Jimmy Townsend ////// 838

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Let's talk some true crime.

crime.

There are few things more tragic and senseless than the murder of a child.

When that child also has a child of his own, the tragedy intensifies beyond comprehension.

comprehension.

How could a chance encounter at a local agricultural fair, presumably a very wholesome activity, turn so deadly?

When Jimmy Townsend of West Monroe, Louisiana was attacked and beaten to death, an entire grieving community wanted answers.

Could it have been jealousy of a gifted Golden Boy that prompted the attack?

Were his assailants perhaps envious of the prize he had recently won?

Or was the motive even more sinister?

Regardless, the merciless beating callously administered on that terrible night would forever rob his parents of their only child and deny a daughter the opportunity to ever know her father.

This

is True Crime Garage.

West Monroe in Monroe, Louisiana, sometimes known as the Twin Cities.

These are cities that are both part of the Bible Belt in the United States that are situated about 100 miles east of Shreveport, Louisiana.

This is where this week's true crime story will take place.

Monroe is the ninth largest city in Louisiana.

In the mid-1980s, as with today, Monroe possessed a very diverse population.

Back then, the area boosted a youthful demographic with a significant portion of the population being under the age of 18.

The economy was fueled primarily by manufacturing and retail, and a significant number of educational institutions are located in the area.

In the 1980s, one of the premier events in the region that occurred during this era was the Arkla Miss Fair.

First introduced in 1975, the fair rapidly evolved into the region's annual highlight, becoming an integral part of local culture.

Ultimately, this was an annual fundraising event that everyone looked forward to.

Along with livestock and agricultural displays, the family-friendly event included games, rides, music, food, and craft exhibits.

It was here at this seemingly innocuous event that Jimmy Townsend would become embroiled in an argument that would cost him his life.

We need to go back to December of 1971.

On December 20th, 1971, James Allen Townsend, soon to be known to all as Jimmy, is born to James Allen and Rita Gale Townsend in West Monroe, Louisiana.

He was and will be the only child born to the couple.

Jimmy grows up in West Monroe with a passion for playing sports, and he rapidly gains a reputation as an extremely gifted athlete.

By the time he's a student at Riser Middle School, his physical attributes and superior athletic ability win him praise and accolades in several sports, notably baseball, football, and boxing.

Besides securing a spot on the all-star team, he also excels academically and socially, and he fits in with every team that he joins.

His coaches and trainers have nothing but praise for

the young man, the one that they describe as a sturdy young man with the looks, maturity, and athletic abilities of someone far exceeding his years.

Jimmy's parents are both extremely supportive of their son's endeavors, but his father, his father's working for an oil pipeline, so he is frequently unable to attend Jimmy's sporting events due to this demanding job.

Jimmy's mother, Gail,

more than makes up for his absence by attending virtually all of her son's games and practices.

Now, let's go to 1985.

By this time, James is known to all as Jimmy.

He is 13 years old.

He's an eighth grader, still living in West Monroe, Louisiana.

He's attending Riser Middle School.

He is the pride and joy of his parents.

Although only a junior high school student, Jimmy was already an accomplished athlete who excelled in school team sports.

Given his natural abilities in athletics, it was not surprising that he also enjoyed hobbies like bowling, fishing, and hunting, as well as riding his bike all over West Monroe.

By all reports, the bright and engaging young man was well liked within his school and throughout the community.

His name frequently appeared in hometown newspapers, underscoring his outstanding achievements in local sports.

Jimmy's athletic career was at the center of his mother Gail's universe, and the young athlete had no shortage of male role models and encouraging figures, often finding inspiration in his coaches and athletic instructors.

And the admiration seems to be mutual, as many of these adults in his orbit had nothing but praise for the remarkable young man.

Yeah, whether it's sports or academics or music or whatever it is, when you're roughly this age, it seems like the adults around you, they see the promise and they see that his talents possibly could take him somewhere.

Maybe it takes him to a good university, which then would lead to a good job, to a bright future.

Yeah, and we often see that around this age, 12, 13, 14, is when

kids that are excelling in any of the areas that you just mentioned, they do start to separate themselves from the pack.

And you can start to see who has talent, who has the drive.

And Jimmy's passion was sports of all types.

Now, he's described, and I've seen some pictures of him, he's described as a strapping young man who often towered over his classmates, at times even seemed to be like a man among boys from several perspectives.

Now, he was tall.

