Top Down, Driving the Highway
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Hi, I'm Ashley Flowers, creator and host of the number one true crime podcast, Crime Junkie. Every Monday, me and my best friend Britt break down a new case, but not in the way you've heard before, and not the cases you've heard before. You'll hear stories on Crime Junkie that haven't been told anywhere else. I'll tell you what you can do to help victims and their families get justice.

Join us for new episodes of Crime Junkie every Monday, already waiting for you by searching for Crime Junkie wherever you listen to podcasts. She had a lot of friends, for sure. You know, I wonder, well, what happens if, you know, if I decided to not go to L.A., if she just would have never gone there? And if she never went to L.A., then none of this would have ever happened. I'm Scott Weinberger, investigative journalist and former deputy sheriff.

I'm Anastasia Nicolazzi, former New York City homicide prosecutor and host of Investigation Discovery's True Conviction. And this is Anatomy of Murder.

This is one of those cases or one of the stories which begins like an inspirational Hollywood movie. A young woman from a small Midwestern town heads to Hollywood to start a career in the movie business. But the story turns into a real-life tragedy. And I had the opportunity to talk to Brian Bowie, who is the brother of Jamie Bowie, who is the focus of today's story.

She was definitely a lot of fun, had a lot of friends who were, you know, also friends of mine. And we were always kind of looking out for each other on some level. Jamie Bowie was a 24-year-old young woman from Oklahoma. She'd recently graduated from Oklahoma University. And she had the stars in her eyes, and she was ready to pick up and move west. She had got a job in the entertainment industry, and she wasn't going to do it alone.

We loaded up her little Volkswagen Bug and we drove from Oklahoma all the way out to California and we stayed with friends along the way.

I mean, Scott, I can really picture that. Remember when you're getting out of school and you're about to embark on your first job? You just are so bright-eyed, and opportunity is in front of you, and it's just a very exciting time. When people think about Hollywood and L.A., it's the thing that people dream about, sometimes from all over the world. And these two, brother and sister, they were going to have at it and head out there, but they needed a car to get there.

I think it was like a late 1960s, early 1970s Volkswagen Bug convertible. It's a VW Bug, bright blue, white top. She had purchased it and really fell in love with it. The top was a little beat up, so I know my mom paid to have the top redone, so it had a brand new top on it. It had a few little engine problems, so we took it to the shop.

And we can all think about those scenarios that sometimes a car takes on its own personality, whether it's from the movies. And no matter how old you are, many people have heard about Herbie the love bug. There is from the standalone Transformers movie, the Bumblebee VW bug. For me, the signature of having your first car brings an incredible amount of freedom. It was a fun car. In a sense, it kind of represented her personality.

It was her pride and joy. And this was the car that was going to take her and Brian into the life, hopefully, of their dreams. And I just picture that top down, driving the highway, music blasting, and they were on their way.

When Brian and his sister Jamie make it to L.A., they each had their own apartment. Brian was still going to college, obviously being just 21 years old. And Jamie was starting this job, and it was with a major Hollywood studio.

— This was her first real full-time job, and it was a big opportunity. —

And now let's fast forward to April 1990, because that's when Jamie was actually supposed to start a brand new job. And before she started that job, she took a little vacation to go visit one of her best friends down in Phoenix, Arizona for Easter. And when she came back, she had plans to see Brian. So now it was time for Jamie to head back to Los Angeles. And she was supposed to have somebody go along with her, but that friend backed out at the last minute.

So even though she was driving alone and it was almost a seven-hour drive, Jamie had to make it back to L.A. by the next morning because that was going to be the first day of her brand-new job.

As she's heading back, Brian's actually at her apartment. He said he left track practice that day, he went to her apartment, he let himself in with the key that he had, and he was supposed to meet his sister. She was supposed to be home that night, and so I was waiting for her. She hadn't shown up. I mean, it was getting later, so then I went upstairs and just went to bed and thought, well, she'll catch me when she gets in. As he was sleeping, he heard a sound, what sounded like some keys jingling, doors opening, he's half-awake.

