Transcript of Am I Next? (Rebroadcast)

I want to hire a private investigator.

Some folks say I'm the best. ABC Tuesday, TV's hottest PI is back. You sure you're ready to take on a serial killer? There's like a dozen more likely explanations other than serial killer. All right, maybe not a dozen. In Florida, crime has no offseason.

I just heard you were shot at today.

With a rocket launcher.

Well, it missed.

R.J. Decker premieres Tuesday, 10/9c on ABC, next day on Hulu. If someone had let you see everything that had gone on on Facebook and they're talking and saying nasty things about each other, would you ever have imagined that it would have wound up with 2 people dead in this house?

No, never would have.

I got a phone call telling me that she was gone. In my head, I just can't believe it. I was shocked.

This is the bedroom where Billy Clay was found.

Single shot?

Single shot in the face.

Through the back of the house?

Right.

And did they catch Billie Jean as well, totally asleep?

My impression was it looked like a hit.

Like a contract hit?

Right.

People thought there was a killer on the loose.

I'm sorry it happened.

I mean, that's all I could tell you is they, they had been harassing the living crap out of me.

What kinds of things were people saying about you?

Just that I was a bad person. I was horrible. Threatening to get hurt.

What started all this hatred?

I've had my life threatened. My wife has been threatened. They've threatened to take Chanel, cut her head off.

All part of what prosecutors call the craziest, stupidest, deadliest catfishing scheme you have ever seen.

We're done.

This is Mountain City, a postage stamp hamlet nestled in the mountains in East Tennessee.

Mountain City is a 2-by-4 town. You know, it's 2 miles wide and, and 4 miles long.

A sign greeting visitors calls Mountain City a friendly hometown.

Johnson County is considered a very safe place. I was the assistant district attorney there for over 6 years, and there was only a handful of homicides, maybe one a year if that.

You grew up with people and you're going to see them at the grocery store. You go to the gas station and you run into somebody you know. Everybody goes to the same church. It's the quintessential small-town America.

Definitely a place where everybody knows everybody. Everybody's in everybody else's business.

Johnson County 911. Honey, I need a neighbor.

It's bad.

Can't you say the flying police?

That call is coming from this house. Where Billy Payne lives with his fiancée, Billie Jean Hayworth. When 2 neighbors stop by, they discover unspeakable horror.

The back door's always unlocked, so he goes in, hollers, nobody answers. He thought, well, it's strange that Billie Jean's car's here, Billy's truck is here, and nobody's answering. So he goes down the hallway and finds Bill on the bed.

Billy Payne is not moving. His face is bloodied.

I can't find a pulse. All I can see is blood on his neck. Oh my God. Blood on his neck.

Oh my God.

It's OK. He's trying to get calm.

They heard a noise in the second bedroom, which is farther down the hall from the first. They went back and they found the 7-month-old baby.

There's blood on the baby. There's blood on the baby.

We found Billie Jean laying on the floor, and the baby was there with her. She had her arms wrapped around him. He was laying there on the floor with her. The child was covered in blood. Can he breathe at all?

I'll be honest with you. I'll be honest with you. I don't know how long they've been laying here like this. The baby kind of, to me as a parent, looks like maybe it's been upset, crying for a while, and probably cried till we can't cry no more.

Miraculously, the baby, Tyler, seen here in photos released by the Johnson County Sheriff's Office, has no physical injuries and appears to be unharmed. Sadly, the same can't be said for the 7-month-old's parents.

No, there's no pulse. I know there's no pulse on him. Okay. Do you want to do CPR or anything? There's no pulse. There's no pulse on either one of them. They're white. They're dead.

This was around 10:40 AM in the morning. That's whenever the first call had came in. Here I am, I'm driving down through here, and I'm thinking, it is hard to believe that there is actually 2 people that's been murdered down here. Because you would just— it's just something that's very uncommon here.

If one thing happens there, the whole community knows about it. This situation of 2 people being murdered in their own home, murdered in their pajamas in the early morning hours was a great shock, and nobody really knew what had happened.

This is where Billy Payne and Billie Jean were murdered, in this house.

Law enforcement officers took me to the crime scene back in 2015. And you were one of the first on the scene because you live pretty close to here, right?

I live approximately a mile and a half down the road, right below here.

Reese says they found no sign of break-in. That's because anyone could have walked right into the small house, just like the police did.

So they go to the back door, they just open it up, it's unlocked.

It's a sliding glass door and they just slide it up and walk in.

This is the kind of place where people don't really lock their doors.

I guess.

They walked right in. Was there any sign of a scuffle, a fight, anything?

No.

No sign of anything of that nature, no. Looked like Billy had just gotten out of bed. That's where we found his body.

From what we understand—

Special Agent Scott Lott with the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation takes me into the home where the young couple was killed.

This is the bedroom where Billy Clay was found.

Single shot?

Single shot in the face.

Bill, he also had slice marks across his neck in the front. It was like he was going from the left side over towards the right side was how the slashes were. And it wasn't one, it was like multiple slashes. I left from there and went down to the next room, which was the baby's room, and I saw Billie Jean Hayworth lying on the floor, and I could tell that she had an injury above her, uh, right ear.

Like Billy, Billie Jean is shot once in the head. Police theorize Billy is killed first.

The bedroom should be right inside this—

inside this window right here.

First window.

Billy's bedroom was here, and, uh, and the child's room was the next.

So they walked through the back of the house, right? And did they catch Billie Jean as well, totally asleep, or was she—

No, Billie Jean wasn't asleep from what we gathered.

She was holding the baby.

Once the intruder came in, she jumped up and ran out with the baby, right, to try to—

try to get away.

Police think Billie Jean ran into the baby's nursery and tried to shield him from the attack.

So it didn't take much time to get from that room to this room to shoot?

No.

And then this is 5 feet?

Right.

It takes a cold-blooded person to shoot somebody holding a baby.

Was that the most shocking thing about this murder?

You know, when that information got out, people were disturbed about that. Small community like this.

You've been involved in police work, law enforcement, for what, 30 years?

Almost 30 years.

You ever seen anything like this?

Never seen nothing like this.

Who could kill people in this way? It's a question that will ultimately uncover ugly family feuds, divide Mountain City, and have these small-town cops looking to a possible CIA plot.

My impression after, you know, the first week was it looked like a hit.

Like a contract hit, right?

She doesn't have a pulse. No breathing.

Do you know how long she's been dead?

I don't know how long maybe they've been there.

I don't know. They're cold. They're white.

It's a home invasion double murder that has a small Tennessee mountain town on edge and authorities scratching their heads.

When they first asked me if I knew anybody that would hurt them, nobody came to mind. Nothing hit me right off. I didn't know what— what had happened. And then they asked me if they had any enemies.

Most of the time, if we have a murder, it's usually somebody that they know or a family member or one of the friends that got upset. But this is one of those that we always call— that's like a whodunit murder.

The squad's coming. Can I hang up now, please?

The details are even more horrifying. 36-year-old Billy Payne is not only shot in the head, his throat is sliced. And 23-year-old mother Billie Jean is holding her 7-month-old son Pretty cold-blooded to shoot a woman holding her child, huh?