He was brawny and powerfully built.

He was a star on the baseball diamond, participating as both a pitcher and a shortstop to the more difficult positions to play.

And in fact, it was practically a foregone conclusion that he would likely go pro,

become a professional baseball player once he graduated high school.

His contributions were so significant that the year before he died, Jimmy was elected to the All-Star team at the age of 12 by a unanimous vote by his coaches.

In small town West Monroe, Jimmy was acknowledged by numerous adults within the school and church leagues and was described as an asset to any team that he joined in any sport.

His coaches and friends characterized him as a regular kid who fit in with everyone.

But he was also a smart and creative thinker.

In early 1985, this is pretty cool, Jimmy won first prize in this promotional contest that was held by the local newspaper.

So they were promoting a boxing event.

This was...

He won first prize for his submission of

an upcoming boxing match.

This was run by a local news outlet, the Monroe News Star, and he took first place in this contest.

The contest was to name, provide a name, a cool, creative name for this upcoming fight.

And so his submission of Rocking Richards Rumble was selected from dozens and dozens of entries as the winner.

The upcoming fight, this was a featherweight match that would take place April 18th, featuring Richard Savage and Gerald Hayes.

In addition

to two tickets for the future fight, Jimmy also receives a prestigious invitation to have lunch with the legendary former heavyweight champion smoking Joe Frazier.

So Joe Frazier would be in town for the event and Jimmy winning this contest gets to meet a former heavyweight champion and have lunch with him.

But his triumphant accomplishments in sports and winning newspaper contests weren't the only things that made Jimmy stand out from his peers.

The good-looking eighth grader was markedly different from his peers in another significant way.

This because at the age, at the young age of 13,

Jimmy Townsend

welcomed a daughter into his life.

And that's right.

That's not an error there.

He was 13 and he was now a father.

The way that I understand this part of the story here, Captain, is that he had a relationship with a 16-year-old girl, and the result of that was a pregnancy that followed by Jimmy becoming a father.

And sadly, he would only be a father for about one month's time.

Because now we need to talk about this Arklamis fair and the evening of Friday, September 27th, 1985.

This fair is a big deal.

It's still, I believe it's still ongoing today, at least it has been in the past couple of years.

And the festivities are well attended by those in the immediate Monroe community.

But the dazzling lights and the flashing rides, concession foods, and livestock exhibits also drew fairgoers from as far away as southern Arkansas.

Now, on this day, the temperature ranging from 58 degrees all the way up to 74 degrees throughout the day.

The temperatures remained in the high 50s that evening, and it was

very high humidity, which would keep the night even feeling warmer.

So it was shaping up to be a beautiful night for this annual event until unspeakable tragedy struck.

Jimmy attends the fair that night.

The Arklamis Fairgrounds was located at Monroe Civic Center.

So along with friends, they're named Shane and Anthony, Jimmy heads off for the annual event, intent upon having a good time with his friends.

The new father no doubt needs a break from the weighty concerns foreign to most 13-year-olds and probably just wants to cut loose and have some fun being a teenager for the evening.

By all accounts, up until the latter part of the night, he seems to be achieving that goal, enjoying the rides and such, indulging in delicious junk food, which is typically my favorite part of any fair, and participating in carnival games.

He's determined to stay for what is called midnight madness,

as the fair remained open past midnight.

So a lot of the teenagers want to hang out there and get permission from mom and dad to stay for the midnight madness portion of the fair.

And Jimmy had done so.

He had made arrangements with his mother to pick him up from the fair at 12.30 a.m.

Now, boys will be boys, as they say, and to squeeze out every drop of fun, Jimmy and his friends decide to sneak off to smoke a joint.

This is at the secluded east end of the fairgrounds.

So this will be tucked away from

the crowds.

So they'll be behind the farmer's market and shielded by darkness over there.

Now, around 11:30 p.m., the three boys, the trio who are minding their own business and keeping a low profile, of course, because of the marijuana, they are approached by a group of older teen boys.

Reportedly, this group of older boys, their ages range from 15 to 19.

And the way that it sounds to me, Captain, we're talking about

five or six older teenage boys.

And as the story goes, these older boys first approach them offering to sell them a dime bag of weed.

Jimmy and friends decline the offer, telling them that they already had enough.

But the older boys persist.

And somehow this conversation then turns into threatening.

The older boys are threatening the younger boys.

