very kind face. He does. And say both billies do. I was gonna say Billie Jean and Veypin. And so cute.

So the thing was, it wasn't long before Janelle's feelings turned into an obsession with Bill. Oh no. Even though she kind of seemed to be able to hide it from her friend group for a little while, things would not remain that way. Eek. Now, like I said, even though Janelle was in her late 20s by this point in time, she'd never had any kind of romantic relationship or relationship at all with anybody before.

And since she wasn't upfront about how she felt about Bill Payne, he didn't know and either did Tracy. So instead, the brother sister duo thought it would be a great idea actually to set Jinelle up with a great guy that they knew. Yeah. Their second cousin, Jamie Kurt. Okay.

Jamie had grown up in Mountain City just like his cousins and shared a lot of the same friends. He was a big part, he was a part of the larger friend group that Jinelle was now in at this time. Okay. And Jamie and Bill also worked together at the Parkdale Mills. Okay. Jamie and Janelle hit it off instantly.

But like I said, Janelle's parents were very overprotective. So Janelle thought it would be a better idea if she kept this relationship a secret from them. At first, her and Jamie would just have, quote, 30 to 45 second phone calls with each other. And on one of those phone calls, Janelle mentioned to Jamie that her computer seemed to be having some kind of issue lately,

like she couldn't get it to work. So he offered to come by and fix it. And he came to the house several times a week to keep working on this computer. And Janelle told her parents that she just knew him through a friend or she made up some kind of story. Yeah, but the whole time he was fixing her computer, which took hours and hours, days and days, she would sit with him and they would just chat until he was finished for the day.

Yeah. So there were, you know, it sounds like a meet cute. Like a very cute, like, you know, yeah, it's a cute meet cute. Yeah. Good meeting. Exactly. Now, once the computer was finally fixed, though, Janelle and Jamie needed a new way to keep in regular contact without being caught. Janelle and Jamie needed a new way to keep in regular contact without being caught by Janelle's parents. So Jamie came up with the idea

to get Janelle a separate, prepaid cell phone that she would only use for calls to him. Janelle agreed she was like, this is a great idea. And to add to the thrill of the secret, she quote, instructed Jamie to hide the cell phone in a bush at the corner of her front yard where she could retrieve it. See, that just sounds like a girl, like a young woman who has been sheltered her whole life.

This is very exciting. And she's like, I'm going to live out my like, you know, book fantasy totally by like leave it in the bush in the corner of the yard and I'll go get it. She was and she ends up being described as very like, very into fantasy. It makes sense. Like I see that. Like that, that excited her that she was like, oh, I get to do this like little mission to go get it. I love that you call me. Yeah, it's like, it's exactly what I thought of.

Yeah. Because it's like this like a clandestine thing. Like I get to go get it from the bush in the corner of the, you leave it for me. You know what I mean? And I'm sure she's seen like a million fucking movies at this point. A million TV shows and she's like, I have to do it like this. What does it want to be a book character?

I'm... Who does it? I want to be a book character all the time. Yeah, you know? You know? You know? What if you were trafficked into a cult over shot nine times, or fell in love with a vampire, or went into a minor surgery and woke up one week later, paralyzed? What would you do?

I'm Whit Missildine, the creator of this is actually happening, a podcast from Wondry that brings you extraordinary true stories of life-changing events told by the people who lived them. From a young man that dooms his entire future with one choice, to a woman who survived a notorious serial killer, you'll hear their first person account of how they overcame remarkable circumstances. Each episode is an exploration of the human spirit and personal discovery. These haunting accounts sound like Hollywood movies, but I assure you this is actually happening. Follow this is actually happening wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen ad-free on the Amazon Music or Wonder App.

So the couples plan worked for a few weeks, but eventually Janelle's mother Barbara, which I'm just now realizing is very teen mom-esque. Oh yeah, Janelle and Barbara. She found out about the phone and she got rid of it. No more making calls with your boyfriend. Wow, I love that show. Right, at least. Wow.

So she found the phone and she was like, goodbye. But Jamie actually just ended up getting Janelle another phone which he again hid in the front bushes. They didn't come up with a better idea. I was going to say, you got to move it. She didn't find it in the bushes. I think she just found Janelle using it. Yeah. What the fuck is that? Yeah. But I'm like, you gotta move it. She didn't find it in the bushes. I think she just found like, Genelle using it.

It was like, what the fuck is that? Yeah. But I'm like, you had a second opportunity to like do something even cooler. Yeah, put it somewhere else. Yeah, you know. But anyway, she continued to use that phone strictly to calls to Jamie.

So things went on like this for about six months with Genelle and Jamie sneaking around behind her parents back. But by early 2010, a lot of Janelle's friends kind of noticed a shift in her behavior. It was a pretty big change in her personality. And her personality seemed to shift right around the time that Bill Payne started dating Billie Jean Hayworth. She was a local girl who he and Jamie actually both worked without the mills. Jamie said that Bill and Billie Jean quote hit it right off and Bill

just fell head over heels in love with her. Oh, and they look like they love each other so much. I mean all their pictures. Yeah, I want to take like a little time to talk about the two of them and before we get back to the story, they seem to be meant for each other. The two of them and before we get back to the story, they seem to be meant for each other. The two of them had a lot in common, and they, like I said, seemed to bring out the best in each other. Billie Jean Hayworth had been born in Mountain City, Tennessee on March 19th, 1988.

Her parents were Carl and Martha Hayworth. She had two sisters, Janie and Beverly, and two brothers, Greg and Darrell. And when she was growing up, she really loved to be outside. She loved to play volleyball. And the older and older she got, especially when she was a young adult and kind of making her own money, one of the things that she loved to do was go to different like flea markets, yard sales, auctions, and just see what treasure she could find.

She loved to like that. She loved to good flea market flea. Oh, hell yeah. Which is one of my favorite trips. Now Bill Payne had been born in Boone, North Carolina on July 10th, 1975, to parents Billy Ray Payne. He was named after his father. I love all the billies here. I do too. I love it. And Beverly Dugger. His wife, just like Billy, excuse me, his life, just like Billy Jeans was average. He got along with his parents, got along with his siblings. He had the sister Tracy that we know about

and also a brother named Josh. Okay. And just like Billie Jean, he also grew up loving to go to the flea markets, the old kids, the yard sales. Only he had a thing for rare coins. Oh, that's like a really cute niche thing to love. Like how lucky is that? Like a like rare coin. Yeah, I loved like a really cute niche thing to love.

She is like, I like rare coin. Yeah, I loved collecting a rare coin. I love that. Or even just like looking at them. Just yeah, that's just like, Oh, actually, you know what my brother used to, JP used to, yeah, collect rare coins. Yeah, they're kind of about that actually. They're very neat things, but they're funny. That's adorable. That's adorable, JP. Now as he got older, Bill, he unfortunately suffered with an addiction to opioids and he was also known at this time to sell drugs when things were bad. But at the time of his death,

he was getting treatment at a local clinic and he was working hard to become sober. Good for him. He wanted to be the best father that he could be to his kids because in addition to the young son that he had with Billie Jean, he actually also had a son Justin that lived in Florida with his mother. Okay. Unfortunately, he couldn't really see Justin very often because he lived in Florida. Yeah. But he was trying for his sons. Yeah. And for Billie Jean. And by all accounts,

Billie Jean was one of the best things to happen to Bill Payne, and she was a really good influence on him. Since she'd come into his life, his friends started to notice he was drinking less, he was shown up to parties less, he wanted to get off drugs, and completely away from them for good. He wanted to make a life with this girl. I love that. But remember, Bill wasn't the only person in a state of change. Janelle was too, but hers was not for the good. Tracy Greenwell noticed the shift and said that Janelle seemed to become mean around the time that Bill and Billie Jean got together. She'd make comments about Billie Jean and how much she just liked her. When Jamie would tell Janelle

that she shouldn't be so hard on this girl because Bill Paine was really in love, Janelle would just make comments about their relationship not lasting. She was like, I give it this amount of time. Okay. Or like, it's not gonna last like full of all. It's like, why are you being a hater? Yeah, that's bad energy. It is. Yeah.

And she got even nastier when Billie Jean became pregnant with her and Bill's baby. Janelle would comment that neither of them deserved the baby. Oh. And she would say things that I'm not even gonna repeat about the baby. Oh my God. She was horrible.

Ew, horrible. You can look it up. Oh, her comments became worse and worse and worse over time. But her mean spirit wasn't just directed toward Bill and Billie Jean. A lot of it was, but not entirely. It was even directed at her own boyfriend, Jamie. On one occasion in February, Jamie had gone to a party at Bill Payne's house, and he had too much to drink, so he ended up passing out there. He woke up at some point to his phone, ringing off the hook,

and had been ringing all night. I don't know if the phone will come up, or if somebody there was like, Jesus Christ, answer your fucking phone. Yeah. But when he answered it, it was Janelle's father father buddy on the other line. Oh.