Yes, it is. Sure is. Especially point-blank. I mean, it's just right there.

Shook people up, huh?

It did. Sure did. People thought there was a killer on the loose.

Did you know the people who lived here?

Yes, I did.

Very familiar with them. Knew Billy and his sister from the time they were small.

Billy Payne's sister Tracy told me She is still struggling with losing her brother.

I was shocked, but I thought that wasn't true. You know, I just— I don't know. It's like impossible. I still don't think it's true.

Everybody liked Billy. Billy was one of these type of people that was outgoing and was friends with everybody. He liked to get together with friends, go four-wheeling with your truck in the mountains, and, you know, do stuff like that, go camping.

Billy worked at Parkdale Mills, a textile factory, as a machine operator.

Billie Jean Hayworth, who was a few years younger than Billy Payne, she started working at Parkdale, and that's where Billy Payne and Billie Jean met. They started dating.

He was a good person, fun-loving, outgoing kind of person everybody wanted to be around. She likes swimming. Oh, being outdoors ever since she was little.

The romance moves quickly. In no time at all, Billie Jean moves in with Billy and his father. And a short time later, she gives birth to baby Tyler.

She was so excited. He was her world. This glow she had about her when he came into the world was just unbelievable. She told me the night before she— She was happy. Her son meant the world to her, and Bill did too. She said, sis, I'm in love. She finally found out what love really was. I got a phone call telling me that she was gone. This is my daughter. In my head, I just can't believe it. I was shocked. You just don't ever think of something like that happening to your baby sister. It was one of the hardest days of my life. Nobody should have to go through finding out that their friends have been murdered.

So who would want to murder a young family like this? At this point, police are desperate for any clues. Were you able to glean very much forensic evidence from this scene?

There was very little. It was a very clean scene as far as, you know, physical evidence goes.

So no prints, no shell casings, no DNA left behind?

Not that we found, no, sir.

It was because whenever the suspects entered the house, they didn't do anything else. They did not go through the drawers, the closets, Closets, the wallets were all left in their places. Some money was laying around. It was left just as it was. So nothing was taken from the residence.

Investigators at the scene don't find any shell casings, which leads them to believe that the murder weapon was a revolver. But they do find 2 bullets there.

Billie Jean was laying on the floor in a— Semi-fetal position. To me, it looked as if she was bending over to pick up her child from the bouncy seat and was shot at that point. I guess as the, the bullet landed in the bouncy seat. It was amazing. You would think that we would have to, you know, look for the bullet in the room, either in a wall or something, but it was just laying right there. And, and the bullet was still in good shape.

A bullet recovered from Billy's pillow is also mostly intact. That bullet has an X carved into its tip. This is a technique that's used to craft what is sometimes called a poor man's hollow point. The idea is that the bullet would break apart upon impact and cause even more damage.

And you never found the murder weapon or the knife that apparently slit the throat?

Neither one. My impression after, you know, the first week was it looked like a hit.

Like a contract hit?

Right. They either had some training or they were self-taught. We didn't know. Um, you know, we initially started questioning family and friends.

Billy's father tells investigators that When he leaves for work at about 5:30 that morning, Billy is still sleeping and Billie Jean is feeding the baby.

Bill Payne would always ride with a guy to work. And that morning, he went up and knocked on the door, but no one would come to the door. So he just figured that, you know, he wasn't going to go to work. So he just left and went on to work. And that was sometime around maybe 6 o'clock or so.

Now police have isolated a half-hour window when they believe the murder happened, but they still need to find out who did it.

The first day when we were talking to friends of the victims, someone had mentioned that there was some kind of altercation or grievance.

If someone had let you see everything that had gone on— defriending each other on Facebook, and they're talking and saying nasty things about each other— would you ever have imagined that it would have wound up with 2 people dead in this house?

No.

In 2012, the small town of Mountain City is very online.

A lot of people know about everything that goes on here because of, you know, Facebook.

Back in 2012, there was Facebook. But there was a now-defunct website called Topics. Topics became a big deal in Johnson County.

Where people can go on there and make their own topic and have discussions, and it's usually confined to different areas around here. It's very popular.

One of the biggest users of Topics and other social media sites in Mountain City is a 30-year-old Janelle Potter, who will become a key player in this murder mystery. So let's start off in the beginning. Where did you grow up?

I grew up in Kennett Square, Pennsylvania.

What was it like?

It was nice. Small town. Everyone pretty much knew everybody.

They moved to Mountain City from Pennsylvania in the early 2000s. From all accounts, Jenelle was someone who didn't really leave the house very much. She lived most of her life online. The Potter family was known pretty well in Johnson County as keeping to themselves and just being a little weird. They didn't really interact with a lot of people. They didn't work. It seemed very, very like a very paranoid family.

Jenelle's father Marvin also goes by the name Buddy. Now, Buddy's a Vietnam vet who says he did covert missions for the CIA. His wife Barbara admits she doesn't exactly know what he did overseas. Was he ever in the CIA or attached to the CIA?

Uh, he said he was.

Is he allowed to talk about what he did?

No. Never. I just saw him as a gentle giant.

Buddy's a gentle giant who's on disability. He suffers from debilitating back pain and periodically relies on oxygen tanks to breathe. But he still sees himself as the protector of this family.

My understanding of Jenelle and why she was still living with her parents is that she had some learning disabilities that were diagnosed pretty early in her life.

Buddy and Barbara are protective, and they barely let their daughter out of their sight. What were the rules? What kind of rules were they?

Don't be out past, you know, 12:00 at night. No smoking, no drinking, no partying, no drugs, stuff like that.

Tell me about Janelle.

Very naive, can make decisions sometimes that aren't quite right for her because she's young. She's young in her mind, more young than her age, I think, you know.

Her parents had a lot of control over her.

She was not allowed to use their computer unmonitored. She was not allowed to use her cell phone unmonitored.

She wasn't allowed to have friends over socially, to be around people in person without them getting in good with Buddy and Barbara beforehand. So this forced Janelle to seek out relationships online.

Janelle also suffers from chronic health issues which keep her indoors most of the time. Janelle did have some interactions in real life, and these photos presented in court showed Janelle New friends, Billy Payne and his sister Tracy.

I worked at the pharmacy in town, and they were coming in there and getting their medicine. And we felt sorry for Jenelle because she was sheltered because she was sick. So I got talking to my brother about these people that had come in. She gave me her phone number, and I started calling her.

Tell me about your relationship with Tracy.

Um, it was a good— she was a good friend to me. I would go out with her to the mall, to her house a few times, out to eat, took her son different places. We were okay.

What did you think of Bill?

He was nice.

Just nice?

Mm-hmm.

But Jenelle says she's also being cyberbullied, and hateful anonymous comments begin appearing on her Facebook page. Soon this war of words explodes online between Jenelle and Billie Jean Hayworth, who Jenelle accuses of starting that online feud. What was her relationship like with Billie Jean?

Oh, she hated her.

From the get-go?

Mm-hmm. She'd call her all kinds of bad names.

