Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - Gorgeous Mississippi state representative gunned down weed-eating

Episode Date: June 29, 2021

A former Mississippi representative is found fatally shot at the same location where her sister-in-law was found deceased in December 2019. Forty-year-old Ashley Henley was found dead while working in the yard of a trailer. Kristina Jones was found dead in the bedroom of the burned-out home on Christmas 2019. No arrests have been made in connection with her death, but a suspect has been taken into custody on arson charges.Joining Nancy Grace today: Wendy Patrick - California prosecutor, Author: “Red Flags” www.wendypatrickphd.com 'Today with Dr. Wendy' on KCBQ in San Diego Dr. Jorey Krawczyn - Police Psychologist, Adjunct Faculty with Saint Leo University; Research Consultant with Blue Wall Institute, Author: Operation S.O.S. - Practical Recommendations to Help “Stop Officer Suicide” (July 2021) bw-institute.com Dr. Michelle Dupre - Forensic Pathologist and former Medical Examiner, Author: “Homicide Investigation Field Guide” & "Investigating Child Abuse Field Guide", Former Police Detective Lexington County Sheriff’s Department Karen L. Smith - Forensic Expert, Lecturer at the University of Florida, Host of Shattered Souls Podcast, @KarensForensic, barebonesforensic.com Tom Dees - Reporter, 26 years with Fox13 Memphis, 3-time Emmy Award winner, Fox13Memphis.com, Facebook: TomDeesFox13Memphis Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an iHeart Podcast. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. How does a beautiful young mom, a Mississippi state representative, end up shot dead while she's simply out working the lawn, weed eating, as a matter of fact, and it hasn't been solved yet. Shot what I believe to be execution style. Still no answers? Crime stories with Nancy Grace. Does the name Ashley Henley ring a bell? It will. Take a listen to this. It's a call Brandon Henley never thought he would get his beloved wife and former Mississippi State Representative Ashley Henley found shot to death on Sunday while doing yard work in Yalabusha County. They called the police and they found her shot in the back of the head in front of the weed eater with her phone in her hand. Henley said his wife was mowing grass outside this burned trailer. It's the same property where his sister, Christina Jones, was found dead back in December.

Investigators say Jones's death is under investigation. But Henley believes his sister was murdered and believes the same person may be responsible for killing his wife. We weren't going away and we were pushing for justice for my sister to find out who killed her and see that person brought to justice, brought to jail. And I think that person knew what happened and he killed her. Grieving the death of now two family members. Henley said he's continuing his fight for justice for his sister Christina and now also his wife Ashley. It's so hard to take in this guy has lost not only his sister Christina but now his wife Ashley who is leading a crusade into the investigation of the sister-in-law Christina. Does anybody on this panel want to try and tell me

with a straight face that two women alone at the time in near the same age bracket at the same property die just a few months apart and they're not connected with a straight face. I don't think so. Guys, you were just hearing our friends at Fox 13 Memphis. What happened to Ashley? What happened to Christina? With me, an all-star panel to break it down and put it back together again. Wendy Patrick, California prosecutor prosecutor author of red flags

you can find her at wendy patrick phd and on today with dr wendy kcbq san diego dr jory cross and police psychologist faculty st leo university research consultant author of operation sos dr michelle dupree renowned forensic pathologist, former medical examiner, author of Homicide Investigation Field Guide, and former police detective with Lexington County Sheriff's to boot, Karen L. Smith. You know her well. She is a forensics expert, lecturer at University of Florida and creator of the Shattered Souls podcast. But straight to Tom Deese, reporter, 26 years with FOX 13 there in Memphis, three-time Emmy Award winner. You can find him at fox13memphis.com.

You don't just pick up Emmy Awards for nothing. This guy's done it three times. You're on this case. You've been studying this. Give me some answers, Tom Deese, but I don't want to put the cart before the horse. Let's start at the beginning. Let's start with Ashley Henley, a young Mississippi state representative, the mother of one boy left without a mom to help raise him, and wife. She's out weed eating, doing the lawn of sister-in-law Katrina Jones, who was found dead just a few months before what seemed to be a house fire. Let's start with Ashley, the state rep.