And he told Jamie, quote, Janelle had left the house and they found her in a ditch. What? He went on to say that Janelle didn't love Jamie and he needed to stay away from Janelle from that point forward. And then Janelle got on the phone and told Jamie for herself that she didn't love him

and she never wanted to see him again. What the fuck? Out of fucking nowhere. But then, three days later, Jamie got a call from Janelle telling him that she did love him and she did want to continue on with their relationship. And it was her dad that made her say those awful things to him. From that point forward, she told them that she should be the one to initiate phone calls. I don't know what that was, but I think you initiated that phone call. Yeah, I know. But anyways, I think what happened the night of that party in my personal opinion, I think Janelle was upset for a number of reasons.

I think one of the main ones was that she couldn't go to parties like that. Her parents wouldn't allow her to, even though she was a grown-ass woman. And I think the other thing that she was pissed off about was that this was Bill Payne's party. Oh, she wouldn't have wanted to miss that. And I think since she was so angry at him now, she felt like Jamie going to that party was him going against her, but trail in some way by being cordial with his own cousin. Okay.

And because of that, I think she wanted to punish him and make him feel like something terrible had happened to her because she was so upset over this, which is why her parents found her in a ditch. Yep. I also don't know if they like actually did find her in a ditch or a safe. It's gonna stay. It's gonna stay.

It's gonna stay. It's gonna stay. It's gonna stay. It's gonna stay. It's gonna stay. It's gonna stay. It's gonna stay. It's gonna stay. It's gonna stay. It's gonna stay. It's gonna stay. It's gonna stay. It's gonna stay. It's gonna stay. It's gonna stay. It's gonna stay. It's gonna stay. It's gonna stay. It's gonna stay. It's gonna stay. It's gonna stay. It's gonna stay. It's gonna stay. It's gonna stay. It's gonna stay. It's gonna stay. It's gonna stay. It's gonna stay. It's gonna stay. It's gonna stay. It's gonna stay. It's gonna stay. It's gonna stay. It's gonna stay. It's gonna stay. It's gonna stay. It's gonna stay. It's gonna stay. It's gonna stay. It's gonna stay. It's gonna stay. It's gonna stay. It's gonna stay. It's gonna stay. It's gonna stay. It's gonna stay. It's gonna stay I could see it being the latter. Honestly, I could see it being the former too, actually. To release family's wild. This is a wild family. Yeah. Like, I'm a little scared to see what's happening now. You are. Absolutely. Yeah.

Yeah. I just, honestly, overall, I think this was like a weird, strange ploy for attention. But Jamie, of course, didn't realize that. He liked Janelle. I think she kind of stroked his ego. He was a older than she was. And she was kind of infatuated with him and vice versa.

So they continued dating, even though their conversations were limited to really odd hours of the day and night, because Janelle didn't want to be caught by her mom, talking on the phone with him. That's wild. And they weren't able to go on dates because her parents disapproved of him.

Now, over time, Jamie's feelings toward his cousin Bill and Billie Jean also shifted, most likely due to Jeanelle's manipulation. Bill and Jamie had worked together, like I said at the mills, for years. And they had always been close. They'd always gotten along. Remember, Bill was the one to set Jamie and Jeanelle up in the first place. But now, Jamie was suddenly pulling back from his cousin and was becoming distant and actually went as far as to request a change in his work schedule

so that his hours wouldn't line up with Bill's or Billie Jean. What? Because she also worked at the Mills. Now, since Jinell wasn't able to see Jamie very often and by this point, her parents had pretty much forbidden her from seeing any of the rest of the friend group. She poured herself even further into social media. Now it was late in 2010, and it was around this time that Janelle started to mention a man named Chris, to Jamie, and a lot of her other friends.

She told Jamie that Chris was a family friend and neighbor back in Pennsylvania. She said he grew up in the house next to hers. He was really more like a brother to her all throughout high school and he always watched out for her. And now he worked for the CIA. And she was super, super excited because he was actually going to be transferred to Tennessee soon. And he would actually be buying a house in Mountain City. No choice. She was super, super stoked about it. And like I said, Jamie wasn't the only one to hear about Chris, this Chris character. One of Janelle's friends online, strictly online, they never met in person. Bob Mean also remembered that right around mid to late 2010, Janelle kept bringing up Chris

more and more frequently. Bob also lived in Pennsylvania where she was from. And though he'd never met Janelle in person, he actually thought that they were in a long distance relationship. Oh, they texted, they exchanged emails, they were social media friends. Oh boy, he thought they were in a relationship. I don't know what she thought. That's that, but that's that about that. And that's the tea on that. Now, other friends of hers online remembered her bringing up Chris too. And most of them remembered that she described him

as a family friend, not like a love and trust or anything like that, just an old friend who now worked for the CIA, which we all want to most. Aren't you not supposed to tell people if you work for the CIA? I'm pretty sure. Like, can you tell people that you do? I don't know. I don't know what the protocol is.

I'm pretty sure like the whole point of the CIA is to be pretty secretive about that. Like, I totally stop that too. I'm pretty secretive about your whereabouts, but like, they kept right. But sure. It's like men in slow and tell everybody. Tell everybody this CIA agent is moving in. Yeah, via Facebook. Yeah, via a Facebook messenger.

I don't see this happening. It seems legit. Chris is real guys. This seems real. Yes. This is the yes. He's a real character. Yeah.

Yeah, this is only character. Exactly. So this sudden mention of Chris seemed to happen right around the time that Janelle found out Billie Jean was pregnant. And also right around the time that Janelle found out Billie Jean was pregnant. And also right around the time that Janelle started complaining to Jamie that she was being bullied and harassed on all of her social media platforms. All of a sudden, these anonymous users started posting

all these terrible things about her and on her wall and messaging her all anonymous users on Facebook. I was just gonna say on Facebook, but that was hard. And also another social media platform she used was Topics. The fuck is that? I've never heard of that in my life. Neither had I.

I don't know if it just like didn't get big over here. Like, what if it didn't get big over here? Like, do any of you use Topics? I don't know if it's around anymore me, like, it didn't get me over here. Like, do any of you use topics? I don't know if it's around anymore, but... Did you use topics? Guys? Yes, sir. It's topics with an X, too.

Topics me. Let me know. It gave you news based on where you were, and you could also interact with people in your area. I guess. I've literally never heard of that. Kind of sounds like fascinating. The neighbor app, I don't know what it's called, but the neighbor app, I know what you mean.

You know the one I'm talking about. The one where you can be like, hey, did you see that person driving the street? I've never interacted there, but I'm always reading it. I love a neighbor app. We love. We do be loving. Those are my social media apps.

The neighbor apps where we can all spy on each other. You know what my favorite social media app is? Door-dash. Hell yeah. I communicate with one person and one person only and they always bring me food. It's great. I shouldn't say always, actually, sometimes I steal it. I was gonna say sometimes they steal it.

Not very frequently. But anyways, at the same time, that Janelle was getting harassed and bullied and Laudida do. Jamie started getting texts from Chris. So he is real. Oh, he's getting texts from him. Yeah, obviously. Yeah, you can't pick that. He's like, no, not at all. He's like, Janelle is getting bullied mercilessly and needed to stop. I feel like you're the CIA. That's what he's saying. Yeah. So eventually Chris started emailing Jamie, telling him more and more about the relentless online bullying and how he needed to put an end to it being her boyfriend. But strangely, the emails were coming from Janelle's email account.

They're coming from inside the house. They literally are coming from inside the house. Yeah. And when Jamie asked why that was, Chris told him that he had a phobia of phones and didn't like using them. Apparently, he was also against having his own email address as well. He has a phobia of phones. Like, sir, you worked for this sexual intelligence agency. I don't like answering a phone call. Like a cold call is pretty. Don't ever fucking call me. To severe violation in my book. If I wear friends and you called me, and it's kind of being a problem.

But I would definitely not classify it as a phobia. I don't even know if there is a phobia. I don't know. I think you might have a phobia of like texting. But even I don't say. Yeah, does anyone else get like, I'm sorry, I'm gonna take you out. No, no, go ahead.

Just really quick, because I just need to know does anyone else get severe anxiety about texting? And does anybody else prefer to answer text messages on their laptop? Yeah, I don't like typing on my phone. And then I get anxious when I get text messages, and then I don't answer them right away because like I am who I am. And then I keep thinking about it and days go by and I go, oh no, I'm a weak past this text message that I didn't answer. And then I get more anxiety. And then I just, it's so, I hate it. It's the one thing that I get.

A lot of anxiety about. You're waiting on a text back for Malena. That's why. It's coming. I'm just real anxious about it, okay? It's coming up. Yeah. She's just really anxious. She'll get back to you soon. Oh. Yeah, that's my theme. He's like, is this a listener tails episode? What the fuck? Like, though. But yeah, I just had to throw that out there.