Now, at one point, did they unfriend you on Facebook?

Um, I think we did it to each other. I unfriended them, they unfriended me.

Who unfriended who first?

Um, I did Bill first, and I think Billie did me, and I unfriended her.

But Jenelle says the online venom keeps coming and escalates to physical threats. Jenelle's mother Barbara intervenes.

I wrote, please do not write these things. I begged them, please don't do this.

What kinds of things were people saying about you?

Just that I was a bad person. I was horrible. Threatened to get raped. Threatening to get hurt.

Must have been pretty scary.

Yes.

But why would people say this about you?

I don't know.

What started all this hatred?

I'm not sure.

And those are the exact same questions police want to ask the Potters the day after Jenelle's Facebook friends turned foes are murdered.

The Potters, they live right— they lived right up here.

So this is the house?

This is the house.

And you told them this is a conversation, this is no search warrant, right?

This is just something just to get some interviews, just to sit down and talk about what type of problems that they all had with each other.

Hey.

How you doing? Hey, Potter. Hey, what are you talking about?

Unknown to the Potters, investigators record the interview.

What we're doing right now is investigating a double homicide.

Very serious matter. Everybody always points a finger at us for something. Oh, no, there ain't nobody pointing no fingers.

Instead of talking about how tragic the murders were Instead of talking about, you know, what an outrage it was, the Potter family, especially Janelle, just started trashing on Billy Payne and Billie Jean Hayworth.

They've been harassing me in my driveway, on our property, and then yesterday morning when I got on Facebook is when I found out.

And, um, I mean, I'm sorry it happened, but I mean, that's all I could What I can tell you is they, they have been harassing the living crap out of me.

Why would they be harassing you?

It came out to be a jealousy thing. They said I was too pretty.

Buddy and Barbara Potter definitely saw their daughter as a victim. They saw the Facebook posts. They saw the emails that were sent back and forth. They really thought that people were out to rape her. People were out to kill her.

You never put on the internet that you, you wish to They were dead?

No.

They were in a car accident or something like that? No.

I'm not that mean. I just want him to leave me alone. That's all I've ever asked.

I got you.

What did you come away with?

I have nothing to do with it. I had— did not have anything to do with it at all.

And so were you really suspicious when you walked away from that house?

We were suspicious, yes.

Why are investigators suspicious? Because Jenelle brings up another person who is involved in this online feud.

They were just cussing at me, but I stood by Father with Jamie and my mom.

We had talked to some of the other people, and they had heard Jamie Curd had threatened to cut Billy Payne's throat.

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Now, 30 years after he was gunned down in Vegas, a one-time reputed gang leader stands trial for his murder. Follow every detail, streaming live daily on ABC News Live wherever you stream, and follow Burden of Proof daily wherever you get your podcasts. As Mountain City investigators are interviewing the Potters about an online feud with murder victims Billy Payne and Billie Jean Hayworth, they ask about a local man named Jamie Curd.

Who's Jamie?

He's just a friend. We've been friends for years.

He's a friend of our family.

Yeah. Yeah, he's a friend to all of us, to me.

Jamie Curd was from Johnson County, had lived there his whole life. He was a pretty solitary guy, kept to himself.

Every time you see him, he's always wearing sunglasses. He says that the sun always bothers his eyes.

Jamie Curd was Billy's second cousin. Jamie had grown up with Billy. They were more like brothers than cousins.

Jamie, like Billy Payne and Billie Jean, worked at Parkdale Mills. And like Billy, he's brought into Janelle's orbit thanks to Tracy, who set the shy Janelle up with her cousin.

So why did you think to set up Jamie and Janelle?

Well, Jamie didn't have a girlfriend, and she really didn't have a boyfriend. So we just— that's the only two. I mean, they didn't look like they'd go together by no means.

Why not?

Well, Jamie was sort of rough looking, you know, greasy, and she was neat.

So Jamie also moonlights fixing home computers around town.

The Potters used Jamie as a person to come and fix their computers whenever something was wrong, which would give Janelle a reason to be able to see Jamie.

And when Jamie was there, Jenelle would be allowed to go into the computer room and talk to Jamie and be around Jamie.

So Jamie and Jenelle got closer and closer.

But the Potters didn't want Jenelle dating, and they certainly didn't want Jenelle dating Jamie.

Jenelle's mom and dad did not approve of Jamie. So Jamie was in love with her. So Jamie had purchased He promised her a cell phone, and he would come here, bring it, and hide it in the bushes, and she would come and get it.

They started talking some. I believe that they would text message and instant message back and forth. They used email frequently. This undercover relationship between Jamie Curd and Jenelle just kept growing and growing.

You and Jamie got pretty serious at one point. How often would you talk?

Every day.

For long periods?

Uh, for an hour, 2 hours at a time.

Wow.

What would you talk about?

Our day. Um, I don't know, he would tell me about his life. I would tell him about mine.

In typo-filled messages, Jenelle tells Jamie, you will always be in my life, I will always love you, and you're not just a part of me, You are all of me. Jenelle even signs the message, your wife.

But when police ask Jenelle about her relationship with Jamie, she lies.

Jamie sound like your boyfriend?

No, no, no. He's just a really good friend.

Does he want to be your boyfriend?

Not that I know of. I just like— I really didn't.

But police have evidence that shows that's not true.

We located photographs and a cell phone, and the photographs show them kissing at one point.

What'd you think of Jamie?

I'm nice to everybody. He told me how he worked on computers. He could build them from the bottom up.

He did more than work on your computer. He worked on your daughter too.

Yeah.

And I didn't know that for a long time, that he was interested in her or vice versa. It was secret.

Police also know that Jamie got dragged into this online feud, and his feelings for Jenelle pit Jamie against his own cousin.

Jenelle convinced Jamie that Billie Jean Hayworth and Billy Payne were targeting Jenelle and sending her death threats, threatened to rape her, threatened to kill her. He started having problems with Billy Payne at work.

They had got into an argument down there, and some of the people had heard Jamie say something about slicing his throat. Billy's throat had been slashed. So yes, that's the reason that we brought Jamie Curdy in. We just asked him, hey, would you take a polygraph? And sure enough, he said that he would. That didn't go very well. Jamie is more involved with Jenelle than what he was letting on to us.

Have a seat there. Have a seat there, Jamie.

So that's whenever Agent Locke and Agent Hannah basically confronted him about the deception of some of the answers of the questions.

Jamie, of those 11 questions, Which ones do you think you had the most reaction?

You can tell he's nervous. We confront him with the results of the polygraph. You can tell that he is apprehensive about talking.

I think you went in there. I'm going to take care of this situation. I'm going to take care of people messing with you now. People ain't going to mess with my girl no more. She's not my girl.

You may say that out loud, but you know in your heart We, we sort of, you know, ask him the same questions, you know. What's y'all's relationship? What's yours and Janelle's relationship? And, you know, he kept on saying they were friends.

Did you make a statement at work, Eric, that you're gonna cut his throat? You made that statement, and I know you did. I don't know.

But eventually, Jamie changes his tune and he starts singing.