So I thought, well, it was her. And it's one of those things where you just kind of wake up a little bit and you recognize what the noise is. And so you kind of go back to sleep because it wasn't somebody breaking down the door. It was somebody unlocking the door. So that just seemed normal. Okay, she's home.

So Brian wakes up in the morning. No Jamie. Doesn't find it that odd because she's starting a new job. Early riser, get to the job, get started. Cell phones weren't that prevalent at that time. And I got a message from my mother. She was concerned that my sister hadn't checked in. As time went on, you know, my mother called a few more times and mentioned that she hadn't shown up and she was getting concerned. So I had a track practice that afternoon and I told the coach and he told me to go find out what's going on.

Then he came back, assuming he'd see his sister. But Jamie wasn't there. Well, what he did find at the apartment was things didn't look the same as when he left. Things were moved around. A little TV was, the cord was wrapped up all nice and neat, and it was sitting on the stairs waiting to be, like, boxed up and taken away. And quite a few other things were as well. And it just didn't seem right.

He saw clothes strewn all about. The radio in the apartment was gone. Two VCRs were also missing. An answering machine was gone. I knew it was a burglary of some sort. So I got a hold of my friends at the time and we started calling the police. But when they called the police, they talked about the burglary, but they also said that Jamie was missing and they tried to file a missing persons report. And a few of you may be saying, well, we know what happened then.

Police weren't ready to just call it a missing persons case. They wanted to wait more time based on Jamie's age to see if she would contact, reach out, show up.

You know, Scott, I don't even know how many times we've had the conversation when someone goes missing and family or friends report to the police or at least try to. And police don't take that missing persons report. And I absolutely get it from their side because it's all about the numbers and resources involved.

But it is hard to wrap your head around when we talk about these cases so often, and we know that so often there is really something amiss, at least in these. I mean, is there any sort of solution? Is there anything that can be done differently from your perspective that might aid these cases, the ones that really do need police to get involved from the beginning? Well, that really depends on how quickly they're escalated from uniform patrol to the detective bureau.

Then interviews would begin. Then they would try to identify routes and they would look at credit card receipts. When something is a usual activity for someone and that activity completely ceases, then the red flags are raised. Jamie's family decided that they needed to be full steam ahead.

Stopping at the rest stops, the gas stations, the restaurants to just ask if anyone had seen Jamie. And they had pictures and they left flyers.

But that wasn't getting them anywhere, at least not initially. We heard from some people, some truckers, that they had definitely seen her, especially going out there.

And they started to give that information that, yeah, they thought they had seen someone that looked like her. They even had some motorists that said they thought they had seen her on the side of the road, maybe working on her car. But it really didn't lead them anywhere. You know, I was reading an article in the Los Angeles Times about this case, and I think it was her mom that gave the quote, we have no clues, no car, no Jamie. And it's been eight days.

I can only imagine the frustration and the heartbreak, at you will, when they know there's something wrong. And they're getting all this information that she's out there or had been out there and maybe there's a car trouble or something with their car. But they weren't really getting anything specific. But it was one of the detectives assigned to the case that together with the family came up with a pretty big idea. ♪♪

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Brian was so concerned that when he called his parents back in Oklahoma, they did not hesitate to jump on a plane and fly to L.A. to plead with the investigators that this was not the norm for their daughter, Jamie. They met with Detective Pena, who was with the Riverside County Sheriff's Department, and it had already been a few days that she was missing, and now this case had escalated to his major crimes level.

And he's a veteran detective who's used to handling these major cases. And his first suggestion would create the first big lead in this case. You've seen him out there on the road. You know what we're talking about when we say the word billboard. The decision was to put that billboard up. And that did begin to bring in some very important tips. And one in particular was crucial.

So a tip came in from an eyewitness who told investigators they saw Jamie's blue Beetle on the side of the road with its hood up. And remember, a Beetle's engine is in the rear, so that would have been the hood in the back was up. And the tipster also noticed something important. Some people mentioned that it looked like a couple was following her. I remember us thinking, well, that's kind of weird. Who's the couple? Where are they from?

They saw another red VW Beetle was behind it. And two people were standing out with Jamie and it looked like they were helping her with the car. So the obvious thing here is who is that couple and investigators need to try to find them because they're either probably one of two things. I mean, are they suspects or are they witnesses?