Yeah, I feel that. If you feel that way as well, you're not alone. Well, Chris felt that way. He said, no phone. Chris feels that way. Yeah, the CIA doesn't make us use them. Nope. So I was like, okay, you're gonna have a phobia of phones,

but where the fuck is your email address? Well, that's the thing. You have one. You have not explained all of this, sir. I have no idea. But Jamie would later say that he could tell the difference between an email or a text that came from Chris because Chris was way more intense than Janelle.

Janelle quote, never cursed, never called people names or spoke hatefully to people. What a kind soul. Yeah. But Jamie said that Chris' communications were full of obscenities, ranting, and harmful wishes toward others, specifically Billy Jean and Bill Payne.

And he's a CIA agent, okay. I'm just putting together the pieces here. That's probably great quality stuff and a CIA agent. When you also think like, in my opinion, I would think that like even somebody's monitoring the C.I.A.'s communications. Yeah, I do.

I mean, this is adding up. This is legit. I feel pretty comfortable with this, you know. Anyways. But when Chris wasn't going off about the couple, he would give Jamie advice on how to better his relationship with Janelle. You know, because like the C.I.A. also doubles as your own personal therapist. Absolutely.

Yeah. So when Jamie asked Janelle about what was going on online, she told him that this harassment really came out of nowhere. And like I said, I said, like I said, so many times during this. But like I said, sorry, I will come up with something else. But was a slew of anonymous comments to her Facebook page telling her she was a bad person and this is intense,

that they were going to have her raped. Oh my God. Yeah. That's horrific. The comments had escalated so much over the course of a couple of weeks that Janelle's mother Barbara actually ended up posting her own comment to Janelle's wall begging the anonymous comment to commentators to stop and not please not do this to her daughter. That's awful.

Like Barbara was really distraught over this. Yeah, of course, but just delete your Facebook. Exactly. Yeah, that was happening. You got to make a new one with a different name or something. Get out of there. But so Barbara was really, really concerned. But this was interesting because Janelle's friends didn't really seem to be too concerned

about this. They felt like there was something really suspicious about all of this. Yeah. And they didn't really seem to think any of it was real. Tracy Greenwald. Yeah, Tracy Greenwald later said, quote, Janelle was always saying that somebody was mad at her, somebody hated her, somebody wanted to kill her.

She was paranoid about it. Ah. So Janelle was frustrated that her friends didn't believe her and she insisted that the danger she was facing was very real. And over weeks the tension was building and building. And Janelle was starting to point the finger at four people within her very own friend group. Hmm.

A girl named Lindsay Thomas. The girl, the first girl who would ever befriend her in this town, Tracy Greenwell. Tracy's brother Bill Payne and Bill Payne's girlfriend, Billie Jean. Come on. Now within this same time period, Janelle called the police to her home and reported that a rock had been thrown into her front yard and it had the name's Billie Payne and Billie Jean painted on it. And she felt like this was proof that they were the ones behind all the harassment.

Okay. So to retaliate, she started posting on Facebook calling Lindsay Thomas and Billie Jean Mean Girls and sharing screenshots that were clearly doctored and manipulated to seem like these girls were harassing her. Wow. Doesn't seem like they were. Wow.

But because of this sudden shift in her behavior and resulting turmoil, pretty much everybody in the friend group ended up unfriending her. Yeah, of course. And they all removed themselves from her orbit to kind of save themselves from the drama of it all. And the rest of them were like, Jesus Christ, one is, she gonna turn on me.

Of course. Yeah. So, Janelle just kept on posting about them, though. Lindsey Thomas actually called Janelle on the phone on one occasion when she found out that Janelle was writing about her on Facebook. And she was like, please, can you just like stop this?

Like you gotta stop, girlfriend. What a terrible era. We live in, oh my god, I know, when these things are like, this person wrote this about me on Facebook. Oh god. High school. It's the, the pendulum has to swing the other way eventually.

Seriously, and mind you, these are people in there like 20s and 30s. Yeah. It's like, these are people in there like 20s and 30s. Yeah. It's like what are you doing? It's still happening. I mean, there being these other people are being dragged into this. Yeah, of course. But some of them kind of start to partake a little bit. I think they start getting pissed off that they've been. Of course, people get sucked into this. Exactly. No, anyways, according to Lindsay, Janelle told her when she called her, she had no idea what she was talking about. She said she wasn't posting anything about Lindsay or Billy or Billie Jean, nobody.

Yet right after this exchange, Lindsay started getting calls from the potter's home line where the caller would just breathe heavily, but other than that, say nothing at all. Like, girlie, star 69 it. Seriously. Come on. But there were a couple of instances, though,

where a man got on the phone. Lindsay said she believed this man was Janelle's father, buddy, and he would demand that Lindsay and her friends leave his daughter alone, stop calling his house, like end the nonsense, even though she was the one getting the phone calls. She did not call them. Wow, like what wow.

So in May 2011, shifting gears a little bit, Jamie Kurds mother passed away. And it was around this time that Janelle's family actually started being more welcoming toward him. They still didn't want Jamie and Janelle to have a relationship with each other, but they were like, you know, you fix our computer, computer, you're decent enough, you can be Janelle's friend, but like, you can't date her. You can be around. You can be around.

Now he got an invite for family dinners, holiday celebrations. And strangely enough, actually, in no time at all, he and Janelle's father buddy were like thickest thieves. They really hid it off. Now that same month, May of 2011, Lindsey Thomas ended up filing a telephone harassment, or multiple telephone harassment charges against Janelle, who still seemed to be calling

ever so frequently. Thank God. David up. Even though Lindsey knew that it was Janelle who was responsible for the calls, since there were two other adults that lived in the home, she couldn't prove it, and because of that, there really wasn't a lot that law enforcement could do. Yeah. And because she wasn't being stopped by anybody,

Janelle continued her social media escapades. And now she was trying to bring more and more of this group of friends and even people outside of this group of friends into her feud with Lindsay, Billie Jean, Bill Paine, and Tracy. Jeez. One acquaintance of all these people, including Janelle, Tara Osborne would later end up testifying that when she tried to remove herself from the drama, she got an email from a Facebook account linked to Janelle.

She answered the email saying that she wasn't interested in having any part of this. She was like, please, God, just leave me alone. Yeah. And she was like, Janelle, please don't contact me again. And then she blocked the user. Okay. She then started getting phone calls similar to the ones that Lindsey Thomas was getting. But these calls were also from the Potter household, except this caller, quote, tried to make noises from a horror movie and had an insanity laugh.

Tried to make noises from a horror movie? Unfortunately, no further elaboration on that. Damn it. What do you really want to know at that in Tales? What would those, like, do you think she just meant heavy breathing? Maybe. I always, noises from a horror movie make me think of those,

like, really, like, the strings that are like, like, you know, maybe some heavy piano, wow.da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da Oh my God. I wish that I was like a real person in the 90s, and I couldn't have called people and been like, what's your favorite scary movie? That was literally the most amazing thing to do. Yeah, for years to come fun. I love it. But yeah, I don't know. I don't know.

Also an insanity laugh. I don't really know insanity laugh. Either. I don't know. I just hear the wicked witch. Yeah. Yeah, like a cackle. Yeah. Well, anyways, Osborne also tried to file telephone harassment charges against Janelle, but a

clerical error caused her case to be dismissed. Okay. Yeah. Love those clerical errors. Yeah, I don't know. Now, while everybody was getting more and more concerned about the situation that Janelle was creating for them, Janelle's CIA buddy Chris, he was getting pissed, the fuck off about the way she was being treated. And now Janelle's parents were hearing about Chris too, and anytime Jamie Kurt would come over, he and Janelle's parents would talk about the latest ongoings and the feud and how concerned they were about their sweet precious jinelli. Jinelli's mother Barbara commented to Jamie that Chris was, quote, angry and firing back at Thomas and Hayworth

with emails and it was like a war. Hmm. Yeah. Neither of Jinelli's parents really understood what was going on, probably because they were getting skewed information from Jinelli. Yeah. And really, they just wanted all of this to stop.

They were like, what the fuck is going on? And like, where did this come from? Seriously. The drama was affecting Janelle's behavior with them too. And it just felt like a constant barrage of negativity coming at them from all angles. Yeah. So this seems to be the tipping point in the story.

According to Jamie, Buddy Potter talked a lot about his, quote, missions in other countries during his time in the CIA. Yes, you heard that right. Chris was not the only secret agent in this town, baby. What? Buddy Potter also claimed to have worked for the agency. Uh-huh.

Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Okay. Yeah. Okay. That's that, really. Mm-hmm. Okay. Yeah. Okay. That's that, really. That's the, that's the bad on that.

That's the bad, that, that. There you go. But Jeannie knew that Buddy Potter was also an avid gun collector. Not only were there tons and tons and tons of guns in the home, but Buddy Potter kept two strapped to him at all times. Okay. He would have one in a shoulder harness and another in a holster that he kept strapped around his ankle.