Jamie finally admitted that he went to the house.

Who shot? He did. He who? Buddy? Yeah. I'm sorry? Yes. Okay, let's talk about that.

Jamie said that he was involved in it. He didn't do much, but he had told us that Buddy had been the one to have shot the 2 people. And he said something about on the lines that, you know, he was the one that did the cutting of the neck.

Jamie was formally charged on the 7th of February. We put him back in the cell. He wasn't going anywhere.

Now that Jamie's on the hook, he agrees to help reel in his alleged partner in the double murder, Janelle's father, Marvin Buddy Potter.

We asked Jamie if he made a phone call to Marvin, if, uh, Marvin would admit to anything during that phone call. He said, I think he might.

Well, they're, uh, pointing fingers. Oh, Jamie Christmas.

It's a time to mourn in Mountain City, Tennessee. Billy Payne and Billie Jean Hayworth are laid to rest. The murdered couple survived only by their infant son.

I'm just as shocked today over my friends Bill and Billie Jean losing their life over someone who Created her own hell.

Days later, Jamie Curd confesses and IDs the killer as Buddy Potter. Investigators then have Curd call Potter, hoping he'll incriminate himself.

Everything go all right? Well, they're, uh, pointing fingers. Oh, Jamie Christmas. And you got rid of everything? Oh, that's from Billy, didn't he?

Uh-huh.

Okay. That makes me feel a lot better. Yeah.

We never did really find the weapon that was used to kill Billy Payne and Billie Jean Hayworth. We took Buddy Potter's statement that he took care of it to mean that he'd gotten rid of the murder weapons.

With Jamie locked up, it's back to the Potter house. But this time, Buddy's not so welcoming to investigators.

We knew he had a weapon, and at one point we thought he made a gesture to us.

What kind of gesture?

Show me.

It's like he's going to do like this, and we grabbed his arm.

My father hugged on us and treated us like we were angels. He was a very protective father, and at all costs, he was going to protect his wife and daughter.

Down at the sheriff's office, Buddy, who's in jeans, a red sweatshirt, and handcuffs, settles into an easy chair for some hard talk with that pair of TBI agents.

You know why you're here, right? Yeah, I'm assuming. Okay, why do you think you're here? That somebody's told you I'm the one who killed somebody.

But Buddy Potter is no Jamie Curd.

Here's the thing.

Mike and I, we've been investigating this case.

We don't think you killed him. We know you killed him.

Okay?

I didn't. Wait a second. Just a second.

And that's not just a guess.

It's not just a gut feeling. It's a no. Okay? We know. That's fine. I didn't kill him. I did not kill Billy Payne. I'm not going to admit something I didn't do.

He denied everything, and we pressed him and pressed him and pressed him.

Cold-hearted killer? I'm protecting my family to start with, but I did not do this. Tell me what happened. I don't know.

The agents repeatedly assure Buddy they understand how he must have felt.

I believe you are sick and tired of the most precious person in your life being attacked and harassed constantly. I know that, okay? Ever since all this crap started, I've been— I've had my life I've been threatened. My wife has been threatened. They've threatened to take Janelle, cut her head off.

Finally, at one point, he starts to say, when people are threatening your daughter's life—

When you hear people plotting to take you, cut your daughter's head off, In the restroom and murder her. They wanted to rape her because she's a virgin.

Investigators are getting the sense that Buddy might be ready at last to confess, just not to them. Special Agent Lott has an idea.

I made the suggestion, uh, Buddy, would you like to call Barbara and tell her first before you tell us? And he said yes. So we let him make a phone call to Barbara.

Barbara?

Yeah?

Before you find out from somebody else, I want you to know I was involved in it. I did it. Some of it.

I don't understand.

Because of what all they've been trying to do to you and Janelle. I just wanted to tell you first.

He told Barbara, I did it. And that's as close to a confession as we got from him.

Your husband confessed to it.

Yeah, but there's questions about that.

So why would he admit to it? Why would he confess?

When they took him, they took no oxygen, they took no medication, and they interviewed When he— his oxygen gets low, he says things that don't make sense or are incorrect.

Authorities beg to differ, saying even without his oxygen tank and medication, Potter was lucid and understood the questions. Now the question becomes, who convinced Buddy Potter his family was in danger?

Why would your father go and shoot those 2 people?

I don't know.

No idea?

No idea.

You said that your father was always protective of you.

Yes, but I don't think he would kill over silly stuff like this.

Authorities say it didn't seem silly to Buddy Potter.

He very tearfully recounted That these people had put a bounty on his daughter's head, that they had threatened to rape her, cut her up into pieces. And you could tell from the way he said that he believed it.

When I found out that they had arrested Marvin Potter and Jamie, I knew what it was over. It was over Jenelle and the stuff that she had pretty much put in their heads.

He said he was trying to protect you. He said that they had threatened that they would chop you up. And rape you and kill you?

Yes.

Is that what you told him? Because they weren't telling him that directly. Somehow he had to be getting word that these people were going to do some grievous, serious harm to you.

He would go in town and there was people that would tell him that, that there was people out to hurt me, to get me.

Case closed? Far from it. But Marvin, Buddy Potter, and Jamie Curd, according to investigators, they're not even the half of it.

You started to realize that this is bigger than just Marvin Buddy Potter. This has something to do with the other people in this house.

Exactly, exactly.

More mystery, more murderers, and now a mastermind. A new character enters the story, a purported CIA assassin.

A lot of killing.

All part of what prosecutors call the craziest, stupidest, deadliest catfishing scheme you have ever seen.

This is where Billy Payne and Billie Jean were murdered, in this house.

And there's no pulse. There's no pulse on either one of them.

I mean, this was one of the biggest, craziest things that had happened in years.

You give him the pictures of the people that you say are taunting you, you don't think he's going to do anything about it? Did you ever want Billie Jean and Bill Payne to die?

No, never.

You didn't even want them dead?

No, I didn't even want them hurt.

It appeared that there was some type of conspiracy here. They, you know, they kept referring to Who is Chris?

Uh, he was a CIA agent. Tall, blonde hair and blue eyes.

Jason Bourne.

Did he ever talk about the kinds of things he did for work?

He did.

What were those things?

A lot of killing people.

I think someone else was playing games with our minds, our computer, our life.

There is nothing to her story. What is it in your lives that has prepared you to understand the Potter family?

If you had to describe Janelle and Barbara with one word, what would you use?

Evil. That's what I would say. Evil.

What kind of person would take a revolver To a man who's sleeping and shoot him in the face, and then go to a woman who's running away with a child, an infant in her arms.

Cold-blooded.

And shoot her on the side of the head.

He's not cold-blooded. That whole thing's so sad. I'm so sad they died.

That—

it's always bothered me that it had to involve my family.

This situation of 2 people being murdered in their own home was a great shock. And I think there was some relief once Marvin and Jamie were arrested.

The shootings of Billy Payne and Billie Jean Hayworth seem close to being solved. But unlike horseshoes and hand grenades, close doesn't count in a murder case. And authorities are wondering whether all the killers have actually been caught.