Tell me about her death. What do you know, Tom Deese? I know that she was out, that according to the family, she had gone to the property to clean it up. It had been, the trailer had been set on fire six months before. It was on December 26th. Ashley was out in the yard. I'd like to describe that to you, where it is, where that trailer sits. In the middle of kind of a trailer community, it looks to be kind of a weekend getaway area for some folks and some folks who are there full-time. There's about 20 roads in that community, but there's only two ways in, or one way in and one way out. Depends on how you look at it.

It's in the middle of Yallabusha County on Enid Lake. Now, it's about... Whoa, Tom Days. Tom Days. Yes. Fox 13 Memphis. One way in, one way out. If you're in a car, if you're on foot,

you can kind of filter in anywhere you want. Isn't that right? Well, If you're in a car, if you're on foot, you can kind of filter in anywhere you want. Isn't that right? Well, if you're in a car, yes. It's one way in, one way out. But you're 12 miles from the interstate. You're 12 miles from Yalabusha County. I mean, from anywhere else in the county from water valley and the only other way in i would guess would be if you came in by boat on the lake so okay i'm trying to get this pictured in my head you know a lot of people mock uh trailer parks they think i guess uh low class people

live there have you ever driven through those trailer parks down in Florida near the beach, Tom D's? I mean, those lots go for thousands and thousands of dollars. They're vacation getaways like you just described, and they're actually pretty ritzy. Then there are trailer parks that are not posh. But I don't like it very much because my great-grandmother lived in a trailer. She had worked her whole life, bought a farm in cash with money out of mason jars. And when the house filled up, later in her life, she let her daughter have the house, my grandmother, and she pulled up a little airstream by the house because she wanted to live in her own place, but not displace her daughter. So I don't take very kindly to that. Now I'm taking, I'm understanding Tom Bates that

you're saying this was a weekend getaway. so it sounds like the ritzy kind of trailer park, with 22-0 roads. Is that what you said, or rows? 22, about 22 roads. R-O-A-D-S or R-O-W-S? R-O-A-D-S. Gotcha. So not that much 22 roads one entry exit if you're in a vehicle and about 12 miles outside of outside of memphis about no about 12 miles that's about an hour and

a half from memphis but it's about 12 miles from Water Valley, Mississippi. It's a population from about 3,000. Oh, that's important. Yeah. That's very important. And let me go out to you, to Wendy Patrick, California prosecutor, author of Red Flags. That's important because you just heard Tom Deese say 3,000 population. You don't expect a lot of murders to go down. But in my book, we've already got two.

And we're barely into the year of 2021. Yeah. You know, Nancy, it's true. You don't normally expect the high murder rate in that type of a rural community. But think about this. This was a young woman who was researching another murder at the exact same location. So that is one of the things I would look at right from the beginning is while generally speaking, statistically, that probably wouldn't be true. I would say here location matters. I think you're so right. Location, location, location, not to be trite.

Okay, Tom Deese, you're the expert. Fox 13 Memphis, back to where you were before we so rudely interrupted. Go ahead. No, it's kind of like you described. And I'll go back to the trailer park. I lived in a trailer park for a while. I lived in a nice trailer park. And I have family that live in trailer parks in Florida like you described your family.

This one kind of runs the gamut. Some of the lots are very nice. Some of them, not so much. But she was out weeding the grass in the middle of the day. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. Guys, for those of you just joining us, a lovely young mom, also a Mississippi State representative, out basically cutting the grass with the weed eater, and she's gunned down in my book, execution style, shot to the back of the head. That's not right, nor is it normal for

Water Valley. Population 3,000? No way. Take a listen to our friends at local 24 ABC Memphis. A former Mississippi State representative now dead after she was killed outside the burn trailer her sister-in-law was killed in nearly six months ago. The Yalabusha County Sheriff's Department confirmed Ashley Henley of DeSoto County was shot and killed in the Water Valley boat landing community last night. Now, that's an hour and a half south of Memphis. The sheriff says Henley was cutting the grass outside of a burn trailer. That trailer was where her sister-in-law was found dead December 26th of last year.

