The Suspicious Death of Randy Hicks

Welcome to Secrets True Crime, The Eric Cates & Gypsy Story.  I am your host, Amber Sitton.  What is done in darkness will eventually come to light.  That is the purpose of this podcast...to shine light on the story of Eric Cates, his beloved dog, Gypsy and the town of Empire, AL.  Listener discretion is advised.  The subject matter may involve violence, sexual content, murder and adult themes.  It’s not suitable for younger listeners.  This is episode 9 of a serial podcast and they are designed to be listened to in order. 

Mysterious and suspicious deaths are nothing new in Walker County, Alabama.  These types of deaths and the rumors that surround them seem to be part of the fabric that is Walker County.  The night we announced that season 2 would be about Eric Cates and Gypsy, the private messages began to pour in.  We were told about so many suspicious deaths in such a short amount of time, it quickly became overwhelming.  We heard about a law enforcement officer under investigation by the FBI who committed suicide by shooting himself in the head.  Twice, all while driving down the road to meet his son.  We heard from parents whose children’s deaths had been ruled overdoses.  One of those parents sent me photos of what were clearly ligature marks around her son’s neck but she was denied an autopsy.  Others contacted us and told us about their children being murdered.  There were witnesses but their child’s death was ruled suicide despite the witnesses.  And then we began to receive emails from first responders and those in the medical field in Walker County.  They described seeing deaths with very suspicious circumstances that were ruled to be suicides with no investigation. Have we investigated all these cases enough to know one way or another?  No. It would take a huge team of investigators to look into the cases of all the people we’ve been contacted about in Walker County.  But I can tell you this.  There is a tremendous amount of smoke for there not to be a fire somewhere.  

Unfortunately, Randy Hicks’ name has joined that long list of names.  His death was ruled accidental but you’ll be hard pressed to find someone who knows anything about Randy’s death that believes it was an accident.  Randy’s name came up quickly and repeatedly in Eric and Gypsy’s murder.  After Tobbie spoke with Randy at the Blue Store that day, she was certain Randy knew what happened to her son but she and Wayne also felt he wasn’t the primary person responsible.  We have spoken to many people who called Randy a friend or family.  None of them were willing to be recorded for the podcast and most of them didn’t want their names to be used.  Not a single one of them told us that they didn’t think Randy was involved.  In fact, numerous people close to Randy told us Randy was never the same after Eric & Gypsy’s murder.  They all described a major change in him.  

People have told us Randy was fun, a good guy, loyal friend, and someone who loved his family but like so many others, he struggled with addiction.  Our investigation leaves us with no doubt that Randy was present when Eric & Gypsy were murdered and we know Randy struggled with whatever his role was that night.  Tobbie told me that she and Wayne always 

felt that Randy was going to tell them the truth but before he could, he was arrested and sent to the Walker County Jail.

Tobbie: (48:19)

he was arrested in 2016 if I'm not mistaken, failure to appear. And it was some time in June and he was in there for several weeks.  From my understanding from people who were incarcerated at the time with him, he had to asked to talk to the sheriff, to talk to the lead investigator on Eric's case. 

Tobbie: (48:53)

From my understanding, this went on for a few days. Finally, a jailer who no longer works there asks Randy why you wanted to talk to Chuck and he said I've got some things I need to tell him. I need to turn state's evidence. Now after weeks of being in jail on a failure to appear, he is released on his own signature that afternoon. He does not talk to the sheriff. He does not talk to Chuck Tidwell. He gets out of jail. He goes to a house in Empire. Supposedly three men go in the woods, 2 men come out. 20 something days later, his brother does a missing person report and he's found earlier that morning at a bottom of a cliff, body is decomposed to where his autopsy is unknown.

Tobbie: (50:05)

He slipped or he fell off of the cliff. 

Amber

Do you know the jailers name? 

Tobbie

No. 

Amber

You just know he's no longer there? 

Tobbie

Yes. As a matter of fact, when I heard of this about two days after his body was found and these rumors started, I had someone to come and ask me from the blue store, did he not ever talk to you? And I said No. And they said he was going to tell what happened. And so when I went to the sheriff's office and I wanted to speak to the jailer that was there, I was told that he no longer worked there. Dayron Bridges told me that.

Tobbie told us this story about Randy the very first day we met her and she asked us to look into Randy’s death alongside Eric’s and we agreed.  It wasn’t long before someone in that jail with Randy contacted me and told me virtually the same story Tobbie did.  Randy wanted to tell law enforcement what happened to Eric.  He asked repeatedly to talk to investigators and even the sheriff but no one ever came to talk to him.  This person also told me Randy was afraid and said they were going to kill him for talking.  He begged the person to not let them get away with it. While this person told me through tears how guilty he feels for not standing up for Randy since his death, he told me he can’t because they will just kill him too.

