Park Predators - The Ravine

Episode Date: December 23, 2025

When a bright and beautiful young woman from coal country in Kentucky fails to return home from her jog, a tight knit community is rocked to its core. Then, when another young woman who was related to the first victim is violently murdered in the same county less than two years later, public concern skyrockets.If you know anything about these cases, please contact the Kentucky State Police. You can reach them via email at [e-mail] or by calling the tipline at 1-877-735-2648. If you have specific information about Greta Henson’s homicide, call 606-573-3131.KSP also has a confidential online tip portal where you can submit information.View source material and photos for this episode at: parkpredators.com/the-ravine Park Predators is an Audiochuck production.Connect with us on social media:Instagram: @parkpredators | @audiochuckTwitter: @ParkPredators | @audiochuckFacebook: /ParkPredators  | /audiochuckllcTikTok:  @audiochuck Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hi, park enthusiasts. I'm your host, Delia Diambra. And the case I'm going to tell you about today takes place in Pine Mountain State Resort Park in southeastern Kentucky. According to a website for Kentucky State Parks, this recreation space is located near the city of Pineville and overlooks another beautiful public land called the Kentucky Ridge State Forest. Visitors come here for activities including hiking, sightseeing, bird watching, and swimming. The park is roughly 1500 acres in size or so and is home to a variety of tree species and wildlife. As well as an archaeological site known as the Rock Hotel, which is a big shelter made of sandstone that prehistoric Native American people once lived in. In the summer of 1990, a young woman jogging

in this park came face to face with someone determined to shatter the quiet serenity of this landscape with unimaginable violence. The law enforcement investigation that followed was swift, but to this day the identity of the perpetrator or perpetrators and their motive for the crime remains an enigma. Perhaps, though, with this broadcast, that could change. This is Park Predators. Around On Thursday, August, August 16th, 1990, a woman named Janice Bailey was at her family's home in Greasy Creek, Kentucky,

waiting for her 21-year-old daughter, Jennifer Bailey, to return from running errands around town and going for a jog. Janice had last heard from Jennifer around 10.55 a.m. And so, now that had been a little while without any word from her, Janice was beginning to get concerned. She knew her daughter was very punctual and usually called if she was going to be running late. According to reporting by Eric Gregory for the Lexington Herald leader and coverage by Medium.com, when the two women last spoke, Jennifer had called from Bell County Middle School, which was where Janice was employed.

She let her mom know that she'd picked up a prescription for her at a local pharmacy and was going to bring home some cases of soda from the school after going for a jog in Pine Mountain State Park. She also promised that when she returned home, she'd help clean the house because Janice was still recovering from a recent surgery and had only just gotten home from the hospital. Jennifer lived with her mom and dad, Janice and Elbert, full time, and going to run errands for them or finding time to herself to exercise was nothing new. She was an athletic young woman who jogged in the state park at least twice a week or worked out at a local YMCA in the nearby city of Middlesbrough. It seems from what I read in the source material that Jennifer and her, her parents didn't live very far from the state park. However, what was unusual on that Thursday was the fact that Jennifer did not come home in a timely manner or contact her parents since mid-morning. When she left her family's house, she borrowed her mom's silver 1987 Mercury Cougar.

When authorities from Kentucky State Police got involved in the case after Janice reported her daughter missing, officers went to the state park to try and locate that vehicle. When they arrived at the parking lot for a trailhead at Pine Mountain State Resort Park, they spotted Jennifer's car parked by itself, but Jennifer was nowhere inside. A quick search of the inside of the vehicle revealed that she left it unlocked with her wallet and keys beneath the front seat and some money, a rental video, and medicine for her mom sitting on the passenger seat. Her photo ID was in her wallet, but her credit cards were back at home. From the looks of it, it didn't appear that any kind of struggle had occurred in the vehicle or around the outside of it. Jennifer's mother later