Her body has been sent to a coroner. That's for an autopsy, and her death is under investigation. Henley served as a Mississippi State Representative for DeSoto County from 2016 to 2019 when she lost by 14 votes to Hester Jackson-McRae. Back to you, Tom Deese, joining us. Fox 13 Memphis, two things. It was a boat community, so you could come up by boat or go through the drive-in if you're in a vehicle, And it was in broad daylight.

That's what the investigators are telling us. They found her body. It was another neighbor that I'm told her husband called because Ashley hadn't returned home. They called around later that evening. They found her body at 10 o'clock at night. There was a lot of tall grass on the property. From where I could see from standing outside the crime scene tape,

there was a weed eater that was in the middle of the property, right near the trailer with a can of gas. And it looked like she really hadn't even started doing the weed eating when she was killed. You know, everything matters, every single thing. You know, to you, Dr. Michelle Dupree, forensic pathologist, former medical examiner and author of Homicide Investigation Field Guide, Dr. Dupree, if her body's not found until 10 p.m. that night, then how do we know physically, by physical inspection of the body, that she was killed in broad daylight?

How do we know she wasn't killed at 9.30 p.m. or 9.59 p.m.? Nancy, those are good questions, and that's one of the questions that we always ask when we find a person like this. We go by many factors. It's not like on TV where you can say, oh, they died at 9.07 p.m. But we look at the state that the body is in. We also have to take into consideration the environment. She was outdoors. Was she indoors? Was the heat on, the air conditioning, whatever?

Since she was outdoors, the body is going to decompose a lot faster, and we take those things into consideration. We also look at the state of the injury. We also look at the surrounding area to determine if there are any other clues that might tell us what time she was actually killed. Dr. Michelle Dupree, let's not put perfume on the pig. When you say you look at the state of the body to determine time of death, we already know COD, cause of death. She got a gaping bullet hole to the gunshot wound to the back of the head. But you look to see, is the blood still flowing?

Has it coagulated? Is it dried? Has a liver mortis set in or rigor mortis set into the body? I mean, get real, Dr. Michelle Dupree. We ain't at a tea party. How can you tell how long the body's been there that's true Nancy we do look at that we do look at the live or mortis which is the settling of the blood according to gravity we can tell according to whether it blanches or not if we

touch it how long has that person been in that position we can what do you mean by that well not everybody's a medical examiner Dr. Michelle Dupelle when we push on that discolored area of the skin that has saliva mortis or that discoloration of the skin we push on it if it blanches if it turns white that means that it hasn't formed yet it hasn't fixed and so then we can shorten the time down we also do that with rigor mortis which is the stiffening of the joints and of the muscles and depending on again the stiffening of the joints and of the muscles. And depending on, again, the outside circumstances like the temperature, rigor mortis and liver mortis will settle differently. So anywhere from five to six to 12 hours, we can tell looking at those

conditions of the body approximately how long that body has been there. Guys, take a listen to our friend Maura Barrett at NBC. She was actually found shot in the back of the head. She actually had a gun on her possession. It was still in the holster. It's safety on. So it suggests that she didn't even know what was coming. She was working to clean up the property where her sister-in-law was living. They had had a memorial set up there because her and her husband believed that the sheriff's office here wasn't doing enough to get answers about the sister-in-law's death. Here, though, today, six months after the sister-in-law's death and now a week out nearly a week after Ashley's, we still don't have any answers, any arrests or any leads in the case. The sheriff's office neglecting to respond to any comments here today as we've been working to get inside multiple times to get some of those answers. The family not getting any