The story of what happened to Randy after he was released from jail is pretty consistent among the many people I’ve spoken with.  He got out of jail around July 1, 2016.  On July 3rd, 2016, Randy called a woman named Anna and wanted to hang out.  She was at a well known home in the Coon Creek area of east walker county.  It was owned by a man we will call Julian.  Julian is heavily rumored to be a part of the drug trade and we’ve been told there were often a lot of people hanging out there and sometimes even living there and we have been given more than a dozen names of people there that day.  Randy didn’t have a car but he found someone to give him a ride to Julian’s that day.  Shortly after he arrived, Randy wanted to get in the hottub with Anna.  He didn’t bring a swimsuit but there was an extra one at Julian’s.  Randy went inside the home and changed.  We have been told by someone who says they were there that Randy left his clothes, shoes, keys and phone in a back room inside the home.  We’ve also been told that Randy had an 8 ball of meth.  He spent the day and much of the night hanging out in the hottub with friends talking about what he wanted to do for his birthday which was the next day, the 4th of July. Someone told us that Randy and Anna were still in or by the hottub in the early morning hours between 2-4 AM when the police pulled into Julian’s driveway.  The most commonly told story is that they were there looking for a stolen car.  The hottub was located behind the house so Randy and Anna were out of sight of the police officers.  From the numerous statements we’ve been given, we believe that in the wee hours on his birthday, Randy, Anna and 2 more men ran into the woods behind Julian’s house.  We’ll call one of those men Andy.  We believe Andy entered the woods in the same vicinity as Randy and Anna.  The 4th man did enter the woods but he entered at a different location that was a good distance away.  The woman we’ve referred to as Patty in prior episodes gave Anna a pair of flip flops to wear but they broke as she ran.  Anna was barefoot and wearing a swimsuit as they ran into the woods.  To begin with, they ran through the woods sideways headed towards a neighbor’s home.  When they came out in the neighbor’s yard, they turned and headed into the woods behind the home.  The land slopes downwards into a holler.  We have been told that shortly after reaching the holler, Anna and Randy became separated.  It was dark and everyone was trying to be quiet so the police wouldn’t find them.  We don’t know how long each of the other 3 people hid in the woods but the statements we’ve been given indicate they each exited the woods at a time they felt it was safe that the police were gone.  I’ve been told that Anna came out of the woods after the sun came up that morning, possibly around 7 AM.  Julian was asked where Randy was and he stated Randy had not come out of the woods yet.  

But did Randy ever even run into the woods?  We can’t say if he did or didn’t but there are many who believe he didn’t.  They claim Randy was set up that day.  He was lured to the location by those with connections to Eric’s murder.  They wanted to silence him because he was a weak link.  He couldn’t live with the secret of Eric’s murder and he had already attempted to confess to law enforecement.  They claim Randy was given a hot shot to kill him and then carried into those woods and propped up against that tree.  A hot shot is a dose of drug that has been contaminated with a toxic substance that is intended to kill the recipient.  Hot shots are said to be an issue in Walker County these days.  In 2018, another Empire man was given a hotshot in a crazy series of events that took place over many hours.  His friends took him to his grandmother’s home and left him in his truck in the yard.  He was unconscious and very close to death when he arrived at the hospital.  He was not expected to live but he did make a miraculous recovery.  A family member told us that the blood tests the hospital did on him found he had over 30 chemicals in his system.  According to the man’s family, no investigation was ever done into what happened to him.

Randy was missing for 20 days.  To my knowledge, no one ever made a missing persons report with the Walker County Sheriff’s Office and there were no searches.  A family member of Julian’s who lived right there where everything happened told me that they never knew Randy was missing.  Family and friends organized a search party on July 23rd, 2016.  They told me they went to Julian’s house because they’d heard about Randy running into the woods.  Numerous people told me Julian pointed them to the woods.  They said he gave specific directions of where they should enter the woods and how far they should go into the woods to find Randy.  I have spoken with Julian.  He denied giving Randy’s family directions that led them straight to him.  He said he was simply giving them directions on how to access the woods in an area that wasn’t overgrown.  He told me he walked with them to his neighbors’ house to ask the neighbor for permission for them to enter the woods on their property.  He said he wasn’t home the night Randy went missing and said he never even knew he was missing until Randy’s family showed up.

The search party followed the directions they were given and Randy’s brother, Greg located Randy’s remains in less than 30 minutes.  We have been told that Randy was in a sitting position, leaned up against a tree.  Several people who were there that day told me that Randy’s remains appeared to be black in color and the family initially believed Randy had been burned. They said investigators with the WCSO were on the scene just minutes after Randy was found.  They named the investigators there as Chuck Tidwell and Tim Thomas. 