It is later suspected that several, if not all of these older boys belong to the disreputable group known as the Berg Jones Lane gang.

So one of these older boys throws a punch at Jimmy after an argument.

Jimmy swiftly retaliates, landing a solid blow upon his opponent.

Now, realizing that they are outnumbered and overmatched, Jimmy's punch gives them the opportunity to run and try to get out of there.

So, Jimmy and his friends, they run off in opposite directions, trying to escape the attackers.

Yeah, and it's not much of a fair fight, six against three.

The gang decides to run after

the boys, but they hone in on Jimmy rather quickly.

So they're chasing him until he gets cornered.

He finds himself in a fenced-in area and he's trapped.

So upon catching up with their target, these boys, they surround him and they launch into a ruthless and cold-blooded attack on 13-year-old Jimmy Townsend.

They begin beating and kicking him mercilessly, pummeling him so severely that his spinal cord eventually becomes dislocated from his neck.

Now, as Jimmy lay there motionless upon the ground,

gravely injured, these older boys, the attackers, of course, they flee the scene, leaving the 13-year-old there helpless and clinging to life.

So, Jimmy, now on the brink of death, is eventually found by his friends who alert police at the fair.

And there's some varying reports here on some of the details.

And I would imagine that a lot of that has to do with

one, just the chaotic nature of the situation, but two, getting varying accounts and some of those accounts coming from teenagers.

But some of the information says that they find Jimmy near the spot where the boys had first separated when they decided to run.

So he may not have made it very far.

Right.

After medical personnel administer CPR, Jimmy is then rushed off to St.

Francis Medical Center, which isn't terribly far away.

This will be a desperate attempt to try to save the young teenager's life.

Although it seems futile, he's placed on a ventilator.

And I don't know if this was an attempt to

perform some kind of surgery or or to take some measures to

perhaps save his life.

I think that it may have been

perhaps an attempt to keep him alive long enough so that his father, who was reportedly often out of town for work,

so maybe that he would be able to say goodbye to his only son.

He'd be able to come back into town and have one last chance.

Now, despite monumental efforts to try to save

the boy, Jimmy's injuries prove to be fatal.

A September 30th, 1985 article in the News Times confirms the youth's time of death as 10.53 p.m.

on Saturday, September 28th.

So they kept him alive for

about one day's time.

And I want to read some portions of this news article that came out, the News Star article that we had just referenced.

And the headline here,

this was on page one of the News Star.

The headline is youth questioned in beating death, no arrests made.

And it reads, A 17-year-old charged in a Saturday morning fight at the Arklamis Fair was one of several persons questioned in the weekend beating death of a West Monroe youth.

No arrests have been made in the death of Jimmy Townsend, who was involved in a fight.

Police chief Willie Buffington refused to say how many suspects were questioned, but said some are young adults, 17 or 18 years old.

He says, quote, at this particular point, we are talking to several witnesses and several people who were involved in the fight and who are, in fact, suspects.

It was a fight, he says.

He goes on to say that blacks and whites were fighting.

We don't know who all was involved with the fight.

We don't know what the fight was about.

He added, I think the detectives may have an idea, but he's not going to elaborate in this article.

The 17-year-old was booked, the person that was questioned, was booked in connection with another weekend beating on the fairgrounds.

And that arrest stemmed from a complaint by a 19-year-old who identified the 17-year-old as the person who had attacked him.

The 17-year-old was charged with drunk and disorderly conduct, simple battery, interfering with police officer, and resisting arrest by flight.

He was released on bond.

The chief goes on to say: we are not at a point in time where we can go before a judge and get a warrant for an arrest.

He also says that no weapons were found at the scene of the fight that resulted in the death of Jimmy Townsend.

He also added that we don't have any evidence that it was a gang, but we will know and learn shortly that that is one of the

possibilities.

Yeah, and it seems to be the ongoing theory, the theory that has lasted over the decades.

The chief goes on to say, quote, this thing is like a gigantic puzzle and we are trying to put it together.

One of the big things we are waiting on is the autopsy report.

So

this article does extend to the second page of the newspaper as well.

And what they are talking about without naming any names is it doesn't seem like this fight and the assault on the other, on that 19-year-old.

Right.

It doesn't seem like that was the only fights or assaults that were going on at the fair over the course of the fair itself.

It really sounds to me like either there's a bunch of kids that are just not getting along and they are fighting,

or what I'm more suspicious of and tend to lean is that it sounds like a group of kids were going around and bullying other kids.