Because there's no evidence here of any crime. We've all heard the stories of car trouble, which unfortunately leads down a bad road, no pun intended. And, you know, there's ravines. Did Jamie's car drive off the road? Did she have an accident? You know, was she in a ditch somewhere? Or did this couple know more than just maybe stop to help her fix her car?

We found out that she had some car issues going out, and one of the truckers had helped her out. He remembers very vividly exactly the car, her. But then on the way back, some motorists said that they saw her on the side of the road.

As investigators looked at that tip, they determined that they were located on the border between California and Arizona. And that became the pin in the map headed west in the search for Jamie Bowie. And the weeks now turn into a month until we get to May 12th of 1990.

And on that day, there is a worker out in a citrus grove in Indio, California. The worker is walking along like they probably did so many other days. They're tracking through the grove. And when he looks down, he sees something he never expected when he came to work that day. There's a body face down in a ditch right next to a dirt road.

And I hate to say it, you know, but she's been out there for a month and there is animals out there and she is left out in the open. So the state of decomposition was so high that they couldn't confirm who this young woman was. So they went to dental records. Those records confirmed the worst. That young woman in the ditch was Jamie Bowie. My dad came walking out onto the track and it's one of those things, you just know what it is. It's not something you want to hear.

You just can't prepare yourself for that. Also, you know, I wonder, well, what happens if, you know, if I decided to not go to L.A., if she just would have never gone there? And if she never went to L.A., then none of this would have ever happened.

So let's unpack the crime scene a little bit here. The body was left in a ditch that had water running through it. So it was mostly skeletal remains that were found. She was fully clothed. And they also found some critical evidence, green shell casings from a shotgun that were found next to her body and underneath her body. This young woman had been shot twice, once in the back, once in the right arm. But she also had a fractured lower jaw.

And it was fractured in three different places. And her right hand was missing. And as horrible as that sounds, I believe, based on looking through the ME's report and some of the crime scene stuff, she probably put her hand up to defend herself. That's potentially when the blast severed her hand. Horrible. Scott, one thing that I think about is she shot twice, right?

But there's one shotgun shell. Clearly, one shell casing was ejected from the weapon. And it's likely the second shell casing from the second gunshot stayed within the weapon. But we talk about how important it is to try to gather evidence at a homicide scene like this, Anasiga. And there really wasn't a lot to go with outside of the shell casing and the body itself.

Tire tracks, footprints, anything else that could lead investigators to a potential suspect just wasn't there. You know, these days, we all depend a lot on surveillance, cell towers. There wasn't a lot to go on here. So as we say in a lot of these stories, the case just goes cold. But obviously not for Jamie's family.

I've been to some big funerals before, but I don't think I've ever been to one that big. It was more people than I've seen at any one spot for such a gathering. She had a lot of friends, for sure. It hit 'em pretty rough. It definitely did my mother, for sure. She really wasn't quite the same ever since then. She's always been very nice and happy, but there are certain parts of her that were far more reserved and not as open as she was before.

Investigators are looking, but now they're left with just nothing. There's really nowhere else to go other than she is last seen on a highway with a couple who looks like they're helping fix her car. But then that case, as you said, Scott, it really just goes cold.

There was always speculation, but we just didn't know. I think in some ways that was kind of the harder part, is not knowing and not seeing things progress. But being in it, you want information every day. And so if I didn't get it for, you know, a couple of weeks, I'm like, well, what's going on?

Remember, a key to finding who killed Jamie could be the car. Jamie's car. Where is it? And then fast forward until a year and a half later.

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Let's now move our timeline to August 1991, and police in Fresno, California are conducting an unrelated investigation, and they're in a salvage yard. And when they're in a salvage yard, they're not only investigating the police,

they start to look at a particular car. It's a Volkswagen Beetle, black. Now remember, her car was blue with the white top. You know, Scott, as a prosecutor, I dealt with all sorts of crimes along the way in different bureaus, but one thing I dealt with very infrequently was car theft. Did you ever work with these type of cases? I

I have. And, you know, one of the main locations for auto theft investigators to go to is salvage yards because that's where these cars are stripped down and taken and sold. It is a routine visit for an auto theft task force officer to go to these salvage yards and to look at VIN numbers.