There's actually a picture that I saw of him in Barbara Gardening together and he has a gun strapped on him and a sling of ammunition. Oh yeah, I saw that in their gardening. They're just gardening. I saw that picture. And he is fucking packed, stacked. Yeah, Pat, he's packing. He's packing. He's yeah, that's what it is stacked facts packed I don't know what like what's going I am a little innocent

Like don't know how to say it like he has guns. Don't know how to say it He there was guns everywhere in this house He actually had to carry like an oxygen tank around with him, just, he had like some medical problems on his own. Yeah. And there was ammunition slung around his oxygen tank. Wow. Okay.

Like a choice and a half. A bold choice, bold move. But, but Ian Barbara both seemed to be getting more and more aggressive about the situation with Janelle and Eager, Jamie felt to do whatever they needed to ended themselves. And I think he was kind of starting to get a little bit freaked out by this.

But at the same time, Jamie would later say that when Buddy and Barbara were getting aggressive, Janelle would just stay quiet. And he was like, I was really confused by this because whenever we talked about it, Janelle had no problem sharing her opinions freely, discussing the whole entire few.length with me. But around her parents, he put it that she quote, acted like a needy kid to a parent.

Manipulation. At its finest. As the situation intensified, Barbara actually started getting messages directly to her email account from CIA agent Chris, with no last name. Chris. Chris. Just Chris. Agent number 001. He's going to be really serious when it came to the threats being made against Janelle. And he emphasized to Barbara that everybody should take them seriously. But also noted that he was monitoring this situation very closely.

And he was ready to jump in and take care of things whenever it became necessary. Well, thank goodness we have Chris. I'm saying, and Barbara was terrified for her daughter, which makes me sad. And even though the Chris emails were still coming from Janelle's email account, she fully believed that this online bullying had reached the point where this CIA agent

felt like he needed to get involved. Oh, man. It's never been made clear whether or not Barbara was diagnosed with any kind of mental illness or if she struggled cognitively, but there are more than a handful of instances where family, friends and authorities have referenced her as being delusional

and needing functional assistance. Okay. So I think that's important to keep in mind. Well, that's sad. It is, exactly. And I wanted to say that part of it because you might be sitting there being like, Jesus Christ, how does she believe this? Yeah.

But like, we don't know for sure, but it's been implied. There's possibly more at play. Exactly. Now, even before Janelle had moved to Mountain City and gone through this falling out with her friends, Barbara was almost overprotective to a fault. Remember what Christine said? She was like, she was always going out of her way to solve things for Janelle, like it wasn't good.

But once this whole debacle intensified, it kind of seemed to reach a point where Barbara was paranoid, like really intensely paranoid. And the emails from Chris were only feeding that paranoia more and more. Yeah. And unfortunately, in the summer of 2011,

Janelle actually needed to be hospitalized. This was due to poor management of her diabetes, but I think her family felt like it was brought on by what was going on. This actually wasn't uncommon for her to end up in the hospital because of the way she managed her diabetes or the timelines. But the timelines worked exactly. Now while Janelle was hospitalized, the number of emails from CIA agent Chris to Jamie and Barbara reached a new level. There were tons and tons of emails being received daily, almost like he got like a week off from work or something.

Wow. About the online issues and Janelle's current situation with being hospitalized. Again, all of these emails were coming from Janelle's account, but they knew that they were from Chris. Yeah. One from Chris to Jamie red quote, I hope Janelle's account, but they knew that they were from Chris. Yeah. One from Chris to Jamie red quote, I hope Janelle doesn't, or excuse me, I hope Janelle don't think about killing herself. And Jamie responded saying, I think that if it wasn't for us, she might have thought about it. Didn't say it, but I can tell she has just took all she can from these mother fuckers. They won't let up and they're crazy. Hell, I don't know why they have to do this.

I don't know, I don't know. Their life has to such at the point that they see this as a sick joke or something, dumb bastards. And here's the thing, if like, like just stop being on social media with the end, like you're grown adults. Yeah. Just interact in life and cut those people out of your life if you want.

Just like go play a video game. And that's it. And that's it. And if you really have to, like, that's the thing. Go on club penguin. Like you don't, the nobody needs to like, because even if she was being bullied, it's like you don't need to stand for that. You can just go, whoop, turn it off.

Yeah, exactly. Get in the computer. Get a fucking meal, turn it off. Yeah, exactly. Get him to the computer. Get a fucking meal. Put the fuck. I'm saying. Well anyways, Chris wrote back seemingly trying to comfort Jamie and telling him that he wasn't alone in the fight against Janelle's bullies.

Chris was here for Jamie. And he even said that he had Lindsey Thomas under 24 seven surveillance at this time and that he had shot her black, a back glass out of her car, which like, I don't know if the CIA like shoots people's cars for you if you're being bullied online. I was gonna say that experience. I've never had a friend who had that experience, but this is an interesting use of the CIA's time and resources. One might say. That's what I'll say. One might say. Interesting. Now I'll say. One might say.

Interesting. Now, I don't think that actually happened, to be honest. I don't either. It's really like I don't know how, I don't know if anybody followed up on that. If anybody goes out of their car or if they just took Chris's word for it, they took Chris's word many, many times over. It seems like they lived for Chris's word.

They did. His word and his word alone. They lived and died by Chris's word. But to be honest, even though there were pending telephone harassment charges and from time to time, rebuttal posts on Facebook from the people that Janelle was pointing the finger at, they were all just going on with their lives and doing the best they could to avoid the drama and avoid Jamie and Janelle. They were like, I can't. It's so be so scary. That's someone to focus on you like that. the drama and avoid Jamie and Janelle. They were like, I can't. It's gonna be so scary.

That's someone to focus on you like that. And you're like, I just wanna live my life and like, without you in it. Like, please just go away. When you never bullied them in the first place. I, as we all know, at this point I'm thinking, this came from pure jealousy on Janelle's part to Billie Jean. Yeah, because Janelle had feelings for Bill Payne.

She never did anything about it, but because she liked him, she felt like Billie Jean was in the wrong for dating him. And it's like he's allowed to not like you, to not be attracted to you. He might, he might have even been at some point in time, but she never expressed those feelings. But also he's allowed to not be attracted to you. Yeah. It could just be friends. That's the same. That's the same.

You just because you're a woman. Right, Jesus. Not everyone is attracted to everyone. Like, exactly. You find people hot that I'm like, I don't think so, and vice versa. Yeah. You know, it's like everybody has a different type.

Exactly. It's ridiculous. It's freaking ridiculous. It's freaking ridiculous. But everybody's trying to move on with this. Yeah. And Tracy, Greenwell, Bill Payne, Billy Jean, and Lindsay Thomas were really specifically trying to rid themselves of this situation.

But at that same time, Chris was making sure that Jamie curd, buddy, and Barbara Potter were heavily immersed in this. It was consuming their lives at this point. What a way to live consuming their lives. It sounds like a fucking nightmare. It was consuming their lives at this point. What a way to live. Consuming their lives. It sounds like fucking nightmare. It is. Now in late October of 2011, Lindsey Thomas actually, her telephone harassment case against Janelle went to court. And unfortunately, it was dismissed pretty quickly because, again, there wasn't a lot of proof. I was going to say those things are so hard to prove.

Exactly. Now, this dismissal,al though seemed to unbolden, not only Janelle, but Barbara Potter. In the weeks that followed, they stepped up their harassment and actually just a few days after the court appearance, Billie Jean Hayworth was at a local gas station filling up her car with her baby in the back seat. Oh God. And Janelle and Barbara were in the car behind Billie's

and so they followed her into this gas station, and they started screaming at her that she was white trash and that she didn't deserve her son. Oh, my God. And like a slew of other threats. Ew. According to her close friend Linda, who was actually working inside in the gas station

at the time, Billy raced into the store with her baby and she was quote, crying, trembling and shaking. Oh, my God. She was terrified of these people. Holding her baby and she was quote, crying, trembling and shaking. Oh my God. She was terrified of holding her baby. Just filling up her car, going about her day, living her life. And there was also tension between Jamie Curt and Bill Payne at this time, the cousins.

Like, remember, they're family. Yeah. Though they didn't have to work together very often at the Milleniumore, since Jamie had requested not to be scheduled at the same time as either person, like the couple, there were instances where it was inevitable. They're like, you got to fucking work together because that's a schedule. Yeah, that's a schedule.

So during some of those work, yeah, exactly. During some of those instances, there were arguments between the cousins, especially over the fact that Jamie had blindly taken Janelle's side without even hearing his own cousin's account of what was really going on here. And Bill also knew that Jamie was going back to Janelle and telling her everything that had been said during these arguments,

because then Janelle would take to social media and air everything out. So he's like, I'm trying to talk to you like human to human human man to man. This is so pathetic. Yeah, exactly. Truly. Exactly.