While Buddy Potter is interrogated, other investigators Search the Potter home and pickup truck.

I was left there along with other investigators to conduct a search of the Potter residence in, you know, an attempt to look for ammunition, any type of firearms that would be for a .38 Special or a 9mm.

They were searching the house?

Yes, they did do that.

Did they go into your room?

Um, no, they went to my parents' room first, and then they went to the second bedroom that we had, which where my dad would keep his clothes and his stuff, and then, um, my room, and then the computer room.

There's Deputy Joe Woodard and a stunned-looking Barbara and Janelle Potter during the search.

So did you notice anything odd in the house or anything unusual?

Whenever the investigators went downstairs, there was a lot of firearms. We had rifles, shotguns, semi— I mean, it's just one of those—

An arsenal.

An arsenal, basically, yes.

Guns in the basement, guns in the bedroom, guns in the dresser drawer, and guns under the mattress. There's even an ammo belt on his oxygen tank. And knives. Lots of knives. All over the house, even hanging from the antlers on the wall.

The search also turns up pictures printed from Facebook, including one of the recently murdered Billie Jean Hayworth.

Even found pictures of the victims in the living room.

In the living room. You found pictures of the victims in the living room?

Yes.

Investigators say about 7 months before the murders, Jenelle grabbed this photo of Billie Jean Hayworth from Facebook, emailed it to herself, then printed it off. The subject line, Billy Whore.

A printed-out picture of Billie Jean Hayworth with the title Whore.

Which is kind of an odd thing to find after someone has been murdered in their house holding their baby.

Exactly.

You printed out a picture of her and wrote bitch across the top?

No. My dad wanted, um, pictures of who was bothering me.

So you gave your dad pictures of the people who were bothering you?

Yes.

Why would you do that?

Um, he just wanted to know because if he was out and if someone was harassing me, he would want to know who they were.

Just then, Barbara Potter does something she will come to regret.

Barbara was sitting on the couch next to At one point, Barbara picks up a stack of papers, looks at them.

Then all of a sudden, she ripped it in half, and I stopped her and I said, give me those pieces of paper.

Why did you fold up the picture of Billie Jean, try to hide it and tear it up?

I didn't, and I've tried to explain that over and over, but—

You didn't do that?

I was tired and I was upset. I didn't do that. I was kind of nervous. I said, well, I'm getting bored, you know. I just started doing that, not thinking that there was even a picture in there because I didn't know it was there. And then when I— whenever I picked it up and I just made a little tear, and I thought it was just—

You didn't rip it in half? Authorities aren't buying it. They charge Barbara with tampering with evidence.

They also seize what may have been Barbara and Janelle's fondest possession. The family computer.

I believe there was just one desktop computer that they all used, Jenelle and Barbara. Marvin didn't get on the computer at all that I know of. I don't think I've ever heard him say anything about being on the computer.

Remember how the bullet that killed Billy had been scratched, marked with an X? Investigators find similar .38 caliber bullets in Buddy's pickup.

Marvin had taken a knife and scratched X's into the tip of the bullet to basically create hollow points.

Investigators also discovered something in the bed of Buddy's pickup that will prove to be even more incriminating in the long run, and not just for Buddy.

They noticed several bags of shredded paper, so They went ahead, closed everything back up, and the vehicle was then transported to the TBI lab in Knoxville, Tennessee.

Those shreds of evidence leave investigators to a shadowy figure.

They kept referring to a guy named Chris, uh, that's supposedly a CIA operative or, or something.

Who is Chris?

A new podcast series from ABC Audio in 2020 goes inside a case that has captivated the nation.

To many people, Luigi Mangione is a modern-day Robin Hood.

People were cheering the demise of this person they'd never met, who was a father of 2 and a husband and had a life and was just doing a job. From the manhunt ending in a McDonald's in Altoona, Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania, to what authorities are saying about a possible motive. I'm ABC News legal analyst Brian Buckmire. Listen to Burden of Proof: Luigi Mangione wherever you get your podcasts.

There is so much NFL on ESPN right now. Monday Night Football plus pregame and postgame. NFL Live. NFL Primetime. Everything you need to stay on top of every game, every week. Unbelievable! And now NFL Network is on the ESPN app. More football, more coverage, more ways to watch. Football's on all season long on ESPN and streaming on the ESPN app. Marvin Buddy Potter is in jail awaiting trial, and so is Janelle Potter's boyfriend, Jamie Kirk. But the feeling in town and at the courthouse is that justice has not been fully served.

I blamed Jenelle immediately because, I mean, it was her fault. She was the one that we was friends with, and she was the one that started the lies. Jenelle should have been held just as accountable as, as them.

Billie Jean's sisters Beverly and Janie say Even before the murders, they believed Jenelle was the troublemaker.

Jealousy, attention. She's an attention-getter. And like, sis, you know, follow— she would do the same thing to Billie Jean. She would follow them around all the time. Billie would call me and she'd be like, Jenelle's behind me. There she is again. I mean, it's constantly.

If you had to describe Jenelle and Barbara, with one word, what would you use?

Evil. That's what I would say, evil.

It was several months after the arrest of Jamie and Buddy that I came into the case. I knew there was some thought in the community that the women were behind the killings, but they hadn't been charged.

I think that Janelle and Barbara were the ringleaders. I think they were the ones that were the manipulators. And I think they convinced Marvin and Jamie to do something awful to Bill and Billie Jean, and they followed through with it.

Early on, we wanted to charge Barbara and Janelle but really didn't have enough.

We mentioned yesterday about Potter's daughter. She was in court today as an observer. Although she has not been charged with any crime at this point, prosecutors say she is at the center of this investigation. They say She is the common link to all of the parties involved.

Throughout the investigation, Buddy maintained that Barbara and Jenelle really didn't have anything to do with the homicides, that he acted unilaterally in an attempt to protect his family.

Now, investigators take note of Barbara Potter's conversation with Jamie Curd when he made that phone call to the house After his confession.

Whenever Jamie had called their residence, Barbara was the one that first answered the phone.

Did it go all right?

Yeah.

Really?

Yeah.

And they just let you go and that's it?

It's over? Yeah.

Well, that's wonderful. We've been praying our hearts out. Jellie saw an angel today come in the computer room. And I said, oh, that's good. We've all been praying so hard.

And, you know, she was asking, how did the polygraph go?

Did you have a lie detector?

Yeah.

And you passed it?

Yeah.

Well, that's wonderful. I'm so glad, honey.

And investigators are even more suspicious of Barbara's reaction when her husband calls and confesses to murder.

Does Janelle and Barbara know what you did? No.

After his confession, he made a recorded phone call to his wife Barbara where he told her that, I did it. I killed them.

Before you find out from somebody else, I want you to know I was involved in it. I did it.

I don't understand.

And immediately Barbara turns into Mama Bear, saying, oh no, honey, you didn't. You were right here the whole time. Tell them that you didn't do it. I saw you. There's no way you could have done it. You were right here next to me all night.

You don't have no rest and you don't have your oxygen. You're really not yourself right now.

I know. I'm sorry. I just— it don't matter no more.