told the press, her daughter typically locked the vehicle whenever she went jogging, so the fact that had been left unlocked seemed odd. Authorities quickly organized a ground search for Jennifer, but because the park was so large, they had a lot of area to cover and a lot of potential witnesses to interview. According to the coverage on this case, where Jennifer had gone jogging was a scenic area of the park that attracted a lot of visitors. People regularly traveled two roads that ran alongside the one she'd gone down, and some 75 people per day reportedly exercised on it. So investigators felt confident that someone who'd been using the trail on Thursday morning

had to have seen or heard something that might be helpful. Witnesses who were initially interviewed told investigators that they thought they'd seen Jennifer in the parking lot speaking with a man in a dark pickup truck shortly after 11 a.m. And at that time, she'd been donning a white sleeveless shirt with gray or white shorts that had the word Kentucky written on the sides. A more detailed description that law enforcement put out about the missing 21-year-old was that she had green eyes, weighed about 135 pounds, was five feet four inches tall, and had freckles on her face.

She was also said to be sporting a medium tan. Her mother described Jennifer's shoulder-length hair as red, but explained in more detail that Jennifer would frequently dye it blonde, which gave it a more strawberry blonde look versus all-red. Janice also said, said that Jennifer usually wore two gold chain necklaces, one of which was heavier than the other. The lighter one bore the inscription, Best Friend. Cruise scoured the woods of the state park on Thursday night, Friday and Saturday, but reportedly didn't find any clues. And the task

of searching this particular geographic area was not easy by any means. Some of the terrain that police and volunteers were combing was treacherous. For example, on Friday night, August 7th,000, a canine handler from the Kentucky Search Dog Association and his four-legged partner accidentally fell off a 45-foot cliff. The handler actually fractured some bones in his back, but the dog he had with him was uninjured. On Sunday morning, August 19th, three days after Jennifer vanished, police officially disbanded their search for her. In total, eight canines and more than 100 volunteers and members of law enforcement

had dedicated time to the effort, but nothing of value surfaced in all the the time they'd been searching. Jennifer's mom told reporter Eric Gregory that she suspected someone had abducted Jennifer, but a detective for the state police explained that his agency was considering that scenario as well as other possible theories. He told the Lexington Herald leader, quote, She either flew the coop with some guy, or it was just one of those chance things, like some freak driving by, end quote.

In that same breath, though, the detective went on to say that it didn't seem likely someone had stalked or watched Jennifer while she was jogging, because they would have likely been spotted by other people using the trail. But so far, no witnesses had come forward to report that kind of information. Still, investigators asked people to call the Kentucky State Police Post in Harlan if they had any information that could help them figure out where Jennifer was or what had happened to her. Meanwhile, her coworkers at a Walmart store in Barberville, Kentucky,

told the press that Jennifer was always a responsible and reliable person. person. She took care of herself and performed well at her job. Any suggestion that she'd taken off to start a new life or was perhaps struggling with depression did not align with the person they knew Jennifer to be. One co-worker told reporter Eric Gregory, quote, it's caught us all by surprise. She's always in good spirits, never acted depressed or nothing, end quote. Also noteworthy was the fact that Jennifer had failed to pick up a $400 paycheck from her employer before she vanished. So it seemed unlikely that she'd just up and take off if there was money still waiting for her at work. On Monday, August 20th, the sheriff of Bell County, which is where the state park is located,

told the press that there was no plan in place at that point to resume looking for Jennifer. Authorities had received some tips that they were still investigating, but by and large, law enforcement had no substantial leads pointing them in one specific direction or another. However, that was about to change when the biggest clue investigators had been looking for turned up. According to the available news coverage, shortly before 7 p.m. on Sunday, August 26th, almost 10 days after Jennifer was reported missing,

three people who were looking for arrowheads in the state park, stumbled across a mostly nude, decomposing body over an embankment in a remote section of the woods. Additional reporting by Barry Reeves for the Lexington Herald leader explained that Kentucky State police detectives responded to the scene. But I'll be honest, it was hard to tell from the source material when exactly they got to the victim on Sunday night. Because per that associated press article I mentioned a second ago, the body was reportedly found in a mountainous region of the park. So I have to imagine it probably took a little while for authorities to get there considering the challenging nature of the terrain. Once they did get there, though, and assess the