Now finally, there was one night where Bill actually called his cousin Jamie and in an attempt to end the feud once and for all. He was like, me and Billy Jean started keeping a record of emails and social media posts and comments directed at us by Janelle and Barbara. And he told him the file was now more than two inches thick. She had that much. But agreed that it wasn't just Janelle and Barbara involved in this fight.

He said there were hurtful remarks made on both sides now that they were in the thick of this. But they said all started with Janelle. And now they were reaching a point of being threatened and it needed to stop. He was like, you got to do something, dude, as my cousin, like, you got to stop this. And he also told Jamie that there was no way an actual CIA agent was involved in this. So, and that Chris was clearly Janelle. Yeah. I mean, the emails were literally coming from her email account, guys. They're coming from inside the house. But Jamie did not believe that Janelle was capable of doing something like that. And so it seems like the call really ended

with no resolution between the cousins. Wow. And as the virtual feud was making its way into the real world, the tone of Chris's emails to Barbara Potter was getting graphic and dire. He kept urging her that if she didn't stop all of this soon and quote all of this crap might kill her daughter

He told Barbara that he was ready and willing to kill Billie Jean Hayworth and Phil Paine and anybody else who posed a serious threat to Genelle and Chris also kept mentioning that he wished Buddy Potter still had his ID from his days in the CIA Because then they would be able to work together to quote, neutralize this threat. Wow. As if the CIA wouldn't have a record of everyone who ever worked for them. Yeah. Like, what? Yeah. So as Barbara Buddy and Jamie were dragged further and further into this strange fantasy-turned conspiracy that Janelle and this Chris character had created. Janelle was still posting under fake names

across several social media platforms. She was constantly calling Lindsey Thomas and Billie Jean Hayworth mean whores, saying that they should be punished and making vaguely threatening comments toward the entire group that she considered to be her bullies. Chris actually started using Janelle's Facebook account during this time, as well, and really amped up in the last months of 2011.

In a post from December 14, 2011, quote, Chris, posted a status on Janelle's account saying, to Bill Payne, Billie Jean Hayworth, Lindsay Thomas, Antara, and Brad Osborne, and et cetera, please leave LEVE, Janelle alone and stop with the harassment and stop trying to run her life. Look at your own lives and work on that. BC, you are all just a bunch of white trash,

no good ugly people that love to hurt others. Well, you need to think of this. Take care of your kids, Billy and Billy Jean, and Lindy, get off your meth drugs and stop going after my sister and my family. Thank you. Or you can just go jump off a mountain, MTN, for all I care. You all need to get out of my sister's life. You know CIA things. That's very CIA, very much CIA. Every CIA. A lot of very professional. Yes. So these posts were commented on over and over again by Barbara, who started calling Chris for Son at this point. Chris had started calling Janelle his sister. So she was like,

all right, well, he's my son, then. Ooh, there's a lot going on here. There's a lot of untreated mental illness and I own personal opinion. But pretty much all of these posts just had a slew of comments from Barbara, Chris and Janelle. They were all talking to each other back and forth. And now, Chris was saying that there were not only

Janelle, excuse me, not only threats to Janelle's life, but to Buddy and Barbara's as well. He had found evidence that people were after them now. I don't even know what's happening right now. Like this is wilds. Wilds.com. Now by the new year, 2012, Buddy believed that Jinelle's former friends were working on plans to quote, take Jinelle and cut her head off and then kill him in his wife. Because that's what Chris had said he found. He found my straw.

So on the evening of January 30th, 2012, Barbara called Jamie curd and asked if he would stop by the house to take a look at their computer. While Jamie was alone with Buddy, Buddy asked if Jamie would, quote, do him a favor. He wanted Jamie to take him down to Bill Payne's house and, quote, let him out and go down the road and come pick him up. Okay. Jamie would later say that Buddy wasn't being very specific about why he wanted to go out to Bill's house that night. So he left and went back to his own home. He was like, I don't know about this. But very early the next morning, like first couple hours of the morning of January 31st,

2012, Jamie missed a call from the Potter household. And then he got a text from Janelle saying that Buddy was on his way to his house. Jamie's house. When Buddy got there, they drove in Buddy's car to a church parking lot near the pain house. And Bill shared the house with not only Billy Jean and their son, but his father as well. Now Jamie and Buddy waited in the car until they saw Pa Bill, which is Bill Paine's senior, until they saw him leave for work. Then they got out of the car, walked through a small field

that was adjacent to the pain household. Jamie later said that he explicitly told Buddy as they were crossing this field that he couldn't kill anybody, but Buddy told him all he needed to do was stand at the door while Buddy himself went in. But if that was the case, then why did Buddy provide Jamie with a gun? Ooh, now when they reached the front door, they found it unlocked and both men entered the home. Jamie stood by the front door, they found it unlocked, and both men entered the home.

Jamie stood by the front door, he said, this is Jamie's account. And waited while Buddy Potter went to the first bedroom. Jamie would later testify that he heard Bill Payne yell, what the hell? And then he saw Billy Jean run out of the room down the hall. Jamie then heard a gunshot and saw Buddy Porter exit the room where he had clearly just shot Bill Payne. Oh my god. He was now looking for Billy Jean and he looked to Jamie to find out which direction she'd gone in. Jamie said he pointed in the direction where he saw Billy Jean run and while Buddy went in that direction Jamie looked into the first bedroom and saw his cousin lying dead.

What the fuck? As he looked he heard another gunshot and at that point, he said he ran from the house, which I don't buy, back across the field and into Buddy Porter's truck, or excuse me, Potter's truck. Fucking auto correct. Buddy returned to the car several moments later, Jamie said, and Jamie gave him his gun back, and they silently drove back to Jamie's house where buddy dropped him off at the end of his driveway. Jamie said he vomited in the street before going inside. And once he was inside, he received a text from Chris saying that the problem was now over.

Wow. So that's horrific. It's insane. It was gene was was was Billie Jean was she holding her son when she was shot? Yeah. That's why he was still in her arms. Oh, it seemed like she was taking him out of his crib. Like she was run with him to run with him. She was standing in front of his crib or when she was shot and fell in front of the crib. And luckily somehow the baby wasn't harmed. And he was just sleeping? Just sleeping when they found him.

Oh, that breaks my heart. Yeah. And that she was going to save her baby. I think she probably was going to run out the back, but obviously was taking the baby first. Yeah. Oh, so at 6.30 that same morning, Brad Osborne, who I think was like a bigger part of a friend group because, um,

I don't know if he was related to the woman from earlier who had gotten involved in all of this or if he was dating her or, uh, married to her. Mm-hmm. But he'd been involved in this whole saga. He knew what this, what was going on. Yeah. He arrived at the pain house to pick bill up for work. When building it come outside after a few minutes, Brad tried to give him a call, but due to a quote-unquote disruption in his cell service, he wasn't able to connect the call. He either didn't have service or his phone had been turned off for some reason. He didn't want to leave without Bill, though.

He was like, let me go in and see what's up. And he decided to go inside and check on his friend. So he entered the home through a sliding glass door at the rear of the house, because he knew that door was usually left unlocked. Once he got inside, he said he heard an alarm clock going off over and over again, but when he called out to Bill, he got no response. He used the house phone to call Bill's cell phone again, but he couldn't hear it ringing. So he was like, I don't really know what to do here.

I don't think he wanted to venture more into the home because I think maybe he felt like he was doing something wrong. But being there, so he called a couple more times, didn't hear anything so he decided to leave. Now around 10 a.m., just a few hours later, the painstled neighbor Roy Stevens stopped by the house to pick up some mail that they'd been holding for him. And he noticed that both cars were still in the driveway

and he was like, that's kind of weird. Like they should be at work, or at least one of them should be. And he knocked on the door and got no response, though. And he's like, all right, well, that's even weirder. Both cars are here, why is nobody answering the door? Yeah.

And he also knew that the pains usually left that backslide and glass door unlocked. So he went around back to get in that way. Once he was inside, he called out telling whoever was home that he was there, but he got no response. He thought this was weird, so he walked down the hall to the front bedroom. He poked his head inside and he saw Bill lying on the bed. There was blood pooling around his head, and his throat had actually been cut open. Oh my God. Mm-hmm.

Roy ran out of the house and told his wife who had come along for the ride. What was going on in urged her to call 911. But his wife Linda was CPR certified and he wasn't sure whether Bill was still alive or not. Yeah. He couldn't tell. How would you know? Exactly. So Linda tried to perform CPR, but she found, or she was going to, but she found Bill

to be, quote, very stiff and ice cold. So she knew CPR wasn't going to do anything. And she picked up the house phone to call 911. As Linda was on the phone with the 911 operator, Roy heard a noise coming from the end of the hall. I think it was the baby. He followed the noise and found Billie Jean lying on the floor in front of her son's crib with the baby still in her arms.