And in this case, a real sharp auto theft investigator was able to locate this beetle and determine that the VIN number had been replaced with another one. It's an old trick that auto thieves do by placing another VIN number on top of the existing one so the paperwork will match when they attempt to sell it to a dealership or an auto salvage yard. They were able to remove the altered portion of the VIN

And when they run the VIN, it comes back to Jamie Bowie. The big breakthrough came when they found her car. So now they have to figure out how to track down the person who ditched that car.

They called Detective Pena up and said, "I think you guys need to get up here to Fresno and to take a look at this car and potentially take it into evidence." So his next decision was to take a photo of this car and call a press conference and put it out there to see, does anybody in the Fresno area recognize this car? And once again, pay dirt. It kind of exploded as far as information goes.

A tipster called to say that his neighbor had that car in his yard sitting there for more than a month. He was able to give investigators the address. Investigators went to talk to that gentleman who admitted to them up front that he stole that car from a parking lot.

And he wanted immunity to tell them more about where that car may have been connected to. And here's where it gets to me really interesting, because while it's this kind of convoluted backstory, it's one of the cool things about investigations when you start to going down that path, all the things that are uncovered. So let's go through this a little bit.

So this guy admits that he had stolen this car because he wanted the engine for his own. He brought it to a mechanic to do that work. He was a guy by the name of Ronald Johnson. He was a mechanic who specialized in VW bugs. And when they spoke to him, he had a lot to say. He remembered the car. He remembered working on it. But more interesting to investigators was who he bought it from. He bought it from a couple. The man's name was Billy Ray Riggs, and he came in with his wife, Hilda. The couple had an offer that Johnson could not refuse. A

a great price on that blue VW Bug with a white top. And before he left with cash in hand, Billy Ray Riggs signed a sales receipt and his wife Hilda, who followed him to the shop, was in a red VW Beetle. Let me say that again. The couple pulled up in Jamie's blue VW and a red VW Beetle. Just two days after Jamie went missing...

I have to go back to Ronald Johnson for a second because just so it's clear, it's not like he bought this car and the VIN number came back to Jamie Bowie and he just never did anything with it. The car that he bought, that blue bug, it had Texas license plates. It had a Texas registration. It was titled in Riggs' name. And the VIN that was on that car came back to them. So remember, when Scott talked about it being altered, it was only when investigators trained in that sort of identification...

really were able to uncover what was underneath, that's when it comes full circle and leads back to Jamie Bowie. But now let's get back to who are Billy Ray Riggs and his girlfriend, Hilda. From the detectives in the police department, we learned that they were really, really bad, bad people. Billy Ray Riggs was a career criminal. In fact, he was accused and charged with killing his own brother.

But that case was later dismissed. He was convicted for an abduction and rape of a 15-year-old child who told police that she was forced at gunpoint by Riggs and two other men. He was also known to be a member of the Rolling 60s gang, which is a violent L.A. County gang.

So now they know who they are, but now they need to figure out where they are. It's not like detectives are looking for this couple in present day. They're looking back in 1991. So Detective Pena thought of one of the best mediums that he could think of that people paid attention to when they're looking for people. He went to America's Most Wanted.

They had several episodes where actually they just kind of had, like I said, a person of interest. And it was kind of unique that they would put, you know, something like that on somebody who wasn't actually wanted but was a person of interest.

I want to call this guy, Ana Siga, prime time piña. Because this is the third time that he's turning to the media for help. And the first two times were very successful. And you and I know the guys that America's Most Wanted very well. I mean, this was an opportunity to get information about Jamie Bowie's homicide.

So they got on America's Most Wanted. They talked about who this couple was and everything that they could find about them. And they just waited to see if a location would come in. And one day, it did. There was at least one time that they got a location and they went to it. And that information was critical to a sighting. And the sighting was in Los Angeles, where Billy Ray Riggs and his wife lived.