scene, a few detectives then left to travel to Jennifer's parents' home and let them know what was going on. The only detail the state police initially shared with the press was that the death was suspected to be a homicide. But other than that, they were very tight-lived. They refused to reveal where exactly in the park the death investigation scene was located, and whether the victim was male or female. To assist them in making a positive ID, though, the state police requested help from a forensic anthropologist who traveled to the woods to examine the body before transporting it for an autopsy. The day after the victim was found, a man who worked for the state medical examiner's office told the associated press that he strongly suspected the victim was Jennifer

because two gold chain necklaces that matched the description of the jewelry she usually wore were found on the victim's body, and it appeared that the deceased had been in the woods for at least seven to eight days. This official also explained that where the victim had been discovered was about one and a half miles away from the trail Jennifer had last been seen on right before she vanished. It was his opinion that the victim had possibly been killed somewhere else in the park before being dumped in a ravine further into the forest. By the end of the day, day on August 29th, 13 days after Jennifer disappeared, the medical examiner officially ruled that the body from the park was the missing 21-year-old. The forensic anthropologist who'd come in to

help the state police had compared Jennifer's dental records to the corpse and confirmed they were a match. Unfortunately, possibly due to the condition of her body when she was found, it was difficult for officials to determine her cause of death right away. What investigators were fairly confident of, though, was that whoever had done this to Jennifer had gone to some links to conceal her from view. The available source material states that when she was found, it appeared she'd been pushed down the embankment into the wooded ravine and then partially covered in vegetation, which, to me, are two indications that whoever murdered her did not want her to be found. On Saturday, September 1st, Jennifer's loved ones held her funeral in Middlesboro, Kentucky,

and then laid her to rest in Green Hills Memorial Gardens. The ceremony was just one day before what would have been her 22nd birthday. Understandably, the loss of their youngest daughter took a toll on Janice and Albert Bailey. Lots of other people from Bell County were shocked, too, that such a tragic and violent act had been inflicted against a young woman from their community who seemingly had no known enemies. A few days after her funeral, initial news coverage reported that the state medical examiner officially ruled her cause of death as asphyxiation,

and later reporting says she died from strangulation. There was also evidence of sexual assault. It seems that between when her body was found and when her cause of death was officially determined, the state police's investigation had gained some much-needed momentum. Authorities confirmed that they'd interviewed a handful of people in different states that detectives suspected could have been involved in the crime. They also had their handsful processing evidence that was discovered either on or with Jennifer's body in the state. Park. What exactly that evidence was, though, or who any potential persons of interest were,

was not information that was readily released to the public. The Associated Press published that at one point investigators were eyeing a man from Lee County, Virginia, as possibly being involved, and had even gone as far as bringing that guy in for questioning. But his name was not released, and authorities in Virginia clarified that he was not being formally placed under arrest or charged with a crime. Shortly after that, a KSP spokesman told the Lexington Herald Ledger that they were also looking at a man

close to Raleigh, North Carolina, who'd been arrested for a similar type of case, but that avenue of investigation ultimately didn't pan out. Reporting by the source news stated that detectives tried to learn more information about the dark-colored pickup truck and man that witnesses had seen

parked at the trailhead on the day Jennifer went missing. But despite detectives' best efforts to figure out what kind of truck it was or who it belonged to, nothing was ever identified. In late January 1991, almost five months to the day that Jennifer was found, authorities announced that they wanted to speak with three men who they suspected might know something about the crime. William Hayes, who was the acting Commonwealth's attorney for Bell County at that time,

and had taken on an active role in the police investigation, told the Courier Journal that two of the men his office was seeking were living amongst the public. And the third guy was incarcerated at a federal prison for an unrelated crime. According to the coverage, Hayes said that the two free men were from northeast Tennessee, not far from Middlesboro, Kentucky. He also explained that they went by the nicknames Sam and Edward. Sam was described as short and muscular in his early 50s with a flushed complexion, a receding hairline and gray hair on his temples.