That just kills me. Luckily, like I said, unharmed. And when he found Bill Payne's body, like I said, he thought there was a chance he was still alive. But when he saw Billie Jean, he knew she was not alive. He said that he saw the hole in her head, a pool of blood around men,

and he saw a quote, fragments of Billy Jean's hair and stuff on the carpet. Oh, God. Like, I can't imagine finding somebody you love like that. No. Now, once the bodies were taken into custody, it was obvious that this was a homicide, and thus an autopsy was required by law.

So the coroner was able to determine that even though Bill had that deep gash in his throat, in both cases, the cause of death was a gunshot wound to the head from a 38-caliber revolver. Okay. So the case was assigned to Johnson County Sheriff's Chief Deputy Joe Woodward and he was to get assistance from a real special agent, special agent Scott Lot of the tenetial one,

Bureau of Investigations or the TBA. I also love that his name is Scott Lot. Scott Lot, that's fucking awesome. Agent Scott Lot. Agent Scott Lot is on the case. So the duo started off by questioning friends and family of the murdered couple. And pretty instantly they heard about the social media war

going on between them and a few other people in town and Janelle Porter. I keep wanting to say Porter. I know. They did however learn that Bill Payne had been using and dealing drugs at the time of his death through interviews and they also had found a small amount of meth within the home and a pipe. Okay. So they were like, like this could be a lot of thing. Exactly. A complicated thing for just a minute, really. Yeah. Investigators were like, is there some kind of connection between these deaths here in a local drug scene, but they were quickly able to learn that Bill was not a major player in the scene at all. He was a small time dealer. He really only dealt to his friends friends and none of those people had any reason to want him

or Billy Jean-Dee. So that kind of fizzled out pretty quickly. And the only other lead that they had to follow up on was the ongoing social media feud. So on February 1st, the day after the couple had been murdered, Woodward and Lot went out to the Potter household to interview the family about their relationship with the murdered couple. They acted like they were in shock and told both investigators that they had just heard about the murders on the news that morning. And when the investigators asked about the issues that Janelle had been having with the murdered couple and the other former friends, she told them that Lindsey Thomas and Billie Jean Hayworth had been unhappy about telephone harassment cases having been dismissed. But since then, there hadn't been any further problems

between them. Okay. Lies. Yeah. She did say, though, that both women had hacked her Facebook account and created a ton of fake profiles. Oh. And for months, they harassed Janelle and other friends

that she'd made virtually. Oh, wow. And harassed everybody she ever knew on her friends. Yeah. It's like weird that that happened on your IP address. That's why I'll them. Woodward and Laugh asked why the other members of the group would say that actually she was the one doing the harassing.

And she told them, quote, no, no, I'm not that mean. I just tell people to leave me alone. And she said she thought the woman were jealous of her because she was too pretty to know for this about herself. Okay. Which is like that's great that you have a good self-image. I don't know if you've got confidence, but but that's not it. Also, like we're talking about a murdered woman. Yeah, and you think she was jealous of you because you're too pretty like Let's let's come back down to her. I was just going to say, come on down to earth. Exactly. Like sure. You're pretty, but okay. Like what? So she said they also, she also felt like they didn't accept her because she hadn't been born

and raised in Mountain City. And they didn't like outsiders. That was her excuse for everything that had ever happened to her in Mountain City. It was everybody else in Mountain City's fault. Not, of course. That's why they didn't like outsiders. Meanwhile, they seemed to be pretty welcome. Yeah, it seemed like it. Tracy went out of her way to introduce

General to her entire friend group. Yeah, they introduced her to her boyfriend. Yeah, exactly. Jeez. But she explained, but no matter how much she begged them to stop, they just wouldn't. They terrorized her. They told her they were going to kill her, kill her parents.

They said they were going to rape her. And they repeatedly told her that they hoped she would die on these fake accounts. And Buddy and Barbara sat alongside their daughter and confirmed everything she'd told them. They added that there had been people shooting at the house recently, throwing rocks in the yard with weird names printed on them. And that one day when Janelle was home alone, somebody had come by and kicked in the garage door. Oh, yeah. Crazy. Look at that. Crazy. Crazy. So crazy girl. The more and more they heard the stranger that's all sounded, this is an agent for the Bureau of Investigation.

And he's like, what the fuck? He's like, I don't think so. And what stood out as particularly strange to agent law in particular, was that Janelle seemed to be minimizing Jamie Kurd's involvement. He was like, I thought he was a bigger part of this whole friend group, like so why?

And he didn't know that Jamie Kurd was Janelle's boyfriend, but he suspected it. Because Janelle actually, remember, her parents still didn't know they were to do that because they're just supposed to be friends. She denied that she and Jamie were romantically involved. I'm, yeah. And she seemed to be stirring any questions they had about him in the opposite direction. Like anytime they asked about Jamie, she danced around it.

Okay. And it's like, why are you trying to somehow not to talk about Jamie? She was like, no, we're just friends and sometimes he comes by to help the computer, the end. Okay. She was going out of her way to talk about anything and anyone other than Jamie,

which only made investigators want to talk to him even more. Yeah, of course. It was a horrible idea. So the first interview they had with Jamie was two days after this. It was a pretty unproductive meeting other than the fact that he agreed to take a polygraph test. Other than that, he claimed he knew nothing about the murders. He really didn't have anything to say.

But then he was picked up again for an interview on February 6th. And this time, investigators would get the break in the case that they'd been hoping for. In his previous interview, Jamie had failed that polygraph test. Ms. Roblox. Of course he did. Ms. Roblox. No, one part of me believed he was going to pass that or even slightly pass that.

Which like again, who knows if they're really going to be like, wolf. This one works. Yeah, exactly like, this one works. Yeah, that one for this one. He specifically got like really bad reviews, I guess. I don't know how to put it. He got bad reviews. When he responded no to whether or not he knew the identity of pain and hay work skill.

He got bad reviews. He really flunked to that question. Like a whole group of people, a whole group of internet trolls came in and were like, once, I wish I could give this zero stars. I would give this zero stars. to that question. Like a whole group of people, a whole group of internet trolls came in and were like, once I wish I could give this zero stars. I would give this zero stars at this answer. I would give it zero stars if I could.

We were all rooting for you. It's not funny, but it is. Put that part's funny. That part's funny, exactly. But he did really bad on that question. And he got bad reviews. He got bad reviews overall. That was the investigators told him this, that. And he got bad reviews. He got bad reviews overall. That was the investigators told him this

that he had gotten such bad reviews. He finally said that he did play some role in the murders. Oh, he was just like, you know what? I didn't know what, yeah. But that it was Buddy Porter, God damn it, Potter. Potter. Auto correct, messed me up once and then like, and that's a rest of his story story Buddy Potter had pulled the trigger both times

Jamie said he also asked while he was in his interview if anybody from the CIA was there Which greatly confused the detectives they were like No, they like no were local detectives. They don't usually come around for this type of thing No, but like why do you ask? Yeah. And he was like, no, I just wondering. No, it's nobody from the same court. And Chris.

Secret stuff. Chris, are you there? Yeah. They were like, oh, oh. Oh, it's like, fuck you, Jamie. You pointed in the direction of Billie G. Of the mother going to save her child. A-T-P-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-year-old mother. You piece a share of your own business. And your cousins probably soon to be wife. Yeah.

What is a mother with his child? Exactly. The mother of your third cousin? No, I don't know how that works. But yeah, right, family. Yeah, the mother of your family. Yeah, family. But anyway, the detectives asked Jamie after he confessed to call up Buddy Porter and

see if he could get him to talk about what had happened. That way they could try to get a taped confession. So Jamie called the house that same night February 6th. And there was some small talk between him and Barbara first because she was the one to answer the phone. During this little small talk, Barbara said that she'd gotten an email from Chris telling her

that Jamie had been arrested. And she asked him point blank, have you taken a lie detector test? And if you did, did you pass it? He lied to Barbara and he said, I did, but I passed it. No, no. And he was like, can I talk to Buddy? So she puts him on the phone. Buddy gets on the phone and immediately asks Jamie

if he quote, got rid of everything from Bills. Wow. Jamie responded telling Buddy that he had and Buddy said, okay, that makes me feel a lot better. I'm so happy that he's a fucking idiot. That's great. I'm really glad he's a fucking idiot. Same Z's.

So now investigators were able to get an arrest warrant for Buddy Potter, based on Jamie's confession and that phone conversation, and they were also able to get a warrant to search the Potter home for evidence. Good. Yeah, we're winning. Buddy was taken into custody without incident, and the authorities who searched the home were able to seize a sh-t ton of potential evidence, including, but not limited to, the family computer, a spiral notebook containing the passwords to a large amount of social media accounts, two guns, which I'm like, that's it.