answers either. So they're expressing doubt and making sure that anyone will be held accountable. Hold on. Tom Dees, your reporter, Fox 13 Memphis. The sheriff isn't responding with even a comment. Who do they think is paying their paycheck? Us. Why no comment? And why is it the family says the sheriff's department is not doing their job? I think to get to the root of it, and I'm getting fingers pointing in both directions,

to be honest with you, Nancy, in the state of Mississippi, there is a huge delay at the crime lab. Everything that goes, any homicide, any autopsy, anything to that degree, goes through the state crime lab. Two years ago, it was taking a year to get an autopsy done. Ms. Jones' autopsy took six months. So the processing, and this is coming from the Assistant District Attorney's Office, from Stephen Jubera, and he's telling me that it took six months

to get the autopsy results back from the fire. Hold on a second, Tom Deese. Okay. I don't believe that for one minute not not even one minute uh yeah i mean i've worked for 10 years in inner city atlanta we had a huge glut of crime can you imagine all those turf wars over drugs, all the murders and the shootings that go along with that? A year for an autopsy? What, do you keep the body on a cold slab for a solid year?

No, you don't. I just don't believe that, Tom. I don't buy that. Let me break in here for a second. Uh-oh, here comes Dupree. Jump in. So I'm thinking what they mean by that is depending on the outside tests that are run, absolutely an autopsy is done within a matter of hours or days on the actual physical body. But it very well may take several months to get all of the toxicology results back or the firearms examination.

Every lab in the country in firearms is backed up for many, many months in a lot of cases. I hear months and I agree with you. I agree with many months. I've worked with many months before. But when you've got a potential double homicide, the sister and now her, she's leading a crusade to find out why the sister's case hasn't been resolved. N-O. This isn't right. And yes, I understand toxicology lab results can take a couple of months. I know that.

But not this long. Not this long. I believe the sheriff's department, and I love the Sheriff's Department. I put Media Sheriff on the stand as my witness because I believe them. But I don't believe that they're not giving answers or at least a comment for Pete's sake because of the crime lab. No. No, no, no. I mean, Dr. Jory Crossan, you're the psychologist.

You work with the police. You teach there at St. Leo's University. You're a consultant with the Blue Wall Institute. That's the police. This is complete BS. Now, that's a technical legal term. They probably didn't teach you in your psychology classes. But to not even work with the family, the victims?

That's key in police work is you've got to have that relationship. And with no comment, I mean, any comment would be sufficient. Even if it is the crime lab, then simply move it to the crime lab. Say we're waiting on the results. There's so many ways to even address the crime lab. I mean, you could ask for federal assistance and it could be run to Washington. So there's different ways, but just to not comment,

yeah, that would kind of make me kind of suspicious. Well, typically, Dr. Jory Crawson, the last thing I want to do is to drag Washington into anything, and that's having been a fed myself for three years. I agree. But in this case, since the local crime lab can't handle it,

and I'm talking about the state crime lab, it's not a county crime lab, it's a state crime lab, then I would send it to Washington too. I completely disagree with what the sheriff is saying. crime stories with nancy grace guys we're talking about what i believe to be double homicide in a very quaint mississippi town not far from water valley pop 3000 take a listen to our friends at Fox 13 Memphis. Property where Ashley Henley was killed is out in the county. So far out there there are few neighbors. The coroner tells me she died from a single gunshot wound. Relatives tell me she was shot in the back of the head while weed-eating the property where her sister-in-law, Christina Michelle Jones, died in December.

Posters of Jones dot the property. The weed-eater and medical gloves are still out here. State Representative Steve Hopkins of South Haven was Henley's friend and spoke to me by phone. I'm thinking the investigation is going to run deep because this, from what I understand and what I have read, goes into another murder investigation as well. And I'm personally calling on the FBI to investigate this case. You know, Karen L. Smith, forensic expert, lecturer, University of Florida, host of Shattered Souls podcast. Karen, I think she was snuck up on while she was weed eating because the sound of the weed eater masked somebody sneaking up on her. Depending on which way she was turned, I believe she was snuck up from behind.