And the information was only 30 minutes old. So the police go to the address and they are there. They are ready to kick down this door and to go inside. And once they get in there, what they find was unexpected. Detectives from the LAPD and the U.S. Marshal Service are staged outside of this apartment building, bang on the door, rush in, and no Billy Ray Riggs and his wife, but a whole bunch of Chinese food that was still warm to the touch.

There were some hot meals still sitting on the counter, but they weren't around. The TV was on America's Most Wanted or so, as the story goes. So they got the tip that the police were after him, and they left. Now, Billy Ray Riggs and his wife Hilda maintained a lot of gang affiliations within Los Angeles, so they were able to move from house to house. But within a week, on January 17, 1992...

The LAPD arrested the couple without incident and separated them to bring them in for interviews. They tried to speak to Billy Ray Riggs. He wasn't giving them much information. Scott, we know that so often when there is more than one person picked up and suspected to be involved in something, that police pretty quickly look for who is the person they think is most likely to talk and give them information about.

So in the beginning, when they had Billy Ray Riggs and his wife Hilda in for questioning, they were just suspects in this homicide investigation. But on the way to the jail, the investigator who was driving her there had noted that she was being very chatty and wanting to tell her story. So that was an opportunity to get her side of the story, which became critical to this investigation.

And so now they had not two people suspected, but that they could actually link to the crime. However, it's only going to get you so far unless you have a way to get into the courtroom.

They went to the prosecutor and they decided that they would offer her a deal right from the get-go of 25 years to life if she laid out everything that she could about what happened in this case. So I want to take our listeners into the mind of a prosecutor. And, Adesiga, when a homicide detective would walk into your office and say, I've got critical information from...

a co-defendant, but clearly an eyewitness to a murder. How do you dissect that information? How do you determine how that should be used in the prosecution of a homicide? Well, the first thing we always want to know is exactly what that person had to say. And then we take that information and we look at it with the other evidence that we have. And sometimes we have to do more investigation to see if all the pieces fit. It's not like we just hear that someone's

willing to tell us everything if we give them the deal, well, you're never going to do it that way. First of all, you want to make sure that they are being credible and telling you things that you believe to be true based on the other evidence or that you can go out and obtain based on what they say. But also just think about the argument if you walk into court with that. So wait a second, you made the deal and then they told you everything that you wanted to hear. Well, that's going to be attacked and rightly so right there. I'm going to put you on the spot for a second because, you know,

Very often in the movies, they depict that, you know, a husband or a wife can't testify against their spouse. Does that play into this?

No, because while you cannot compel that person to give certain evidence, there's certain privileges here. First of all, if you do anything in front of someone else and that privilege is lost. And it's also there is various rules in different states about the privilege. And that goes to statements. It doesn't go to things that people see.

So here, a lot of what Hilda had to say, she was part and parcel of this crime. So the privilege did not come into play in this case. And so everything she had to say was really imperative that investigators and prosecutors could take that evidence and bring it into court. So investigators were rolling tape, so to speak, as Hilda sat down and told the story. And it's chilling. It's absolutely chilling.

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That's rosettastone.com slash N-A-T-O-M-Y. Hi, I'm Ashley Flowers, creator and host of the number one true crime podcast, Crime Junkie. Every Monday, me and my best friend Britt break down a new case, but not in the way you've heard before and not the cases you've heard before. You'll hear stories on Crime Junkie that haven't been told anywhere else. I'll tell you what you can do to help victims and their families get justice. Join me in a conversation with Ashley Flowers,

Join us for new episodes of Crime Junkie every Monday, already waiting for you by searching for Crime Junkie wherever you listen to podcasts. Hilda said that while she and her husband were driving from Arizona to Los Angeles...

They saw Jamie Bowie and her Volkswagen at a gas station near Arizona. Now, she told investigators that Riggs was a VW mechanic and knew everything about the car. And when they pulled over to help Jamie, he had said to Jamie that he knew everything about VWs and he was willing to help them and do whatever it took to get her back on the road. And she was really appreciative, Hilda said, of the help.

