Ozark reserve officer claims fellow officer killed victims in 1999 cold case
OZARK ALABAMA — A reserve / auxiliary Ozark police officer named Rena Crumb is alleged by victim JB Beasley’s sister notified one of the victim’s family members, J.B. Beasley’s half sister Jacqui Burgoon, and a law enforcement officer in Houston county, Donovan Arias (helping the sister look into the case on his own time) with information claiming “they could no longer have on their conscious.” She has additionally given the same statement to the Ozark police department and the Alabama Bureau of Investigations.
“I cannot watch what they are saying when I know we know who killed the girls”. — Rena Crumb
According to Burgoon, the reserve officer alleged another police officer killed the two high school seniors in 1999 and “it was an accident”. The officer is no longer a member of the Ozark Police Department but a senior member of law enforcement in neighboring Henry county and is alleged to have confessed involvement when drunk at a party. Ms Burgoon requested an interview and has been active on social media trying to get information on who murdered her half sister J.B. Beasley. That interview is linked above where she describes what she and Deputy Arias were told by Rena Crumb. The deputy confirmed Burgoon’s account stating he carried the reserve officer to Ozark police Chief Marlos Walker where she gave the same statement to him and he recorded it.
Chief Walker would not discuss the matter when I contacted him as “its a ongoing investigation”. I met with the accused officer and spoke with him about the case and he claimed he “had an alibi that night and was DNA tested”. His DNA did not match the semen recovered from one of the victims.
Lanier Beasley, victim JB Beasley‘s father however stated that in the months preceding JB Beasley’s death his daughter admitted to him and a family member that she was having a relationship with an Ozark officer and several weeks prior to her murder she “ended the relationship because he was to controlling”.
Jacqui Burgoon (victim’s half sister) alleges upon receiving information beginning with a message on a social media page seeking leads, she contacted Houston County Sheriff’s Department Deputy Donovan Arias. Rena Crumb was then interviewed by Ozark police chief Marlos Walker in the D.A. Smith Middle school parking lot as opposed to the police station.
I met with Attorney General’s Cold Case Unit, Agent Shawn Smith and he corroborated the story.
A question I asked Agent Smith was whether Walker acted inappropriately and why he did not call the FBI or State Bureau of Investigations when an allegation by one officer about one of the department’s former officer. This added to the suspicion already present as the department had refused to initially turn over files to the Attorney General’s cold case unit, according to Smith.
On this topic Chief Marlos Walker refused to return my calls when seeking additional comment.
Below is a transcript of Ozark police investigator Michael Bryan’s bodycam video when he interviewed Rena Crumb. Of note, Bryan is the son in law of the officer Crumb alleged made a confession.
The night the girls were murdered they had left the Hawlett home in Dothan headed to a field party near Haleburg Alabama. Somewhere between the Hawlett home and that party two men driving a truck forced them off the road and tried to stop them. The girls managed to get away and went to a convenience store in Headland. While using a payphone they told several high school friends what had happened and then left in the direction of Ozark which is a 45 minute drive west.
However documents shared with me by a former Ozark police officer indicate this is not true. He believes the girls did not attempt to go to the party but went instead to a party in Headland Alabama where investogators interviewed a witness who claimed they were with her and left to go see a man in Ozark.
According to what the victim’s half-sister Jacqui Burgoon says and a recoring I was given access to, Rena Crumb stated the former officer made a traffic stop, drugs were involved (Beasley and Hawlett were known to not use drugs) and in the ensuing interaction, a physical approach was made to Beasley and she resisted (see video interview).
At one point both girls ran and tried to escape, a struggle with Beasley ensued in which the officer making the advance gave chase, reportedly grabbing her with his pistol in hand and it accidentally fired striking the young girl in the face killing her. The decision allegedly was then made to kill the Hawlett girl because of what she witnessed. The crime scene was purposely manipulated and the car left near a location where someone she had a previous relationship with lived, rumoured to be a black man, to misdirect the investigation. This is according to the reserve officer Rena Crumb.
Officials have released Beasley and Hawlett were last seen at the former Hobo Pantry convenience store by Marilynn Merritt, her daughter and a third individual, see below at approximately 11:40 -11:50 pm.
A Ozark officer however stated, on strict condition of anonymity, this is not certain and he knew they were possibly seen as late as 1:30 am and provided an internal department document noting the two girls last seen by a hospital employee ( the hospital is on the adjacent street from where the bodies were found) at a baseball field with two unidentified caucasian males approximately 100 yards from where their bodies were found by officer Bobby Blankenship at the intersection of James street and Ozark avenue. Reportedly physical evidence was obtained that is consistant with the sighting of a blond haired caucasian male at the ball field. Two additional witnesses, one a delivering the local newspaper that saw it twice, observed a police officer’s car where it was found on Herring street at approximately 2 am.
“ none of the evidence we have — except for a unusual letter by a former Sheriff to the FBI, indicate the accused officer had anything to do with the murders and the DNA recovered is from a black male that is not in the FBI’s CODIS database, which means the donor is deceased or has never been arrested or in prison.”
A dispatcher acknowledged that night two girls matching this description were pulled over by an officer and the assistant manager of the Big Little store in a formal interview with investigators claimed she saw a Ozark Police officer enter the parking lot about the time the store closed. Reportedly the log books which would have noted this has been “lost”.