One of which was a 38 caliber pistol. And as one investigator approached a stack of papers next to the couch where Barbara and Janelle were sitting, Barbara started grabbing the papers and ripping them in half. Are you shitting me? As if there were multiple officers and agents sitting there right in front of her. They're like, Gell. Man, you can't do that. You've pressed an incorrect key.

Wow. So agent Woodward was like, what the fuck are you doing? Like, stop and give me those. So she had to hand them over. She had no choice. And what those papers were, were a large number of printed emails and screenshots from social media, which included several photos printed out

of Billie Jean Hayworth, one of which had been labeled Billie Hor. Oh my God. Like, they're just living in this house with fucking printed out screenshots of social media. Yes. The most pathetic group of human beings I have ever heard of, like this is sick.

Wow. And it's just like twisted. It's 23 year old woman. It's 23 year old mother. Yeah. You're sitting there writing Billy Hore, like, oh, go fuck yourselves. Like what is wrong with you guys?

It's giving like, if the with you guys giving like if the fire five firefly family was like really invested in Facebook honestly the firefly family is so much fucking cooler than this absolutely but way cooler than these assholes. You know what I'm saying it's just like it's yucky. Oh it's dirty. Honestly they're like the Texas chainsaw masquer family. Yes. To be quite honest. Like just sitting in a house, like the Fireflies are at least fun.

Build with guns and ammunition and social media printouts and pictures of victims. Yeah, instead of like raw meat, like the Texas Chainsaw Massacre family, which was really real. They have social media printouts everywhere. In the original one, it was all real. Yeah, they had to sit in that really hot room. For like a long, last time. Listen to scream.

But yeah, that's their, their, that family. Yeah, for realsies. So during Buddy's interrogation, he decided, excuse me, he denied having any involvement in the murders and said that Jamie was just throwing him under the bus. Oh, shut up. He reiterated that Janelle was being harassed by these people and he actually added his own account into the mix, telling both of the investigators that one time

he had been in a public bathroom and he heard people, quote, talking about kidnapping Janelle from this bathroom, taking her to a field, raping her because she was a virgin and murdering her. And they were like, wow. Yeah, that sounds legit. Wow, legit wow like what no that didn't happen yeah no that no yeah no So would word and lot then shifted the conversation because they were like, I don't really know where to go from here. I guess we'll turn all the lights down now. But uh, wow, look at you. But anyways, they switched the topic of conversation to Janelle's relationship with Jamie.

But buddy insisted that they were just friends and that any feelings either of them had toward the other had been quote, straightened out a long time ago. Ew, like what? Like what? Why are you? I can't she just have feelings for this man. You're just like you're so gross. He said that Jamie would never have been capable of taking care of his daughter and that was

why he and Barbara wouldn't allow the relationship. Man. Weird. So Buddy's interview went on for hours. He repeatedly denied having any involvement in the murders. He said he knew Bill Paine was a drug dealer and that this whole thing was probably a drug deal gone bad. But this all changed when the agents brought his wife Barbara into the occasion.

And they were like, well, does Barbara know that you did this? Does Janelle know that you did this? And he broke down. Whoa, the bringing his wife and his daughter into it somehow broke him. Wow. And I knew they did. They always know. So as they saw that he was breaking down, they were like, why don't you call Barbara? You got to let her know. Like they were playing like, that's high level, I get a relationship, give her a call. Wow.

You know? So he gets Barbara on the phone and he confesses, telling her that he killed Billie Jean and Bill, quote, because of what they tried to do to her in general. Wow. And Barbara kept trying to save face, though. And she sat on the phone multiple times. No, you couldn't have been involved.

Quote, you were here on the night of the murders. I saw you. You're not guilty because you were here. You have to say that. See, to me, that sounds like there's there's something going on there. Like the way the way she said that seems like she's like I would like we said, there seems to be some I'm diagnosed mental illness happening here and that response to me is like no you told me that I was supposed to say this yeah like you know what it means like no like this is the story I was like wait you mean you don't think you did it oh no I do I was I just want no I definitely did it but like I think she her response is very telling of where her mind was.

I agree, totally. It's also like, ma'am, this is a recorded line. Yeah. Don't say you have to say that. Yeah. We don't know. That's why. But Buddy wouldn't, and he'd already confessed anyway.

And this phone call was even more damning. Yep. So remember how I said that Jamie had asked about the CIA and his second interview and the cops were like, what? Yeah. He explained to them then that there was this CIA agent named Chris. That was a family friend of the potters and that it was his duty, his assignment to keep Janelle safe. Wow.

And they were like, I think this is all random nonsense. Like I don't know what you're talking about. But like I don't have time to deal with that right now. But as they continued to search the Potter household, they would find out just how serious Jamie was being and just how scared he was. They took into custody multiple trash bags of shredded paper that had been found

in the back of Buddy's truck. It took them about a month, but they were able to reassemble the over 100 pages that had been shredded. What? Like, imagine. Holy shit.

And when they did, they realized that this entire case was a very strange conspiracy theory involving someone who claimed to be a CIA agent that had been, quote, corresponding with Barbara and warning her about threats to her daughter's life. That was like the theme of those emails that they were able to put together. So they tried and tried and tried to locate a CIA agent with the description of Chris. But they were never able to find anybody who slightly resembled that description in the CIA.

What? I know. I really buried believe. Holy shit, talk about a plot twist. They couldn't find him. It was like he didn't even work there. It's like he doesn't even exist. It's like that.

Oh my goodness, so the deeper he is. And she bur like, gracious. That they dug, they realized. And I'm sure you'll be shocked to hear that Chris was just one of Janelle's online personal. What? It was her all along. Oh, I had no idea.

But to Barbara, Chris was very, very real. They had exchanged a myriad of emails and texts. And Barbara even shared pictures of him on social media saying Chris our son. Oh, that is that's very sick. What's even sicker? What's even more fucked up is that those pictures were of a man named Chris. A guy that Janelle had gone to high school with. Oh my. They weren't friends. They were like this random guy named Chris who she gone to high school with. Oh my. They weren't friends. They were like, this random guy named Chris who she went to high school with. Yes.

Can you imagine being Chris? He ended up being called the testify in this case. Oh my God. Poor Chris. I know. Oh, that sucks. I would be so fucking angry. I would be pissed. I'd be my angry buddy.

Should go delete Facebook right now. Yeah, go delete your Facebook. Fuck that. Can you imagine she just took them off of his account? Oh my God. I would be I rate just like I would be on that Stand being like I'm gonna fucking kill everybody because are you kidding? Well, and then they're like okay Do you have any connection to her and he was like no we went to high school together? Oh, but I don't it sucks. It doesn't even seem like they were friends in high school. That sucks. Yeah, poor Chris.

Poor Chris. Wow. So once investigators reassembled the shredded communications and looked at them with more context, D.A. Dennis Brooks developed his own theory about the origins of this Chris character. He said, quote, social media allowed Janelle Potter to be somebody that she wasn't.

She invented Chris so that she could be as hateful as she wanted to be. And Chris had entered the picture right around the time that Billie Jean and Billy, and excuse me, Bill Payne started dating, and it was clear reading through the communications that this man was not a CIA agent. He focused on how pretty and sweet Janelle was, not at all your typical behavior. And then they realized that all of the communications from Chris and anyone he spoke with, whether it be through male social media or text, all came from Jinal's accounts.

The fact that that was just overlooked, like it was his phone number. Come on. Like when she was, when these people were getting texts from Chris, it was coming from Jinelle's phone. Yeah, her phone, not from within the house. It's literally.

Also, when they compared Chris' writing with Jinelle's, it was identical. She had a very specific style of writing. She often made spelling mistakes and grammar mistakes. And coincidentally, Chris made those exact same ones, particularly like she spelled W-O-R-R-I-E. And so did Chris. And those are very specific. Like there's a few others that I don't want to say specific. Just a few others that I don't want to say specific.

But like they're all very specific. Yeah. And it's very specific words. There's a few more I wish I'd written them down. But yeah. Yeah. So Buddy Porter and Jamie Kurt were indicted for the murders. And while some mountain city citizens were shocked,

many who worked in law enforcement or law administration were not at all shocked by this. Really? They had become familiar with Janelle and her parents throughout the years that they've lived in mountain city. The mayor, Mike Reese, put it this way to the press. Once you've crossed Janelle, you've crossed her father too. Oh, even the stranger aspects of the case actually sounded familiar to anybody who had a quote unquote run in with Janelle.

The mayor, like this girl was on the mayor's radar. Yeah, that's pretty big. He actually said, this is wicked bizarre. He actually, I said that on purpose. He said that you're so earlier, the potters were upset, specifically buddy, like had called him and said that, quote, the 911 director had taken Janelle off his list. What?