And the couple, they were with Jamie for quite a while. According to Hilda, Riggs fixed Jamie's car upwards of 10 times as they followed her along the highway. And Riggs told Hilda that he was happy to help Jamie each and every time because he was hoping to get a new customer out of this. But after dark, his ideas changed. ♪

Riggs was tired of constantly helping Jamie, and now his intention was to rob her. And not only rob her, but he made it clear because she had been with them and seen them that he was going to have to kill her also because she'd seen his face.

Higgs had been on the run. He was a defendant in a case in Texas, and he was concerned Jamie may be able to ID him to investigators, and he'd be taken into custody for the Texas case. So now he had to make sure that no one was able to identify him, and that included Jamie.

And I believe, you know, it's a very good chance that, you know, he did the same with Hilda.

And then let's just think about this, because that evening, the couple stops for dinner with Jamie. And they're in California. Jamie paid for the dinner, and she also offered to pay the couple for all their work as soon as she got home and got to her bank account. Somebody helped her. She's going to help them back for sure. You know, why people would want to take advantage of somebody on that extent, somebody who's really trying to show some appreciation for them is sickening.

Right after dinner, Hilda, Riggs, and Jamie walk out of the restaurant towards their cars. This is when Riggs decides to make his move. He pulls out a handgun and forces Jamie into the back of her own car. Now, Hilda told investigators that that gun wasn't even functional, but Jamie didn't know that.

Hilda then says that Riggs told her to retrieve a shotgun from their car and they all get into Jamie's car and start to drive. And they start driving down the road and Riggs tells Hilda to stop at an ATM. And that's when Riggs forces Jamie out of the car to the ATM machine to try to withdraw money. He tries for $100. It's denied.

Then $50, then denied. Then just $10, it's denied. Jamie had told Riggs that the account really didn't have very much money in it. Riggs got angry. They all got back into Jamie's car with Hilda driving, and they headed towards Indigo. Then as they're heading towards the freeway, Riggs tells Hilda to switch gears and has her follow a dirt road. And then he tells Hilda to stop the car.

Riggs gets out with Jamie. He tells Hilda to turn the car around. And that's when Hilda describes hearing one gunshot and then two. Riggs gets back into the car. They drove to a restaurant. They now pick up their car. The couple then drives to L.A. and using Jamie's keys, they try to get into her apartment that night. Remember when Brian said the first night that he was waiting for her sister, he heard keys jingling and then nothing? Well, now it's all starting to make sense.

Well, I'd like to know more about what they did that night. Did they really go into the apartment? I know they opened the door. They didn't lock it. So that was kind of my first clue that something was a little strange, you know, because I was sure I locked that door before I went to bed. But then in the morning, the door isn't locked. And I thought I heard keys to open the door.

And she goes on to talk about how the next day the couple went in and stole things from her apartment. And, you know, Scott, you shake your head when you hear all this. And Hilda said that, yes, she was involved in all this, but that she did what Riggs said because he abused her, that she was worried that he'd kill her if she didn't do what he wanted. And that's why she had never come forward until police now had her in custody and she didn't want to get in trouble for herself.

I always think it's so hard to make heads and tails of that when you're talking about a crime like this. But it's her actions after the fact also, Anastasia, that I think play into it. Did she ever have an opportunity to get away? Knowing what occurred just a few hours prior...

Was it her choice to accompany Billy Ray Riggs to Jamie's apartment and to open that door in the middle of the night and try to start removing all of Jamie's belongings? My thinking when I hear these things is unfortunately so often that is right. It's exactly what's going on. And certainly we hear what Riggs had just done to Jamie. Is it going to shock anyone to hear that he also abused his own wife and that she just stayed with him?

Not at all. I mean, so is she being honest about that or is she now trying to put her best foot forwards and maybe making more of the abuse than there is? Maybe. But when they started to look at all the things she said and all the details, they kept checking off one box after the other after the other. So now they know not only what happened to Jamie, but who. And with her agreed upon testimony, they had enough to charge. ♪

willing to kill, willing to murder someone because they're worried about being arrested for something else. You know, that is pure evil. And in this case, I believe, even though Hilda did provide, you know, critical information, and as you said, she checked off the boxes, her descriptions match the evidence.