Has a nurse checked you?

No.

They said a nurse would check you. You need to tell her what meds you're on. You're on and you're off again and all that. But, um, you needed to say, you know, you're not Gary. You're not Gary. And that's that.

I don't think she was really shocked. It's just like, I think if she was shocked, she was probably shocked that he told. But I don't think that she was shocked that he had done it, because in my mind, I think she knew that he did it.

I don't know that he did it. As far as I know, he was in my home all night. He was in that lounge chair asleep.

Not in bed, though?

He sat up at night every night because of what was happening. And when I woke up at 7 o'clock, he was in bed.

I thought he was in a lounge chair.

He came to bed. I didn't hear him come to bed.

Marvin that you didn't have anything to do with it. I saw you. You were here all night.

This is suspicious. Not guilty because you were here. You have to say that. You have to say that.

She was trying to convince him that no, you didn't do this.

They tried to trick me. You know, they had to have tricked me. I'm just trying to say things that didn't happen.

No.

You just say, Mom, Daddy, you're not.

You're here. I saw you.

In that call, Jenelle also encourages her father to claim he's innocent.

Daddy?

Yes? Are you okay? No, Jenelle.

I've been so upset.

Honey, don't worry about it. You just take care of yourself.

I am, but this isn't right. You didn't do anything. You were here. I'm so sorry that you had to go through this.

In 2013, Buddy Potter is found guilty of the murders of Billy Payne and Billie Jean Hayworth, getting 2 consecutive life sentences.

If Barbara and Janelle know more than they're saying, Authorities suspect those 3 trash bags found in Buddy's pickup could contain a shredded paper trail.

We took those shredded documents. One of our agents spent a month of her life taping those back together.

And what they were were printouts of emails, printouts of instant messages, printouts of pictures from Facebook.

Emails from Barbara, emails from Jenelle.

Authorities said that Buddy Potter didn't have much use for the computer. So they said that Barbara would pull the family protector into the online war of words by printing out the alarming emails and social media posts and anything she wanted him to see.

Barbara tells Buddy about everything that goes on and sort of gets him all upset because Jenelle's upset because he's afraid somebody's going to hurt them.

But some of those emails also talk about murder.

You know, they talked about killing Billy, killing Billie Jean.

It appeared that there was some type of conspiracy here. They, you know, they kept referring to a guy named Chris that's supposedly a CIA operative or, or something.

Who was Chris?

I'm not sure. Yeah, I don't know. I don't know.

When Jamie Curd was interviewed, at the end, he asked, is the CIA here?

CIA? Oh.

Very strange question to me.

Why did you ask about the CIA?

I had certainly never experienced anything like this in my career to that point. And I can say a decade later that I haven't seen anything else like it since.

We knew that they had to be looking at a computer somewhere because they're the type that's always got to be doing something on a computer. We are going to the library right in the middle of town.

Law enforcement isn't ready to close the book on the murders of Billy Payne and Billie Jean Hayworth.

Investigators follow Barbara and Janelle, photographing their So we made contact with the library, and the library said that they usually came here. So they called us whenever they were here.

The Johnson County Sheriff's Department did keep an eye on the Potter women, and there is surveillance video of them going to the local library.

They videotaped them sitting at these 2 tables. They had computers and they got them as they walked through, and they even went and was shining the key fob camera through the books just so that we could see what they were doing each.

They were logging on to topics, logging into their email, logging on to Facebook, and just continuing this narrative of Jenelle being a victim.

Not a crime, but evidence, investigators say, of how obsessed these 2 women are with what people are saying about them online, even after 2 people have been murdered.

It shows Jenelle has to have a computer to know what's going on and, you know, what are they saying about her. That way she can reply back.

And now enters one of the spookiest characters ever to appear in a murder investigation. His name is Chris.

After we did subpoenas and search warrants and got emails, instant message records, text message records, we started seeing this name Chris pop up.

Barbara is talking back and forth to supposedly a CIA agent named Chris.

When Jamie Curd makes his confession, everything's done. There's silence in the room, and Jamie just all of a sudden asks, I've got one question I need to ask you. And they go, what's that?

Is the CIA here?

CIA?

Yeah.

Mike and Scott were sort of shocked by, you know, where did that even come from?

The officers had no idea what he was talking about.

Why did you ask about the CIA? Because they're, uh, he, uh, says he works for them.

He assumed and probably hoped that the CIA was on the other side of that door ready to take this case away from the TBI and set him free.

Who is Chris?

Uh, he was a CIA agent. Um, tall, blond hair and blue eyes.

Jason Bourne. What kind of stuff did he do?

Um, he said he was down here to protect me, protect my parents.

He communicated with them through Jenelle's email account, through her Facebook. They were as tight as could be, and they were close.

Barbara would receive emails from this guy Chris, but the emails were Were still coming from Jenelle Potter's email address.

Do you find it odd that Chris was written from your personal account? That all those emails were written from your personal account?

Yes.

And you never noticed that? You never asked the question? And all of that correspondence, there's not a single question, hey, why is this person writing from my account?

Yes, I— and it never showed up, but yes, I had asked how—

Who?

I, I emailed him through my email and I said, you know, how'd you get my, um, screen name password? I changed my password lots of times. I've done everything.

It really does seem like bad fantasy fiction. A secret agent mixed up in a small-town drama, falling for a damsel in distress.

He would never show up in person. I would ask him to Come over or meet me.

Nothing.

How'd you feel about him?

Well, he was my friend.

I mean, he wasn't just your friend.

He was—

Um, from the emails that I read, it seemed like you guys were very, very intimate.

Um, we were actually. He told my mom he wanted to marry me at one point.

Janelle says this Chris seems to know her as well as she knows herself.

He would say things like, well, I saw you today, and he would tell me what I was wearing, what I was doing, how my hair was. And I was like, okay, this is weird.

Uncanny.

Really weird.

Chris even emails Jamie Curd via Jenelle's account, gushing about Jenelle. She just put up some new pics on Facebook. You might want to look. She is cute. And love advice, tips on how to be a better boyfriend to Jenelle.

There were some Chris emails out there where Chris would suggest, why don't you get Jenelle to go out with you tonight and, and take her out somewhere?

Here's romantic tradecraft CIA Chris probably did not pick up at Langley, but he offers it to Jamie. Make sure you have candles and a card. Make the bed really pretty and just love on her. She is a wonderful, sweet, caring girl. But Chris also has a cold streak, and he's supposedly a bloodthirsty assassin. Did he ever talk about the kinds of things he did for work?

He did.

What were those things?

A lot of killing. A lot of killing people.

CIA Chris claims he's monitoring Billy Payne and Billie Jean Hayworth, has their house bugged, phones tapped, says he knows they're up to no good.

He was watching these people, he said, that were harassing her on, on the computer.

He would say how upset he was. Um, you know, why would anyone want to mistreat me?

He got mad?

Yes.

How mad did he get?

He wanted to hurt everybody.

Who specifically did he want to hurt?

I think it was Bill, Billy, Gene, everyone who was picking on me. Anyone that picked on me, he was after.