He was known to drive a silver car that had rust on the sides, and he spoke with a distinctive southern accent. Edward was reported to be in his early 20s and had curly blonde hair, a thin mustache, blue eyes, and was described as muscular and slim. He was said to be a frequent water skier at Norris Lake and had a tattoo of a cannabis leaf on his left shoulder. Included in the Courier Journal's article about these two men were side-by-side composite sketches, which reportedly favored Edward and Sam's likeness. It was also around the same time that Commonwealth's attorney William Hayes

revealed he wanted to bring in a special detective who would dedicate himself to working Jennifer's case full-time. But another year would pass before Jennifer's name made newspapers again. But not for the reasons you'd think. This time, the articles were about someone else. Turns out, she wasn't the only young woman in Bell County or even in her own extended family who fell victim to a vicious killer in the early 1990s.

According to reporting by the Courier Journal and Lexington Herald Leader, on the evening of January 7, 1992, a 24-year-old woman named Greta Henson was found dead in her Bell County mobile home after, failing to show up at her job in Pineville. Concerned family members had discovered Greta in her living room with her hands bound behind her back with plastic ties. She'd been strangled and shot multiple times execution style in the head and back. Right away, the Kentucky State Police launched an investigation into the homicide,

and some of the same detectives who'd been assigned to Jennifer Bailey's case came on board to look into Greta's. But even after interviewing some 40 to 50 people, Leeds in Greta's case were few and far between. The only strong clue in Greta's case was that her personal 38-caliber firearm was missing from her home, and investigators suspected it very well could have been the murder weapon. A solid witness account authorities had to work with was a description of a pickup truck that had been seen parked in front of Greta's home between 12 and 1 p.m. on January 7th.

That vehicle was described as an off-white or beige early model 1980s pickup, with a white plywood dog box in the back with moon-shaped entrances on the top of it. Unfortunately, though, it doesn't appear that the truck was ever identified or linked to a specific person. By all accounts, Greta was described as a friendly, kind, and trusting young woman with no known enemies. She worked as a receptionist at a local car dealership and enjoyed baking peanut butter fudge in her free time as well as playing guitar. She'd reportedly purchased a new television set prior to her murder and had told one of her co-workers the day before she was killed that she planned to have cable service hooked up to the device so she could use it. She'd even mentioned to this coworker that she might potentially

show up late to work on January 7th because she planned to stop by a service provider's office that morning. But when employees at that business were interviewed by police after the crime, they claimed Greta had never shown up. Aside from the brutality of her murder, what was especially frightening to the public was that her untimely death came nearly 17 months after Jennifer Bailey was killed. Even more bizarre was that, according to reporting in the Clinton County news, the two women were cousins by marriage. They'd also attended Bell County High School at the same time. And I read in some coverage that Greta had a habit of shopping at a Walmart in Middlesbrough, which was a Walmart branch that Jennifer had worked at about a year and a half prior to her murder.

So, naturally, because of these overlaps in the young women's lives, I imagine people wondered if perhaps their killer or killers were one and the same. But the state police were quick to dispel that theory. There were some dissimilarities between the two crimes that one couldn't ignore. For example, Jennifer had been attacked in Pine Mountain State Resort Park while jogging, and Greta had been killed in her own home. Jennifer's crime scene was about 20 minutes north of where Greta lived and in an entirely different environment. Not to mention, Jennifer had been found mostly nude, but Greta had been discovered clothes in a white sweatshirt. Greta's family also said that her mobile home had been broken into two days before she was

killed. At that time, though, she hadn't reported that incident to police. She'd just gotten her dad to come over and fix her door. Before departing, her dad cautioned her to keep a chair pushed against it to prevent an intruder from getting in. However, there were seemingly no incidents like this in Jennifer's life leading up to her murder, which foreshadowed a risk to her safety. Still, the fact that both women had been killed in such violent ways shook up a lot of people in Bell County, particularly women. Pond shops reported increased sales in mace and firearms, and even Albert Bailey, Jennifer's father, told the press he'd purchased a gun after his daughter was killed. Unfortunately, within a year of Greta's murder, her case went cold, just like Jennifer's.