I mean, think about the scenario.

If you wanted to shake down,

essentially rob some other kids of their money, this would be an ideal scenario and location for that.

You get a bunch of your buddies together, muscle, if you will.

You see a kid or two by themselves.

Oftentimes, at these fairs, especially back in 1985, we know a Jimmy's situation this to be true.

And according to the news articles that I read, it had to be true for so many other kids.

This is parents dropping their children off.

to attend the fair with their friends and hang out with their friends and meeting at a designated designated location afterwards to pick them up and return them home afterwards so you're

they're unsupervised kids who are vulnerable to these bullies and to this gang if you will yeah and probably given money by their parents hey i'll give you some money so you can get something to drink something to eat and some money to play some games Yeah, you don't want to attempt to rob a bunch of kids that don't have any money.

It's likely that the kids here are going to have money because of the games, because of the food, and the rides, and whatnot.

And some of these stories, some of these reports that are coming out of the fair are very similar to the situation with Jimmy, but thankfully, don't have the same result.

But it ends up with kids getting beat up, getting surrounded, getting picked on, and in more than one

situation, ends up with several kids in the hospital due to their injuries.

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All right, we are back.

Cheers, mates.

Talk hands in the air.

Cheers to you, Colonel.

Raise them high.

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This

story is not bizarre, but unique for several different reasons.

One, we have the

the scenario of this youngster being a father at the age of 13.

And like I said, I believe his daughter was just a month or so old at the time that Jimmy was attacked.

The other thing that I want to remind people about, too, is, yes, this case feels like a very old case, right?

1985.

We're coming up on 40 years old on this case.

However, keep in mind, one thing that is unique about this is that the attackers are all believed to have been teenagers themselves or right around that age.

Correct.

So we very likely have the weird scenario where we have an old case, a 40-year-old case, but I would suspect that most of these suspects are probably still alive.

I would guess that

probably one or more moved out of the area when they became of age,

conveniently moved out of the area.

But these are very likely people that are that are still alive to this day.

So it makes this case feel not so far in the rear view.

Yeah.

And simply we have this event that a lot of people are going to attend.

People are going to come from all different areas.

So that makes it a little more complicated for police.

Are these individuals that are attacking people or bullying people?

One, are they the same group of people?

Are they local?

Are they part of this local gang,

quote-unquote gang?

Because I think this is a gang that's made up of younger kids or young adults.

You have a group of friends like Jimmy.

They're just going to this fair to have a good time and maybe get into a little bit of trouble, but nothing violent.

And then we have this other subsection of kids that are going to bully to possibly steal other kids' money.

And I think this is a situation that obviously just got out of hand.

And anytime that you have, you know, six kids trying to fight three, you kind of get this mob mentality where they might have

took the violence a little bit further because of a mob mentality.

But out of that,

if there's six, and we should know this because we have Jimmy's two friends, those would be pretty solid eyewitnesses.

But out of those six individuals that attacked Jimmy, you'd think there would be one of them that would go, I can't live with what I did.

And oh, yeah.

I guarantee you, whether it be a drunken confession

at a late night,

that

one or more of these guys have spoken up.

They've just not told

the right person.

They've just not told somebody that is an authority in the situation.

And

with Jimmy's case, I should be clear here.

So some reports say that it was five guys.

Some reports say that it was six.

Regardless of the

boys that approached them, we do have a good idea, like you said, because of his two friends being there with him that night and being threatened as well,

who were forced to run off.

The actual attack itself wasn't witnessed by

the two friends, but it sounds like it was witnessed by, potentially witnessed by other people.

And that makes this situation even that more difficult that we don't have any arrests that were made immediately after this.

Now, we do have arrests that were made, but those were involving other situations.

How many of those other

fights, those other assaults and attacks were committed by the people that are responsible for the death of Jimmy Townsend is a big question mark.

Again, because it's a big, large event, people come in from all areas.

There's a good chance that the eyewitnesses that saw anything weren't local.

So they don't know any of these kids.

So all they could tell law enforcement is, yes, I saw these kids fighting.

Well, who were they?

I don't know.

We're not even from the area.

So

I don't think there's, and there's a good possibility that Jimmy's friends didn't know these kids that were attacking them directly.

So they can't name names.

So that becomes difficult.