I don't think she saw a shadow or any movement to alert her. No sound. She may have even had in protective earbuds for all I know. Because the safety was still on her gun and the gun was not withdrawn from the holster. Absolutely. And you took the words right out of my mouth. Two things, Nancy. Let's start with the weed eater, which apparently is still at the crime scene. Why? That's evidence. That should have been collected. And here's why. If you're correct and she had started weed eating that property.

Yes. If it was a gas poweredpowered weed eater, which it likely was. I can't imagine there being electricity in that burned-out trailer. Was the gas tank full or was it empty? Did it lay there idling while she lay there dead? Did they collect it? Did they look to find out if it had even been started? Was the gas tank full? That's one thing.

Number two, was a neighborhood canvas done? Who heard a gunshot? We have a huge timeline here. 10 o'clock in the morning until about eight o'clock at night. That's 10 hours. They're saying she was shot in broad daylight. Was a canvas done? Did anybody hear a gunshot? Can we narrow down that timeline to a point where somebody said, yeah, I thought I heard a pop or I thought I heard a firecracker, anything like that. Who talked to the neighbors? This is a small area of trailers. Somebody had to have heard something to narrow down that timeline, Nancy. It's got to all go.

I agree with you 300 percent, Karen Smith. It's got to all go back to the sister, Katrina. Tom Deese, jump in. I think that going back to the autopsy, and I'm going to jump back on that for a second. You've got two medical examiners for the whole state doing 1,500 autopsies a year. I want to get that out there. The crime lab is pointing at delays from their end saying they're not funded. The state legislature says it's a problem at the crime lab.

I think in order for us to get some answers, and it's not the only story that I've done on this in the state of Mississippi, that the answers for families where they die, where they have to sit and wait on an investigation because the local folks can't get the help that they need or get the answers that they need or get the answers that they need. It is repeatedly, it's repeated over and over. And we've dealt with it in Mississippi for a long, long time.

But that property sits, it's wide open. She could have been snuck on up on from the back i do know that she had her earbuds in i know that she had her her holster and she had her why was she carrying a gun curious i'm all about the second amendment i'm not knocking carrying a gun but well in in talking to her husband and talking to Brandy, Brandy told me and he made the statement, I trained my wife well. She was also a politician. You know, Ashton's also a politician. But even Biden or Trump didn't have a.22 strapped to their thigh.

Not that I know of anyway. I've never seen their naked thigh. But I find that interesting that she was carrying a holster weapon. She never got it out of her holster, nor did she even get the safety off. But was there a threat on her life that we know of, Tom?

No, not that I know of. Not outside of there. She thought she needed to carry that gun for a reason. And nobody heard a thing? You got 20 roads of high-scale trailers and nobody heard anything? I'm just putting it out there.

If you live out in the county, in the Allabusha County, I don't think, because people hunt, people shoot, I don't think a gunshot would have necessarily gone unnoticed. But did anybody hear one so I can get a timeline going? I haven't heard that. It has not been reported now. Huh. Interesting.

Right, Nancy. That tells me that an appropriate canvas wasn't done. That's what that tells me. Because even if somebody said, well, yeah, we hear gunshots all the time. Or if it was done, they're not releasing it. I mean, I grew up in the middle of, as they say, nowhere. It was somewhere to me. And I would have noticed if I heard a gunshot, much less one right outside my window.

Well, especially when you find out a woman has been murdered in the same place that you're living. Of course you're going to say, yeah, I heard a pop. I didn't think anything of it at the time, but now it might be important. They need to go back and question these folks who live around the area. The reality is there's no way these two cases are not connected. but now it might be important. They need to go back and question these folks who live around the area. The reality is there's no way these two cases are not connected. Let's cut forward to our cut number seven. This is our friend Shep Smith. Take a listen to our cut seven.

