Who doesn’t love watching or listening to murder mystery stories? The thrill and suspense keep the audience on their toes and makes them guess about the killer.
But before Murder, podcasts became all the rage, there was NBC’s Dateline. It reported heart-wrenching true crime tales. In fact, the show is still running, and episode 35 of season 31 exposed how unpredictable and sordid human nature can be.
Murder, mystery, and mayhem- this tale had everything. The episode titled ‘Secrets in the Ozarks’ depicted a 2004 fall murder of a 22-year-old woman called Rebekah Christian Gould by a stranger. She was found dead in an embankment. Authorities determined that she was hit with a broken piano leg and strangled with a tie. But who could have committed this crime with tools like that?
Investigation into the 2004 murder of 22-year-old college student Rebekah Christian Gould was reopened in 2020. It was ultimately found that her then-boyfriend Casey McCullough’s cousin, William Alama Miller, had killed her. The reason was- he was overtaken by the urge to kill her after seeing her retreating from him. He was charged with first-degree murder in 2020.
What Happened to Rebekah Gould?
Rebekah Christian Gould lived in Mountain View and was a student at the reputed Arkansas Community College in 2004. At just 22 years of age, she had her whole life waiting for her. But she wouldn’t get to see even her 23rd birthday because someone thought she didn’t deserve to live. Gould was an outgoing girl who had a network of solid support systems.
Since she was socially active, her absence was immediately noticed. When she failed to return to home or college after visiting her then-boyfriend Casey McCullough with a suitcase, alarms were raised, and she was reported missing just within one day. What made everyone suspicious was that Gould hadn’t even contacted any family or friends to inform them about her whereabouts or situation.
Reports stated that the 22-year-old had planned to spend the weekend with her boyfriend in his trailer, located in the little town of Guion, and then meet up with a sister on September 20, 2004, Monday, to go back to college on Monday. But Rebekah never showed up, and neither did she take any calls or text back.
Shirley Ballard, her mother, then frantically called up the Izard County, Arkansas authorities the next day. The police found that Rebekah’s car keys, money, vehicle, and pet dog Lady were still at her boyfriend Casey McCullough’s home. Authorities also found a mattress in his home that had been curiously flipped over. On the underside, there were fresh blood stains.
Further investigations and questioning revealed that before her disappearance, Gould had driven her boyfriend to work, and then she was last seen at a store in Melbourne. Then the search began to find the woman. After an extensive week-long search, authorities found Rebekah’s dead body beside Arkansas Highway 9, off a deep 35-foot embankment south of Melbourne.
An autopsy on September 27, 2004, was done, but her culprit would get arrested almost 15 years later, and that too thanks to a smartly placed lie told by the police.
Who Killed Rebekah Gould?
Police immediately identified her then-boyfriend Casey McCullough as a suspect. After all, he hadn’t returned home the night of her disappearance. Also, over the years, he had given suspiciously contradictory statements. However, his friends acted as his alibi and said that they had planned to go for a movie and dinner, after which McCullough stayed at one of his friends’ homes.
But Casey’s contradictorily sometimes said that he had gone to his place to get some clothes, and other times, like in June 2005, said that he hadn’t returned to his trailer at all. Instead, he had gone straight to work, where the authorities had contacted him. Ultimately, McCullough stuck to the version where he had gone to get a clothing change.
However, he hadn’t noticed the bloody mattress or anything out of the ordinary. The lack of evidence, as well as Rebekah’s missing suitcase (only the case, not the things), made the police look at other leads. But nothing came off it, and the case went cold. But a breakthrough that finally nailed the culprit came about 15 years later.
A state investigator began looking into Casey’s family, who were nearby on the day of the crime. They realized that William “Billy” Alama Miller, Casey’s first cousin, was in his home the night before the murder. The 2004 statements revealed that William, a resident of Aransas Pass, Texas, was in the same city on the same day of the murder to help his younger brother and mother move back.
So he decided to catch up with his cousin and went to Casey’s home. Reports stated that they were both outside conversing for about 15 mins. What was suspicious to the authorities was that he had left Arkansas about 24 hours after the day Rebekah went missing.
So William was brought in to be questioned in 2020, and this time authorities went hard on him due to his weird behavior. He failed a polygraph test, and then the police went all in. They falsely claimed that they had DNA evidence connecting him to Rebekah’s murder. There wasn’t any such evidence, but he did confess everything.
Why Was Rebekah Gould Killed?
William “Billy” Alama Miller admitted that he had gone hunting on September 20, right on the property beside the trailer, when he noticed Gould’s car in the driveway. His curiosity led him to talk to her under the pretense of wanting to use the phone due to an emergency. Once he had identified himself as her boyfriend’s cousin, she gave it to him.
However, Williams stated that he wanted to kill her when he saw her walking into the bedroom and lying on the bed in her underwear and t-shirt. Now, this was the first time he had even seen or talked to her. He then tried to find a murder weapon, and that almost manifested in front of him when a piano leg fell on the ground.
He then murdered her and used a sheet to wrap the dead body. After that, he cleaned the room as best as he could. William had planned on stuffing her into the suitcase.
But since it was too small, he took the body with the empty case in his truck. Then, William started to drive to get rid of it and her remains. He maintains that he wasn’t motivated by a sexual desire to kill her.
On November 7, 2020, William Alama Miller was arrested in Lane County, Oregon. Later, he was formally charged with first-degree murder. On October 18, 2022, he waived off his right to plead guilty to a jury regarding the same. As for Casey, he cooperated with the authorities and was last reported as working at Melbourne’s Sonic as an assistant manager. He still lives in the same trailer with his own family.
Overall, it was a tragic case where an innocent life was taken for seemingly no fault of hers.
So what do you think about Rebekah Christian Gould’s murder?
Should the authorities have poked and prodded more in 2004 to find the culprit? Or should we be glad that at least the murderer is behind bars and Rebekah has gotten justice?
Let us know your thoughts below.
Source: NBC Dateline