The time of death has been estimated by the autopsies between 12:30 and 2 am according to an officer familiar with the case. I have not seen this in writing at this point. Blakenship’s report reads he first noticed the car at 9:02 am.
Multiple witnesses report hearing gunshots and one of a woman screaming for her life in the vicinity of Herring street at approximately 2 am. This individual, Tommy Davenport who lived on Byrd street, alleges he repeatedly tried to contact police but no report was taken and he also claims to have contacted the local newspaper the Sun Star.
The crime scene unfortunately was trampled and contaminated by nearly a dozen people according to witnesses. The city judge at the time, now in private practice, Will Matthews told me “for some reason we had to wait for hours for people to show up.” Then Houston County Coronor Rickey Stokes said “they (Ozark Police) contaminated the crime scene”.
Another potential evidentiary issue is it appears a bullet went missing from the crime scene that was left on one of the victim’s thigh. A photograph of the bullet before it went missing is in the police department’s files that was not turned over to the Attorney General’s cold case unit. I met with current Dale county Sheriff Wally Olson and he reviewed the photographs and agreed it looks like a bullet was replaced with a shell casing but described his department had not been involved with the investigation since he had been in office.
Investigator’s notes from the Ozark police department show a rough timeline developing of where the girls were that evening. An interesting sentence in the officer’s notes states “does’nt know anyone in Ozark”, however this contradicts what multiple witnesses to the girls attending parties that summer have stated and J.B. Beasley’s father. This was further corroborated by former Ozark resident Neal Werner who claimed he met and attended parties with them that summer.
Beasley additionally was a possible witness that may have been called to testify in a upcoming case the following week concerning custody and had previously written a letter to family members in Luverne Alabama that she had been “inappropriately touched by an older male”and “was very scared of him” but did not name the individual. Beasley’s father Hilton “Lanier” Beasley stated that his daughter shared with him she “was in a relationship with an Ozark Police officer” early that summer. He warned her to be very careful. Beasley and Halett were seen the night of their murders with a unidentified white male at the scene of their murder at approximately 12:15 AM in a sworn statement given to the Alabama Bureau of Investigations. This man was never identified. Shortly after this witness observed the man another witness heard screaming and multiple gunshots. A witness gave a sworn statement to investigators noting the make and model of a white Ford truck and partial plate number on Herrign where the girls were found but this information has been reportedly lost by the department and is missing from the case files with the Alabama Bureau of Investigation and the District Attorney’s office. Alabama Attorney General’s cold case investigator Shawn Smith however has received a copy of the statement by a concerned law enforcement officer that believes the truck and partial plate which is a Houston county tag is one of the most important leads of the case.
Beasley reportedly made a phone call to close high school friend Jana Hare earlier that day stating she “was seeing someone she probably shouldn’t be but I’m just having fun, but I want to talk to you about it.” She never arrived at the party that night near Haleburg having two individuals attempted stop them and subsequently followed by the black truck. That same type of vehicle, a large black truck would be witnessed by a couple that heard gunshots and screaming from Herring street later that night. A sworn statement from another witness was shown to me by an Ozark police officer that revealed additionaly a third witness heard gunshots and screaming on Herring street at approximately the dsame time that Davenport reported it.
Family members and friends believe the man she mentioned she was seeing could have been a police officer or possibly a black man she was observed leaving a party for a short time with previously.
In the week following the murders an officer at the Ozark Police department’s pistol mysteriously went missing that was the same caliber used in the murders before it could be tested. This is coupled with the letter sent by a concerned sheriff to the FBI about suspicious activites of the officer at the crime scene alleged to have been involved.
Below is the Alabama Bureau of Investigation’s inventory of Beasley’s car.
Of note I had a personal discussion with the officer that Crumb and Burgoon are discussing. He denied having any involvement in the murders nor any kind of sexual relationship with Beasley. I have chosen for privacy reasons not to use his name.
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Originally published on November 5, 2015 on Medium and Nov 8, 2015 in the former Henry Report.
Update: In 2022 documents filed relating to the case against Coley McCraney and a bodycam video of an interview by the officer’s son in law Michael Bryan (an Ozark Police officer) revealed the reserve officer did in fact make these statements and confirmed statements attorney Tom Brantley who represented the former officers made to the court in their lawsuit were false. Brantley had previously admitted this and apologized to me. My response was we all have to live in this small community and what we can agree on is we want the case solved and whoever murdered these girls held accountable. We both shook hands and agreed to no ill will.
Notes: This article was the subject of a lawsuit filed agaisnt Ozark officers Rex Tipton , Keith Cauthen Eddy Henderson and Toney Spivey by former members of the Ozark Police Department on Jan 12, 2016 after they attempted to block publication denying the officer came forward. They filed a lawsuit after that suit attempting to block publication and denying Crumb made the allegations I aggressively defended the suit and denied allegations of defamation by the former officers believing they attempted to suppress information of reserve officer Rena Crumb coming forward violating my First Amendment rights. The case was dismisssed in 2018.
In the interest of privacy to those mentioned in law enforcement documents I’ve have chosen to redact names.