But also when you're 13,

right, to uh let's say 19 years old if you're in some kind of uh

scuttle or whatever you you you're in a little um fight and this is a quote-unquote gang there's a possibility that you're just not mature enough to understand

i need to get this information to law enforcement because by doing so law enforcement can do their jobs arrest these individuals which then will protect you i i can't tell you the amount of times that I was a kid and somebody was being bullied or something was happening.

And you're like, why aren't you just telling the teacher?

Because they were so afraid of, well,

once I tell the teacher, the kid gets in trouble, but that doesn't protect me.

This kid then can come back after me.

Let's get into

somewhat what was happening with Jimmy's friends.

Let's get into what we do know and what was known to the persons and not known to the persons that were close to the case and even some that were in attendance at the fair on this evening.

So in the aftermath of Jimmy's tragic death, an investigation is launched, obviously.

Now, it would be September 29th, so one day after his passing, that Jimmy's autopsy was conducted.

The examination and report revealed that he died from shock due to multiple brain injuries.

The coroner, of course, rules it a homicide, noting, quote, severe cerebral injuries without skull fractures, akin to shaken child syndrome.

Now, the report itself was not released publicly or not spoken of publicly until a month later on October 29th.

But that news report suggests his injuries could have been caused by blows or being jerked around.

Jimmy also had facial and neck wounds, including scrapes and bruised cheek and neck hemorrhaging.

The official cause of death is listed as multiple intracranial injuries.

So here is the

newspaper release of

that autopsy or them talking about the autopsy.

It says an autopsy report filed in the parish clerk of court's office shows that 13-year-old Jimmy Townsend died of shock that resulted from multiple brain injuries.

The West Monroe youth died September 28th at St.

Francis Medical Center after he was severely beaten the previous evening, the previous night at the fair.

He had severe cerebral injuries without skull fractures.

What they go on to say here in this article is they're not certain if a weapon was used, but a weapon could have been used

in this attack, but it would have to be a type of weapon that could cause these severe injuries without causing fractures to the skull.

It goes on to say that the youth's spinal cord was dislocated from the base of his brain.

The autopsy report says

the dislocation is quite similar to the findings of the shaken child syndrome normally seen in infants and toddlers.

The investigator said the syndrome is found when the spinal cord dislocates from the brain of young children who are violently shaken.

You have to wonder too, we know that the attack occurred when he became trapped, right?

He's basically fenced in and then surrounded by these boys, five or six of them.

Could he have gotten pinned up against that fence in a way that, when they're, I mean, there's no nice way of saying this, but the way it plays out in my head, they're stomping him, right?

They're probably, once they get him to the ground,

they're probably kicking him and stomping him.

And

the soles of a shoe would very likely

help to cause these severe injuries without fracturing the skull.

And I just wonder

if he was pinned up against the fence in some kind of manner that may have

caused this dislocation.

Yeah, I agree with you, right?

When you hear maybe there was some kind of weapon used, you go, well, six kids around you kicking you

would cause a lot of damage.

And then obviously, like you said, it...

probably wouldn't be enough to fracture the skull.

It goes on to say

that Jimmy's injuries may have been caused by blows with an object that could cause minor trauma without skull fractures

or by being jerked around by a group of people.

Jimmy Townsend also suffered hemorrhaging, quote, all, sorry, quote, over all surfaces of the brain, end quote.

Injuries to the face and neck included scrapes near his right eye, bruises on his right cheek, scrapes on his chin, and hemorrhages with his neck.

Well, and I think another thing in play here is if Jimmy was knocked out, his neck muscles wouldn't be stabilizing his head.

And I think that's what happened was he was knocked out.

And these guys,

again,

because of a mob mentality, they just didn't stop.

And if he's being jerked around by all directions, there would be no protection.

to his head, neck, or spine.

Well, and in all these other

attacks or shakedowns, whatever you want to call them, where we

have victims, people who were victimized or robbed, and

they're still, thankfully, alive and able to provide witness statements to police.

So you have to wonder, and you know that it's happening.

And every time that they have someone that they're questioning, whether it be a witness, a victim, or potential suspect in any of these crimes, it's going to include questions about Jimmy Townsend's death and the attack on Jimmy Townsend.

At some point, don't we have an individual that confesses?

Yeah, so this is where

it gets real shaky, this investigation, very quickly.

So they launched this investigation, and as said, there's no immediate arrests that were made.

But there are statements that say at least three presumed witnesses existed.

So potentially three witnesses.