Forty-year-old Ashley Henley found dead this past Sunday. Henley, the ex-Republican state lawmaker, shot and killed, according to local police. She was shot in the back of the head, assassination, ambush style. The victim's husband, Brandon Henley, tells local reporters she was at the property where the day after Christmas, firefighters found his own sister, Christina Michelle Jones, dead inside a burned-out trailer. The former lawmaker there to tidy up around the memorial they'd laid out. It includes this sign begging the local sheriff to further investigate. She was murdered and her body was burned in my father's house. Under in the bed, there was accelerant poured out throughout the house.

The local coroner says the official cause of death is undetermined. He says there were no gunshot wounds, but that Jones had no smoke in her lungs, suggesting she was dead before the fire. Oh, man, it just gets worse and worse for the local coroner. Is it a coroner or is it a medical examiner? Because Tom Deese, I mean, you can be the dog catcher and be a coroner. just have to get elected but a medical examiner i'm pretty sure has to be an actual md right the coroner the coroner is locally elected and the body would have gone through the crime lab once again in jackson mississippi um the body went to the crime lab or tissues from the body well tissues from the the body the body would have gone to the crime lab and tissues from the body would have been been taken there. The initial report the initial report would

have come out fairly quickly but the full report including the toxicology that that was spoken to earlier would have taken up to six months along with the with the fire marshal's report, which would have taken that long as well. And that evidence, that information, was shared with the family the week before Ashley was killed by the DAs. Wow. That's pretty significant timing. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. I'm going to circle back to the sister, Katrina Jones's death.

Did I hear there was no smoke in her lungs? I haven't seen the autopsy report, but they basically, the cause of death has not been determined is what the family has been told. Well, I'm hearing from Shep that there was no gunshot wound and there was no smoke in her lungs, absolutely suggesting she was dead before

the fire and not only that we learned that it wasn't a light switch that suddenly exploded it wasn't a cooktop or a stovetop or gas left on we're hearing that there was accelerant i.e gas that's what my understanding was that it has been deemed an arson and she was already dead so she was dead and then gas was poured and the place burned up so there's no way that she that that had to be murder, Tom Deese. And another thing, Tom Deese, what did I just hear about a sign that maybe it was Ashley herself or her husband that posted a sign asking the sheriff to, for Pete's sake, please do something about Katrina's murder? There was a sign that was placed on the property that reads, I was murdered, and it has her sister-in-law's picture on it, and it is facing Billy Brooks' house, who is the suspect. Billy Brooks.

Billy Brooks was arrested on- Who's Billy Brooks' house, who is the suspect. Billy Brooks. Billy Brooks was arrested on... Who's Billy Brooks? Billy Brooks was arrested, and he has been charged with arson in the case of setting the trailer on fire. He has not been charged with the sister-in-law, with Ms. Jones, with her death, but he has been charged in the arson of the trailer fire. Also on the side of the trailer, it has been spray painted, I was murdered. But the sign that was erected as memorial by Brandon Henley and by Ashley Henley is facing Brooks House. Take a listen to our cut eight.

This is Shep Smith at CNBC. This is the death certificate. Authorities released it last month and Ashley Henley posted it on Facebook and wrote, absolutely unacceptable. My family waited five months for this. To those granted public trust and responsibility for ensuring justice for all,

you may think this is over and your job is done, but you're mistaken. This is only the beginning. I will leave no stone unturned in my pursuit of truth. 20 days after that post, cops found her shot and killed at the memorial she built for her sister-in-law, for whom she was demanding justice. I believe she got close or she ruffled some feathers and whoever was responsible stepped up. I don't think it was because somebody didn't like her. They just didn't like the fact that she was poking around trying to get answers for who had murdered her sister-in-law. Dan Eubanks is a Mississippi State lawmaker and friend of ex-representative Ashley Henley. It was an execution style murder. Straight back out to Tom Deese. You mentioned the name

Billy Brooks. Who is he in relation to Christina Jones, the dead sister? He lives across the street from her. He's in a neighborhood of hers and his house would be facing the trailer that she lived in directly. How he knew her beyond that at this point, I do not know. Still working to find out. They certainly are playing this close to the vest or they're refusing to get out information, which is a really difficult thing for the family of the victims, Dr. Jory Crawson, psychologist, faculty, St. Leo University, and author. The family's just left hanging.