And by December 1993, Commonwealth's attorney William Hayes, who'd tried relentlessly to help the state police bring the investigations to resolution, was set to leave his position. Before he departed, though, he publicly criticized the state police for not investigating several credible leads in the cases, leads that he felt law enforcement should have paid closer attention to. At a news conference on one of his last days in office, Hayes told the press, quote, It is my firm conviction that both these cases could have been solved within a few months of their occurrence if the state police had been willing to commit the human resources to effectively

running the leads down, which they had. We have known for several years what the people involved looked like, but we are still looking at people that do not resemble the eyewitness testimony, end quote. A sergeant with the state police rejected that characterization of his agency's actions, though. He maintained that both women's cases were being regularly and thoroughly investigated in accordance with state police policy. And it seemed that Jennifer Bailey's family agreed with that statement. Janice Bailey told the press, quote, I feel that the detectives are doing the best they can do. I can't say anything against them in no way. I don't know why it came out in this press conference like this, but I am very satisfied with the way they have handled our case, my husband and I both,

end quote. According to the source news, the tension that had developed between William Hayes and members of the state police, particularly with regard to Jennifer's case, stemmed from the fact that Hayes' office and law enforcement had received a tip very early on that indicated one specific man was responsible for the crime. Yet, years had passed and no one had been charged or taken into custody. It was reported that in the fall of 1990, so just a few months after Jennifer was killed, staff from a jail in a nearby county had informed investigators in Bell County that an inmate at their facility claimed to know detailed information about Jennifer's death. This tip resulted in authorities conducting a number of closed-door interviews with several

prisoners between 1991 and 1993, and each of them claimed that a guy they'd been housed with back in the fall of 1990 had confessed to Jennifer's murder and provided specifics about the crime that only the true killer would have known. Who the alleged killer was, though, was never revealed publicly, and it's not in the available source material I could get my hands on. Over the next few years, Jennifer and Greta's cases grew colder and colder, with seemingly no end in sight. A new Commonwealth's attorney who'd taken office assured the press and Jennifer's family that the case was being diligently worked, but no updates were provided. Officials maintained that the case was personal to many of the detectives who'd worked on it,

and solving it would always be a top priority. Around the fifth anniversary of Jennifer's murder, her mother described life without her to Lexington Herald leader reporter Gail Gibson like this, quote, It's been like a living hell, really. It's like you went to bed and had a bad dream, and you think you'll wake up and it'll be over. But then reality comes back, and you wake up, and it's still there. It's awful. It's just really awful, end quote.

Perhaps a small comfort, though, was the fact that a few years after Jennifer was buried, her grave was relocated to a family cemetery plot in the side yard of her parents' home, where they could visit her anytime they wanted. Janice and Albert told reporter Gail Gibson that they wholeheartedly believed whoever had taken Jennifer's life likely knew her or at least recognized

the 1987 Mercury Cougar she was driving on the day she disappeared. At the time, Jennifer wasn't dating anyone and didn't have any exes who gave her problems. So the all-consuming questions everyone wanted answers to were who had murdered her and why. For that same article by Gail Gibson, a KSP detective who'd been assigned to the case since the beginning said that in his opinion, the key to Jennifer's case lay in the identity of the

person near the dark pickup truck who'd been seen talking with, or as it's described in some of the source material, arguing with Jennifer in the trailhead parking lot on the morning she vanished. The detective stated, quote, Whoever killed that little girl is going to be tied to a black truck, one way or the other. They either own it or they borrowed it, or their father owned it, or their cousin. End quote. Periodically, a handful of random tipsters claiming to have potentially valuable information had contacted the state police over the years,

but no one had actually come forward to spill what they knew. Several folks who phoned in had briefly spoken with investigators, but then gotten spooked or didn't want to provide their names and information. In April 1999, during National Crime Victims' Week, Greta Henson's mother, Josephine, attended a victim's remembrance ceremony at the Bell County Circuit Courthouse, and she grieved with other families who'd lost loved ones to violent crime. She told the room, quote, I thank God for having a daughter like her for 24 years, and I would like to see justice for her. I believe even the dead wants justice, end quote. The following year, so 2000, a KSP detective who'd been recently assigned to her case told Daily News reporter Jay Compton that solving Greta's murder was as important as ever.