However, we do have statements from police saying that no one has come forward.

No one has called Crime Stoppers.

There was a homeless man who attempted to provide a statement to police.

I'm guessing he was more of a witness rather than a suspect, but his statement,

I've never seen it made public.

And from my understanding, it was rejected by police due to him being extremely intoxicated.

Right.

These witnesses to the crime developed what at least one report says is a convenient case of selective amnesia about the incident when questioned by police.

So,

some witness statements, potentially

even other victim statements, seem to have provided names to police.

And when they go to talk to these people,

it's a convenient case of selective amnesia.

I don't, I don't know what you're talking about.

Yeah, I was at the fair.

I didn't attack anybody.

I don't know those other people.

I never saw that person before in my life.

What did you do at the fair?

I did this, and then I left at 12 o'clock,

one in the morning.

Yeah, or lied completely and said they were never at the fair.

And now you have to prove that they were.

I mean,

one of the local rumors is that this gang,

law enforcement was afraid of, or eyewitnesses were afraid of, and maybe that's a possibility.

But everything I've seen by looking into this case, to me, it doesn't seem like this well-organized gang.

It seems like more of a group of kids.

And so, to think that law enforcement is going to be to be afraid of them, I'd actually go with another local rumor is that maybe some of these individuals that were involved in this bullying and possibly the attack on Jimmy are somehow connected to law enforcement through family.

And so that would make more sense in the sense of maybe law enforcement is trying to protect them because, you know, if your 15-year-old nephew was

in this attack and maybe didn't have much to do with that at all,

you're trying to protect him because he's obviously still a kid.

Yeah, it's difficult to say.

I think that probably at play here, we have a few different things.

There were some people that didn't feel comfortable providing information to police.

Right.

And then when police were

talking to the right individuals, they're probably getting stories that are all over the place because they're coming from different people who are very likely lying about their involvement or lack thereof in the situation.

Yeah, and I think it's easy

for family members and friends of the victim to

think

because a case has not been solved, maybe there's some kind of conspiracy thing going on.

But one of the other local rumors that I've heard was that

cops, that law enforcement had a pretty good idea of who did it, but that doesn't mean you can prove that in a court of law.

And it's also going to be harder to prove and

harder to get justice on your side when the attackers are

still minors.

You know what I mean?

I just think it makes it a little more difficult.

Oh, absolutely.

And exactly.

I think that you're probably pretty spot on here with the thought that they have a good idea of who did this or at least who was involved in the attack.

Maybe not all five or six of them, but probably two or three, or if not more.

So, this is, let's go back to the time period here.

This is from a statement from a detective Zambie.

It does provide a little more information about what was going on at the fair.

It says, Detective Zambie declined to comment on whether police have any suspects at this time, saying, If anybody saw anything, they haven't reported it to Crime Stoppers.

The

general manager of the fair,

his name is Greg Gregory.

That's

not very creative with

the naming of your kid.

But anyway, Greg Gregory, the general manager of the fair, said the beating occurred in a field behind the Northeast Louisiana farmers market.

No details about the circumstances surrounding the beating have been confirmed by police or fair officials.

Another West Monroe youth, age 14, his name Jim Murphy, was admitted to

Glenwood Regional Medical Center at 2:30 a.m.

Saturday after he suffered blows to the face at the fair.

He was reported in very stable condition Sunday, but he has facial injuries and is wearing an eye patch, a nursing supervisor told the newspaper.

So that

names

another victim there.

And if you read some of these articles,

there were

other victims that were referenced, but

not named.

It's again,

it's,

I have to, I, I,

I refuse to jump over the hurdle that these, these guys didn't attack somebody else, that they didn't shake down somebody else.

And so, if, in fact, police know a couple of the names or have good suspects in this case, they very likely

found those good suspects because of them committing committing other crimes, less severe crimes at the fair that very night.

Now, it's widely believed even to this day that members of the notorious Berg Jones Lane gang are responsible for Jimmy Townsend's death.

And what do we know about this gang here?

They were operating from the Berg Jones Lane neighborhood, which is located in Monroe.

This gang was linked to drug trafficking and violent crimes, instilling fear in the local community.

Consequently, information about the deadly incident at the fair has remained scarce even to this day, with many

residents suspecting that,

like the captain said, that the Monroe police are already aware of the culprits, but lack sufficient evidence to proceed further with justice for Jimmy because

you could have the right guy.