The emails show CIA Chris is angry. Authorities say he and Barbara talk about settling scores.

And this was actually in the shredded documents that were found in the truck. She writes to Chris, Bud is so mad and I'm 100% behind whatever happens. You guys meet when you are ready, Chris. Maybe Bud can use CIA guns, etc., for his protection. Get the jobs done, you know. They all need to go and the ones left need to be given a big scare as they watch and wonder Am I next? That's chilling.

The job is obviously the murder.

Absolutely.

Job needs to get done.

Absolutely. But Bud can't do it by himself. He needs CIA guns with him.

At this point, identifying this fantastic character, CIA Chris, becomes key to closing this murder case. Who is Chris? Is Jamie Curd Chris? Janelle? I don't know.

I can't do this.

I think we're done there.

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I can't trust anyone in this group.

She's just dead to me.

There's so much the public doesn't know.

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In the months after Billy Payne and Billie Jean Hayworth were gunned down, Janelle and Barbara Potter report being threatened by members of the community who suspected that the Potter women were also involved in the murders.

A lot of people are, are sort of harassing them.

They're trying to set me up, and I don't like this because I'm very sick.

They threw rocks at the house. I was calling the police a lot.

They even throw rocks in the yard there just to leave a message. with Billie Jean's name on it, with Bill's name on it.

Their guardian angel, CIA Chris, seems to be missing in action. But when authorities take a closer look at the computer seized from the Potter house, they have a eureka moment. And that's because the IP address on Chris's emails leads back to only one place.

Every one of them pointed straight back to Barbara and Janelle's home address.

It was the same IP address address, meaning that the emails were all generated at that house.

Authorities develop a theory that Jenelle's a sort of Keyser Söze of the keyboard. Remember him from the movie The Usual Suspects?

I work for Keyser Söze.

There is no Keyser Söze.

Creating the identity of Chris to con those closest to her and convince them that she's in danger and needs Once we started looking at the communications between the Potter family, between Chris, between Jamie Curd, that's when we started building the case against Barbara and Janelle.

Investigators have their theory but no definitive proof, at least not until the Potter women show up at the sheriff's office to file complaints of harassment. That's when authorities devise a test.

I had them type out statements So that we can see how Barbara writes and see how Jenelle writes.

The reports that they made about this alleged harassment, the word choice, the spelling, the grammar, the punctuation was compared against these emails. And it was interesting that this Chris character had the same spelling mistakes, had the same grammar mistakes as Jenelle. That's when the pieces started falling into place.

Authorities believe that Jenelle wrote messages as Chris to her mother, Barbara, that falsely reported threats of rape and murder by the victims.

Barbara would take this information and show it to Buddy. Buddy, look. Look what they're trying to do to Jenelle. Look what they're trying to do. And finally, they just pushed him to his limit.

Marvin Potter and Barbara Potter truly believed these people were out to harm Jenelle.

thought that people were out to kill her.

She knew exactly what to do to get to her mom. She knew exactly what to do to get to her dad. Jenelle manipulated everybody that she dealt with.

Jenelle was writing these Chris emails.

Jenelle was pretending to be the CIA agent.

She was masterminding a murder conspiracy.

The events that she set into motion ultimately resulted in So she's catfishing her mom from the same house, from the same computer.

It's hard to believe that you could do that from the same house.

This is the worst catfishing I've ever heard of.

Yeah, it—

I mean, it's beyond absurd.

In all catfish cases, at some point, the victim of the catfishing is guilty of some degree of being naive. Barbara has no idea that her daughter is a catfisher.

She has no idea that Jenelle is using the same computer and her own email address to create the fictitious Chris?

She bought it hook, line, and sinker.

I don't think she created anyone. I think someone else was playing games with our minds, our computer, our life.

But Jenelle's mother Barbara is about to go from naive to nefarious, and in the email exchanges with Chris, it sure sounds like she really wants Billy Payne and Billie Jean Hayworth dead. In one email, Barbara writes, we've had enough. No one wants to kill anyone, but we will. Why did you write to Chris that you wanted them dead?

I didn't.

Yeah, you did, from these emails.

Well, you can believe those emails if you want. I never want anyone dead, and I would never plan a murder. That is not me.

And you write, I will kill if I have to. Not just hurt, but kill.

That's not me. That is not me.

Barbara says someone hacked into her email, but authorities don't buy it. They say that her writing style from the harassment complaints matches what's in the emails to Chris.

The more I studied them, the more I realized these crimes do not happen with A year and a half after the murders of Billy Payne and Billie Jean Hayworth, Barbara Potter and her 32-year-old daughter, Jenelle, are under arrest for murder.

We finally got the word from the DA to go ahead and arrest.

A mother and daughter charged with murder.

Accused of killing a Johnson County couple.

Barbara and Jenelle Potter are charged with first-degree murder of Bill Payne Jr. and Billie Jean Hayworth. I jumped for joy. I think I said, hallelujah, about time.

Authorities claim Jenelle's motive for creating Chris was jealousy. If Jenelle couldn't have Billy Payne, nobody could.

Jenelle had a crush on Bill Payne, and the Chris emails start after Billie Jean Hayworth moves in with Bill Payne and gets pregnant. Chris would talk about The baby, baby Tyler. They would call him that damn baby. That baby needs to die. No one talks that way about an infant other than a woman, perhaps, who is jealous that that's not her infant.

Jenelle was behind bars at the Johnson County Jail in 2015 when she and her attorney sat down for an interview with me about the case. You don't have any responsibility for the murder of Billy Payne and Billie Jean?

I didn't. No.

None?

No.

No, but you hated them.

No, I didn't.

You hated them enough to tell your father that they were really torturing you. And you must have hated them if what you say is true, that they were harassing you time after time again and again.

I didn't really hate them. I just disliked them. I wanted them to quit. I wanted the harassment to stop. I went through a lot with him, but I never wished him dead. I never wanted him dead.

And then I bring up Chris. Chris was you.

No.

You are Chris. You invented him.

No, I didn't.

You didn't?

No.

Just happened to be from your email, happened to know all the most intimate details about you, and it just so happened that the only emails Chris has ever written are exclusively about Janelle.

No, because he was writing to my mom and he was writing to Jamie.

Of course, from your computer with your fingertips. It was from your IP address, from your email address. I don't think we're gonna get into that. She said everything leads back to Chris. Chris apparently created this scenario.

She stated she's not Chris, and that's what she maintains.

I can't do this.

Janelle Potter shuts down in tears and walks out of our interview. Jenelle may deny the authorities' allegations that she is Chris and that she's behind the online threats, but when this case actually does go to trial, you're never gonna believe who shows up. My name is Christopher Jaden. Turns out Chris isn't total fiction.

In the Johnson County community, there was an immense amount of anticipation for this trial. I mean, this was one of the biggest, craziest things that had happened in years. The interest in it never really died down.

The trial of a mother and daughter charged with murder for the 2012 deaths of a Johnson County couple underway right now in Jonesboro.

in Barbara and Jenelle's trial was making the jury understand that all of this drama was being driven by Jenelle. It was about Jenelle, by Jenelle, for Jenelle.