He pleaded with the public to contact the state police if they knew anything that could help investigators solve the case. Decades passed, though, with no further updates. And despite a glimmer of hope arriving in 2016, thanks to advances in technology, to this day, Greta's case remains unsolved. By 2018, Jennifer's mother had seemingly lost hope that answers in her daughter's case would ever materialize either. Back in 2008, her husband, Albert, had died, and Janice was getting older as well. But as hopeless as things looked, the case took a welcome turn in 2020 when KSP officials made an announcement. According to coverage by WIMT and the source news, authorities released never-before-known information about the items of clothing and personal belongings

that Jennifer had on her when she went jogging. These items were all things that law enforcement believed her killer had stolen from her during the crime. The missing belongings included a Timex watch that's banned was made of brown faux alligator skin, pastel colored jogging shorts, a white tank top, a black and tan Velcro belt, a small black, GE-A-M-F-M portable cassette player, and yellow gold-diamond earrings. Law enforcement's hope was that someone who'd perhaps received one or some of these items after the crime as possibly a present,

or who'd purchased them from a pawn shop, would recognize their description and provide additional information to authorities. A KSP detective in 2020 put it this way, quote, These items are significant to us because somebody in the 90s could have got these as a gift from someone. Somebody could have sold these items. Somebody could have found these items. And remember this. And remember where these items were located, a house the items were in. End quote. But it's unclear if any new leads came from that announcement because Jennifer's case was unsolved and Kentucky State Police couldn't say much about what was happening

behind the scenes. What investigators did reveal, though, was that at least seven or eight different detectives had worked on the case throughout the years. In 2024, Jennifer's mother did another interview with WYMT News in which she shared her ongoing grief over her daughter's unsolved case. She stated, quote, she was my baby girl. She went to work every morning. She'd say, bye mom, I love you, see you at five. End quote. Janice expressed frustration over the fact that Jennifer's killer or killers had never been caught. That same year, so 2024, WRIL reporter Brian O'Brien, wrote an article in which, he claimed he'd received copies of the actual audio cassette recordings that former Commonwealth's

attorney William Hayes and his team had captured with those jail inmates in the early 90s. If you remember, those were guys who claimed they knew who'd committed Jennifer's murder. Hayes, who was still around in 2024, verified the authenticity of the recordings and doubled down on his previous comments that he felt the KSP back in the 90s had not investigated this lead thoroughly enough. But since the case had surpassed 34 years with no progress, Hayes told the Middlesbrough news that he was optimistic new investigators would breathe fresh life into it. He wrote in a statement, in part, quote, I tried repeatedly to get the authorities to prosecute this case. They declined. But that was the old guard. There is a new state police commissioner who,

upon the request of Sheriff Mitchell Williams and myself, reassigned this case some months ago. With thanks to him, we are very hopeful. End quote. Today, Jennifer's case remains unsolved after 35 long and agonizing years for her family. Greta Henson's murder is also unsolved. To date, the cases have never been formally connected by law enforcement, but it's certainly devastating to know that two bright young women were slain in such horrific ways. And their murderers have seemingly gotten away with the crimes.

If you know anything about these cases or have been holding on to information that you finally feel ready to let go of and report to authorities, please contact the Kentucky State Police. You can reach them via email at KY Unsolved at KY.gov. Or by calling the tip line at 1-877-735-2648. If you have specific information about Greta Henson's homicide, call 606.5. Call 606-573-3-3-3-1-1. KSP also has a confidential online tip portal where you can submit information. Links and phone numbers for all of those resources are listed in the show notes and blog post for this episode. Park Predators is an audio-chuck production. You can view a list of all the source material for this episode on our website, parkpredators.com. And you can also follow Park Predators on Instagram, at Park Predators.

I think Chuck would approve.