Why? Yeah, they've got to be extremely frustrated. And, I mean, you know, they've followed everything by the law. And to have her murdered like that, you know, they followed everything by the law. And to have her murdered like that, you know, they still have answers that they can demand and that they need to be answered, these questions. To Dr. Michelle Dupree, forensic pathologist, former medical examiner and author, Dr. Dupree, I assume that you, of course, have autopsied cases that dealt with arson. You have been to an arson scene, correct? Yes, absolutely. You know, it's not really rocket science.

When you go into a home or any structure that has been burned, you can almost immediately tell where the fire started because that will be the most heavily damaged part of the arson, part of the structure. That's where it started. That's where it burned the most. Also, when accelerant is used, it's typically plain as day. In every arson case I've ever prosecuted where accelerant was used, and proving an arson case is an art. Because first, you have to prove that a crime even occurred. This was not an accident.

Then you have to prove who did it. But with accelerant, not only can you bring in a fire dog to smell the accelerant, they can smell accelerant underwater. Often used in civil cases, rarely used in criminal cases, with which I disagree. But with the naked eye, a human can see the accelerant if there's enough of the structure left. It looks to me like somebody poured a big jug of Coca-Cola onto the ground and it dried. Even after the fire, you can see the pour pattern. Exactly, Nancy. And, we can take elements from that crime scene, take them to the laboratory, put them under. In the mass spec, right? Yes, exactly.

And we can open them under something called a fume hood, which the gases from that accelerant will escape. And we can measure that to determine what kind of accelerant was actually used. Hey, I'm sure you've had to do this on the stand, Dr. Michelle Dupre, but could you just dummy down for us what happens in a mass spectrometer? Sure. Sure. Well, there's actually two parts to that. One is called the GC or the gas chromatograph is the technical term.

And what that does is it breaks down the category of substance, whether it's an accelerant or drugs or whatever it may be. The mass spectrometer actually identifies the specific drug or accelerant or whatever it may be that you're looking for. It's incredible. And I can't tell you how long I had to work with the crime lab and the arson experts to nail down in my own mind how a mass spectrometer works. What does it do? What does the hood do,

how can you determine exactly what type of accelerant was used. But once you figure it out, I mean, even I, and I'm a JD, not an MD, like a lot of you guys are, even I could figure it out. So there's no way, Tom Deese, that they don't know exactly what happened. I'm just trying to figure out why they're looking at Billy Brooks. Isn't it true, Tom Deese, that the sign that's been put in Katrina Jones' yard is looking directly over at Billy Brooks' place? It is pointing directly at Billy Brooks' house, yes, ma'am. It's pointing directly at it. There's no way for him not to see it.

And spray painted on the trailer. So if he's on the hook for the arson, and as of yet, he has not been convicted. Let's just be clear about that. I'm sure he is insisting he's innocent. But if he's on the hook for that, wouldn't logically they would look at him in the murder, the execution-style murder of Ashley, the sister?

I would think so, but I can't say. They haven't charged him with her death. They haven't charged him with the death of Jones. They've only charged him with the arson of the trailer at this point. Any security cameras, Tom Deese? You know, I looked around and I didn't see any. I looked for, and sometimes folks in the country will, and folks may snicker at this, but they make one of the best security cameras ever.

Sometimes people put up deer cameras that people use for deer hunting. The monitor roads going in and out of neighborhoods because they make great cameras. But I could not see where there were any security cameras on any of the homes out there that would have caught this. If you know or even think you know information relating to the point-blank execution-style shooting of not just a Mississippi State rep, but a mother of a young boy, a wife,

Ashley Henley, or her sister-in-law, Christina Jones, please dial 888-8-CRIMES. That's 888-827-4637. Nancy Grace, Crime Story, signing off. Goodbye, friend. This is an iHeart Podcast.