The mayor literally had no idea what this meant, but knew that Janelle Potter was always up to some kind of scheming and telling her mom and dad that she was the one being schemes. So Janelle is just like, oh, she's manipulating her and shit up. It's just like her sister said. Her sister was like, she manipulates you guys into doing whatever she wants you to do, including fucking murder. Holy shit. So Buddy's child began in October of 2013 and there was obviously a shit ton of evidence

and taped confessions going against him. Although the motives and the events leading up to the murders were like kind of complicated, I guess, the prosecutors argument was pretty straightforward. They put it like this, quote, Barbara, buddy and Jamie are not sophisticated people. They were easily misled by Janelle, who knew which buttons to press. Jamie was lonely and vulnerable to a younger woman stroking his ego.

He'd never been out of mountain city, never been popular. Barbara also had some kind of mental disorder in which there always has to be a controversy or conspiracy going on. She was fixated on conflicts. Buddy, like to think of himself as a government operative, most people figured Jinelle out, that she was a bit of a fantasist.

That's why she struggled to make and keep friends. But not these three, it was the perfect storm. Jesus. So Jinelle, that's why I was so excited when you said, like, oh, it's like the fantasy of all of this. I was like, mm-hmm, yeah, no. I was like, you got it. You got it.

Janelle knew that her parents were incredibly overprotective and also knew that they didn't really understand social media. So she used Chris to amplify fake threats against her and eventually threats to everybody else and the family making them feel like they were unsafe. Yeah. She was manipulating everybody around her

to murder these people that she perceived to be her enemies for some reason or another She also knew that Jamie's week what Jamie's weaknesses were and she exploited him She knew he was in love with her and that he was desperate to be accepted by her family So she inserted him right into the drama Had him get buddy buddy with her dad and figured out a way for the two of them to want to protect her and be willing to murder to protect her. Wow. And when he asked why he, why would he believe that he was talking to a CIA agent without

any evidence of it at all, Jamie answered, well, I mean, I thought Chris was real. I mean, I thought there was a, you know, someone that I was talking to there. And that Janelle, the way she would talk to me, it was like bonding, like a family. Wow. Like I think, she just manipulated the, she just manipulated the, she also did things like she meant,

this is wild, how she was able to manipulate these people. I think that they just blindly believed her. Like I don't, I don't know what it was about her story. I don't know what it was about their relationship with her. Wow, this is like really sick. Yeah. All the way around. It is.

So needless to say in October of 2013, Buddy was found guilty on two counts of first degree murder and he was sentenced to two life sentences. Oh damn. Good. Jamie curd, pled guilty. But since he agreed to testify against buddy Potter, he was given a lesser sentence.

And he got 25 years in prison. Damn. Yeah. I'm actually surprised he got that. I was hoping you would get that. I am too. You know how these things usually shake out? Because well, they weren't able to prove

who had really done the killing. That's the thing. You know, like, still to this day, nobody knows. That's the story, but that's the story. And still to this day, nobody knows who was the one to slash Bill Payne's throat. I was going to ask that because I didn't hear that come up. So it's like, no, what the hell happened? It's just, it's buddies word against Janie's.

Nobody else was there. Are they, are both of them saying that the other one did it? Yeah. Buddy says that, I'll get there. But Jamie said that Buddy did everything. Okay. He said he was just the look he was there. He was the look out.

Now obviously there was no doubt that Jamie and Buddy had been the ones to go out there and kill Bill and Billy Jean regardless of who pulled the trigger. Yeah. But investigators also at the same time knew that Barbara and Janelle played a key role in orchestrating this entire thing. So for them, this wouldn't have happened.

Absolutely. But the problem was that it was gonna be kind of difficult to prosecute a person for murder if they weren't actually present for the killings. Yeah, of course. But this DA was willing to try. And just a few months after Buddy's conviction, a grand jury did end up end up inditing both Janelle and Barbara Potter, for murder and for tampering with evidence.

Good. There was a lot of hold up going into trial, I think, so many technicalities. And like, this is a very unprecedented thing to try to women who, for murder, who weren't actually at the murder site. But eventually, they got there. And the double trial began May 2015. They were being tried at the same time. Okay.

D.A. Dennis Brooks was facing multiple hurdles, but made pretty much the same case to the jury that he had in Buddy's trial. Even though neither women before the jury had pulled the trigger, the murders, just like I said a minute ago, would not have happened if it weren't for them. The way that the DA put it to ABC News, Janelle kind of spurred it, and Barbara got it to happen. Yeah. Now, the evidence presented to the jury was damning to say the least.

It showed them exactly who Janelle was. A woman caught up in some kind of fantasy-turned conspiracy that eventually ended up in murder. And it never seemed like either woman was unaware that their implications could have led to murder, and it really didn't seem like they gave a shit about the consequences of those implications. Yeah. They both wanted these people dead and knew how and knew they would get there. So it took about a week to get through testimony and all the evidence, and at the end of the

trial, both of them were found guilty on all counts. Damn. And both were sentenced to life in prison. Holy shit, really? Janelle will be 80 years old before she's eligible for parole. And if Barbara and Buddy were to serve

their full sentences, they'll die in prison. Wow. But after being sentenced, Buddy started claiming he was innocent. And then in a 2021 appeal, he told the court right now, Barbara and my daughter both know that I did this. So first he was maintaining his innocence, then he said that,

now he's, they know I did it. But like I was saying earlier, he alluded that it was Jamie Cerd who had killed Billie Jean. He said, I killed Billie Paine. He killed Billy Jean. Okay. And Jamie curd said I didn't call either of them. I was just the look out. Yeah. Now this 2020 2021 appeal case was actually an attempt by Barbara and Janelle's lawyers to get both women a new case. These lawyers argued that the court had denied them crucial information that would have aided them in the defense But the appeal ended up being dismissed and the verdict was upheld because neither lawyer could actually produce any evidence of that crucial information

Yeah, I fucking love when people can't back up their arguments. That's my favorite thing ever Unfortunately, everything is when somebody's like no, no, no, like this you did this You did this and then you're like okay, can you just can you just like show me a piece of thing that says that and they're like, no, no, no, no, like this. You did this. You did this. And then you're like, okay, can you just like show me a piece of thing that says that? And they're like, no, no, I can't. So it's like, why'd you even bring that up? Because before you were dumb, but like now you look dumb. Right.

Like now I've proved that you're dumb. I've proved you so. That's what's not good for you. That's what's proven here. Redonculus. So unfortunately though, the court did find evidence supporting a claim made by Barbara that since she was tried in the same trial as her daughter, there was a conflict of interest that may have impacted her sole case.

So because of this, she was granted her own new trial. But the DA didn't want to go through with another trial. And I think they probably thought like it wasn't going to happen two times that they found her guilty when she wasn't there. Yeah. So instead they offered her a plea deal. If she pleaded guilty to two counts of facilitation of first degree murder, she would get a lesser sentence. Okay. She took the deal and she was resentenced to 25 years in prison. Wow. With a requirement that 30% of the time be served before she's eligible for parole. Wow.

Since she had already served eight years at this point, she will be eligible for parole this year, 2023. Oh, shit. And that is the story, the tragic story of the Facebook murders. Wow. That is so sad. And just so-

On every level. Senseless. So senseless. Like these, this like young couple, he seems like- Just starting out. Really trying to get his life together. Yeah.

Trying to get on a good track. They have a little baby. Yep. How old was the baby again? Seven months old. Seven months. Never know little baby. Yep. How old was the baby again? Seven months. Seven months. Never will never know his parents. No. Oh, and finding out later the trauma of what happened. Oh my god. And now you are sleeping her arms. Like that's that's like dexter literally. Like

literally the storyline of dexter. That's actually crazy. Holy shit. They found him like covered in his mother's blood. Oh, that's awful. That's awful. And thank gosh, he was unharmed. Like, oh, if that baby had been harmed, I honestly don't think I would have been able to tell this story. But holy shit. But I'll because this girl had feelings for Bill that she never even voiced. Yeah, that's, I mean, never even voiced. Yeah, that's, I mean, wow. So, like we always say, social media is the root of all evil. It really is. It proves it. It's just become a thing where it's like,

what's the fucking point anymore? I'm curious. Honestly, what's the point? Legit. Get an email address. Get an email address. That's it. Don't even get an email address. Get an email address. That's it. Don't even get a email address. Just have a phobia of phones. Just have a phobia of phones like CIA agent.

Chris. No one. Just Chris. Just Chris. It's like Madonna. It's just Chris. Everybody knows me. CIA agent. Chris. So hot right now. Wow. Well guys, we hope you keep listening. And we hope you keep it weird. But that's a word that you can't fish your own parents and that this happens because wow, that would be so tragic and you shouldn't ever do that. Don't lie to people, it's rude. Don't.

It's horrible. Hey, Prime Members! You can listen to Morvid, Early, and Add Free on Amazon Music. Download the Amazon Music app today, or you can listen Add Free with Wondery Plus and Apple Podcasts. Before you go, tell us about yourself by completing a short survey at Wondery.com slash survey. at Wundery.com slash survey.