You could have the right guys.

You can put them in handcuffs.

You can take them into court.

You can only try them once if you get this thing horribly wrong.

Yeah.

It just seems like there is

not a lot of evidence.

And

frankly, unfortunately,

it doesn't sound like we really have much in the way of physical evidence to help further the investigation either.

Now, in 1986,

without Jimmy to help raise the infant daughter, the teenage mother makes a

very difficult decision to seek a loving and stable home for her daughter.

So the baby is placed with an older couple.

She's just 11 months old at the time.

Right.

Does become a part of an adoring, wonderful new family.

She grows up not really knowing the truth about her father or her parents for many years.

And at some point, she does learn what happened to her father.

This will lead her to.

So it's not until she grows into adulthood that the truth about the tragic death of Jimmy Townsend, her father,

emerges.

And she

takes up the fight for the father, her father, for her father that she never knew.

This is from an online source called Back Road Mysteries.

It says, quote, things were a lot different back then.

The daughter's name is Christy Joyner.

That's a quote from her.

She goes on to say, there were named suspects, but I think eyewitnesses were scared to come forward.

Now, as we know, Christy Joyner was put up for adoption.

She didn't know about a real father until she was older, until she was an adult, according to this report.

She does say that every time police in and around Monroe saw the homicide, she is left wondering why her dad's death was a, basically, became one of the coldest cases in the state.

Well, and some of these gang members, they think, you know, obviously

either died from drugs or they're in prison or they moved away.

But some of these individuals, maybe they're not in a gang anymore, but they're still in that area.

And so when you have these local rumors of who possibly could have been involved, or just, hey, we think this gang was involved.

But then you start hearing rumors of, well, this guy was in that gang.

So the fact that she is still in this community and sees these individuals walking free

has to be very, one, concerning.

You know, are they going to do something to me because I'm pushing to get justice for my father that I never got to know because of these violent acts.

But also, I think it would be

as much as it would be maybe concerning, it'd also just be frustrating to see these people out living a life that

her father never got to live.

Well, and she very likely has sadly seen that.

So about 10 years ago, she began reaching out to authorities in hopes of getting Jimmy's murder investigation, let's say reopened.

You know, they never really close these things, but they're oftentimes not actively being worked.

So getting it reopened, examined with fresh eyes.

Because of that, she learns a lot of the details that have not been made public

about what occurred at the Arklamis fair that night and even a list of suspects.

that detectives have developed.

And at least one source here, Captain, says many of whom are still living and operating in the very same hometown in which

she resides.

Now, there was an original, the original reward for information leading to an arrest and conviction was $5,000.

This was initially offered by a Monroe-based civic organization, but has since expired.

Christy is personally

offering a $1,000 reward.

She has created a private Facebook group, Justice for Jimmy Townsend, and a change.org petition to raise awareness of her father's unsolved murder.

And she continues to collaborate with

authorities until those responsible for her father's death are finally held accountable and brought to justice.

Well, and also, I think one of the issues with this crime, one,

being at such a public event, but also it was 85, correct?

So some of the technologies that we use now, DNA testing, just wouldn't have been as popular or as known.

So it makes you wonder, is there anything that they have left?

Because they also had to take Jimmy to the hospital.

What happened to his clothes?

How many people touched those?

clothes.

Is it even something that you could test?

So then if you have a list of of two or three that you definitely think were involved, that you could test some evidence against them to

give you more evidence to bring them to trial.

Sadly, Jimmy's parents, James Allen and Rita Gail Townsend, passed away in 2008 and 2012, respectively, leaving Christie to keep looking for answers.

Quote, they never got the answers they were looking for.

It was particularly hard on his mother.

She never really got past it, says Christie.

We have the names of a number of suspects, and we are pretty sure we know the individuals responsible for his death, said Christie.

We just hope and pray that someone will eventually speak up and we can finally get some closure.

Jimmy lies for eternity in the Twin City Memorial Gardens, about 10 miles from where he died.

If you have any information about this crime, please call Monroe Police Department at 318-329-2600.

I want to thank everybody for joining us here in the garage.

If you need more True Crime Garage for your earballs, make sure you check out Off the Record on Apple Podcasts and Patreon.

Last week, we talked about the Richard Allen confessions.

This week, we're talking about the paroling of cop killers in New York City.

So, tons of interesting content and cases over on Off the Record.

And until next week.

Be good, be kind, and don't litter.

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