There is nothing in your lives that has prepared you to understand the Potter family.

Investigators realize that there are even more people than they thought caught up in Jenelle's web. Turns out Jenelle does know a real person named Chris.

We were able to get Chris Jaden, the real Chris, to come down to court.

My name is Christopher Jaden.

We determined, well, Chris Jaden was a guy that Jenelle went to high school with.

She was, uh, you know, one of those kids that just very strange.

Ends up he was a police officer in Delaware.

When we asked him directly, do you work for the CIA, and him saying no, I think that that kind of put a face on the faceless CIA threat that Jenelle always had in her back pocket. But Cameron Hyder, who represented Jenelle, tried to present her as not capable of doing something like this.

She is not capable of directing anyone to commit murder.

It's just Jenelle's defense attorney even called an expert to testify about Jenelle's level of intelligence.

Very severely impaired cognitively, is functioning very much like a 8-year-old.

She may be operating on a 4th-grade level, but she's got a PhD in manipulation. You know, even kids can manipulate their parents, and she did it to the hilt.

I always had my parents to go to, and when she had promised school, they went to school and took care of it.

Would you say that she was intelligent?

She was more intelligent than people gave her credit for.

In what way?

Manipulative.

So she wasn't good at schoolwork, but she was good at working people?

Yes.

Especially her parents?

Yes.

It's very difficult for Barbara to discern what is fact and what's fiction.

She has been catfished.

Prosecutors say that despite Barbara being entangled in Jenelle's manipulation, she still bears responsibility for the murders. And prosecutors have found evidence that they say shows that Barbara knew exactly what was going to happen to Billy Payne and Billie Jean Hayworth.

She had emailed herself a link to a Billy Graham article saying, can God forgive a murderer?

Couple weeks before the murders, you had You searched, can God forgive a murderer?

No, I didn't. That's not me. No, I did not. I saw that in court and I said, where did that come from? Why would I do that? I don't want anybody murdered.

Today the state called 6 witnesses to the stand, one of which we've been anticipating all week, Mr. Jamie Curd.

We had worked out a plea deal with Jamie Curd in exchange for his cooperation.

I can't kill I mean, having a gun and being able to use it's 2 different things.

Looking back on it, do you feel like you've been manipulated in any way by the Potter family?

Yes.

If you're wanting the case to be everyone sitting around a table mapping out how they're going to go do the killing, you know, we never had that.

Our belief was that cozying up to Jamie was an effort to get Jamie conditioned to Jamie Curd ultimately pleaded guilty to facilitation of first-degree murder and received 2 concurrent sentences of 25 years.

It's a story of a manufactured conflict born out of the mind of a very bored, lonely 30-year-old woman. One thing that was very telling about Jenelle being involved in the preparation for the killing is the text messaging she does with Jamie up through the morning. She's telling Jamie, leave your cell phone at home.

The messages on there, you know, show Dad's starting the truck and he's on his way.

And then all of a sudden, the text messaging ends. And presumably around 5:00 in the morning, morning, Buddy picks up Jamie and they drive over there.

So that to me linked her knowing exactly what was going to happen.

Where's the evidence? Easy to say, hard to prove.

This was an act of an overprotective father who went way too far. My client is not culpable. Marvin is behind bars and is fully culpable for these homicides, as is Jamie Curd. This may have been more than what Barbara or Jenelle intended, but that doesn't change what they did. That doesn't change how they manipulated Buddy Potter and Jamie Curd into taking this drastic, horrible action.

The evidence in this case has been compelling.

It is now my duty to instruct you as to the law.

It was up to a jury to decide whether this duo, Jenelle Potter and Barbara Potter, were capable of plotting a double murder.

Now the jury must deliberate the Potter women's fate.

The families of the victims were in court today.

It was just like you're sitting there on pins and needles.

And now family loyalties begin to fray.

I'm not going to cover anybody else.

You wouldn't take a hit for your daughter?

Less than 24 hours after closing arguments, the jury delivers a verdict in Barbara and Jenelle's double murder trial.

The families of the victims were in court today.

It was just like you're sitting there on pins and needles.

It's been physically and emotionally exhausting.

You were placed free on bond. the jury in, please.

We the jury find the defendant Janelle Potter guilty of first-degree murder.

Barbara Mae Potter guilty of first-degree murder. Barbara and Janelle were both found guilty of 2 counts of first-degree murder and 2 counts of conspiracy to commit first-degree murder.

Barbara was also convicted of It's a relief that the people most responsible are going to be held accountable.

I mean, it was hard. We have justice. This part's over, but it will never be over. I think about it every day.

I know me. God knows me.

Did you ever want Billie Jean and Bill Payne to die?

No, never.

You didn't even want them dead?

No.

It seems to me that you were You are either completely innocent and blameless in this, or you are an exquisite liar.

Oh, wow. Well, what do you believe?

The victims' families have the last word at a sentencing hearing, with Billy Payne's mother addressing the Potters directly.

Barbara, you want to know if you're going to hell? Yeah, you're going to hell. And if I have to forgive any of you, Stay out of hell.

I'll see you there. Janell Potter, the court hereby sentences you to a term of imprisonment for life. Barbara Potter, the court hereby sentences you to imprisonment for life. Barbara Potter's post-conviction attorney was able to latch on to a conflict of interest that her trial counsel had by representing both Barbara Potter and her husband.

So she gets a new trial.

It starts back from square one.

Rather than go through all of that, she had requested to enter into a plea agreement.

I have a clean conscience about having a part of this, but I'm a part of it because I've been pulled into it.

You wouldn't take a hit for your daughter?

I love her, but I'm not going to serve life for her.

No.

So years after After our conversation where Barbara insisted she was innocent, she finally admits guilt.

I plead guilty, Your Honor.

Barbara pleads guilty to facilitation of first-degree murder.

Her original sentence was life without parole. This plea agreement changes that, making her eligible for parole.

Jenelle and Buddy Potter also filed for appeal, but they were denied. This is a story that has shaken that little mountain town for over a decade now, and what remains etched in everyone's minds is the memories of the victims, Billy Payne and Billie Jean, and their infant son Tyler.

It's the little boy. Just thinking about him just breaks my heart.

You're lucky in life to meet people who I think touch everybody they come in contact with.

And above all, the couple loved their son Tyler. After the murders, he was taken in by his maternal grandmother. He's now 12 years old.

Meanwhile, Janelle's secret boyfriend and co-defendant Jamie Curd has now been released from prison on parole. He declined to be interviewed. That is our program for tonight.

I'm David And I'm Deborah Roberts. From all of us here at 20/20 and ABC News, good night.

In 2010, a family of 4 in California goes missing. Investigators spend years looking for answers. Is this a family on the run, or is the truth far more sinister? From ABC Audio and 20/20, this is What Happened to the McStays? Follow What Happened to the McStays for weekly episodes wherever you get your podcasts. Or if you can't wait, the entire series is streaming now ad-free for subscribers to 2020 True Crime Plus. Find 2020 True Crime Plus on Apple Podcasts to start your free trial today.