The timeline matched the evidence. Her description of a conversation with Ron Johnson at the mechanic matched the evidence. The fact that Billy Ray Riggs signed a receipt at Ron Johnson's shop, Hilda recalled the entire conversation with Johnson. And by the way, Johnson and other people testified exactly that it was Billy Ray Riggs. They looked at a lineup and that's them.

So it's not a matter of if. I just don't know if we'll ever get to the why. You know, and we think about this homicide. There's so many different layers of just incredible wrong. And I know I hate to use the word evil, but it fits into it here. I mean, Jamie had just bought this couple dinner and offered to pay them for their help.

You know, I had a case myself that was very similar that I did with a colleague of mine. They called it the Good Samaritan case, and it was really similar in that it was, in that case, a young man offering to help the couple with car trouble when they, too, decided to rob him and execute him. And while investigators were able to go backwards and say that everything that Hilda told them was accurate, they still had her do more. They told her they wanted proof that everything she was saying was right on the money. And so she helped the DA procure additional evidence.

She helped them check and find that were in their possession now, Riggs and Hilda, two of Jamie's suitcases and some of her clothing, which they had taken from her. She brought investigators to a pawn shop where they recovered some of the electronics that the couple had stolen from Jamie's home. But now let's go to the trial for a moment.

I can't imagine prosecutors did not expect this coming, where Hilda would be accused by Billy Ray Riggs of actually carrying out the murder. And he was trying to stop her.

And we get that, too, all the time. You know, when you have multiple people being charged with the same crime under this acting in concert theory that they've in some way worked together. Certainly when one person takes a deal and is getting a lesser penalty in exchange for their cooperation and testimony in a trial, that the person who is on trial points the finger and says, oh, no, it's not me. It's really the person up there.

And unfortunately, sometimes it works. But, you know, Billy Ray Riggs, he decided to represent himself during the trial, which right there brings a whole host of other challenges for the prosecutor, for the court. Why would he be so crazy as to want to represent himself? And then there's the other side of the coin is, well, good, because he's an idiot. And if you're going to represent yourself, you're going to have some serious problems later on in defending yourself. You just can't do that.

It's almost like he wants to go down for it. Let me just say this. As you've said, Atasiga, these are very rare occurrences where a defendant will represent himself. But just put yourself in the position as a family member of a victim or a witness in a homicide investigation to be cross-examined by the person who was accused of committing murder. That is just...

to put yourself in that position. That's so difficult. And that is exactly what happened here. Family members, investigators, witnesses, all cross-examined by the man who police alleged at that time pulled the trigger.

Billy Ray Riggs convicted of capital murder, sentenced to death. Hilda Riggs received the 25 years in the deal that she made with prosecutors. I asked Jamie's brother, Brian, about the convictions.

No. She can't do that.

When I think about this case, I keep thinking about it as a young woman in her car. Her hair is blowing in the wind and she's listening to music and it's all taken from her so suddenly. But I love how Brian thinks about his sister. You know, I like to think about it from the perspective of what she gives now.

I have my daughter. She's four. So we read her books every night. And a lot of the books were my sister's books, his children's books. My sister painted a few things, but she's got her paintings up in her room. Do I still miss her? Do I still miss, you know, talking with her and everything? Absolutely. You know, I think about the times we had.

And Jamie's brother Brian spoke to me about the impact he believes his sister could have made in this society. She was a bright star in his life, a star that he will never think will dim. At least she did it. She moved out to LA. She got a job. It's one of the things she wanted to do. She did it. At least she was progressing new things and doing what she wanted. And that's great. I mean, she'd do that every day.

Tune in next Wednesday when we'll dissect another new case on anatomy of murder.

Anatomy of Murder is an AudioChuck original, a Weinberger Media and Forseti Media production. Sumit David is executive producer.

Hi, I'm Ashley Flowers, creator and host of the number one true crime podcast, Crime Junkie. Every Monday, me and my best friend Britt break down a new case, but not in the way you've heard before, and not the cases you've heard before. You'll hear stories on Crime Junkie that haven't been told anywhere else. I'll tell you what you can do to help victims and their families get justice.

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