Randy’s body was sent to Alabama Department of Forensics for an autopsy and in the meantime, the Walker County Sheriff’s Office treated the case as a death investigation.  After the autopsy was received, Randy’s death was ruled accidental and his case was closed.  During our very first meeting with Sheriff Nick Smith, we asked about Randy’s death.

Amber: (15:44)

Has there ever been a determination on Randy Hicks death?

Nick: (15:49)

I haven't heard a determination on that.

Amber

So it hasn’t been ruled accidental?

Nick

Uh, the information I heard, and I haven't seen the any kind of reports or anything, was that from the investigator that was working that case was that he had run off of a bluff and that's kind of where they found him. They believed he might've been running from law enforcement and you know, just fell off the bluff and they found him however long it was later.

Michael

The stories we've been told is he, I guess he was picked up on an FTA and was it in the jail for a week or two, maybe longer.  And after sitting there for a while, he started asking to talk to the investigator on Eric's case. And when he didn't get any satisfaction there, he started asking to see the sheriff and eventually he was asked why and he told someone in the jail why.  And the next day, these are my words, understanding how the process works….Was it was the same day?

Amber: (17:01)

the same day 

Michael

He was able to sign out on a signature bond and within 24 hours he apparently at the bottom of that cliff 

Nick (17:12)

yeah. I don't know anything about that particular process because of course obviously I wasn't here. Um, but, but yeah, he was at the bottom of, of the cliff is what I've heard.

As we left this meeting with Sheriff Nick Smith, I checked my phone and found that Tobbie had made arrangements for us to visit the location where Randy’s body was found.  We headed to the Coon Creek area which is located right next to Empire.  When we arrived, Tobbie had a first responder waiting on us.  This person is one of the ones who responded to the scene on the day Randy’s body was found.

First Responder: (00:20)

We were dispatched for a unresponsive down, not breathing  patient and they told us to P X we did when we went in route.  They said that he's been down there a couple days. He’s deceased. We just need to go there and help locate the body. Well we did.  We had a pretty fast response time, showed up, got here and there was two to three responders that was already in the woods before I showed up. And as I walked down into the woods, I was stopped. They said you don't need to go down there. It's horrible. 

Amber

A deputy?

First Responder

No, it wasn't.  It was one of our people. So he stopped as everybody come out of the woods cause it looked fishy.  It looked strange and we didn't want to trample no evidence.  If there was something there, they could find it. Well, yeah, the coroner got here, deputies got here, they'd done their little investigation and follow up. Five minutes, five, 10 minute tops. And there like it's a natural, it’s natural causes.

First Responder: (02:44)

And the way the corner had described it was, it’s like he just sat down and just laid back cause his legs. It's like you’re laying on the ground and bring your legs up, your knees in the air, his legs were fixed in that position. So he still had half his clothing was on.  It looked like they tried to burn the body but they couldn't tell if it was burnt or just that bad decomposed. 

Tobbie: (03:50)

They said there's a Zipline right behind this trailer.  It gives them a good escape. They can run out the back and zip down and they can be down and gone. 

Amber

That's crazy. 

First Responder

Very.  Very crazy.

Tobbie

But the zip line is here.  I walked down.  The cliff is here. It's somewhere right in here. You have to walk a little piece. I mean if y'all wanted to go and walk it and look at it. I did not go down to where they said they found the body. Its supposed to be a little cliff at 50 feet. 40 to 50 feet. 

First Responder (04:24)

They said it was about 50 feet. 

Tobbie: (04:26)

He said you can walk down there and you can walk around and go down

First Responder: (04:44)

There’s trails you can walk and I mean it's animal trails. I mean it's well beaten. There is no briars or anything.   You can go straight into where the cliff is.  We were probably about 20 yards from the cliff. you can tell where the cliff is and see it falls. So, but it was in that area. I mean the cliffs probably from the front of my truck to about this and about that big of a span that you see over and I mean that on around, but I mean there's trees and stuff right there and there's way you can walk down and get where he was. And that's what I'm saying. It took about 20 minutes for a coroner to get down in there, get all bone fragments and everything into the bag and then up the side of it. 

Tobbie: (05:40)

And Mr. &%$#$%  let us know that, he said his brother, brother came right to him.  Knew exactly where he was. There was another man she didn't know and two women with him. He got out and asked them if he could walk down on her property. She told him he could.  She said he went straight down there. She said it didn't take him 10 minutes. And she said he was already back and was crying. And she said he walked right to him. He knew something before he ever came here.

After speaking with the first responder, Michael and I walked back into the woods so we could see where Randy’s body was found.  It was August in Alabama.  It was humid, hot and the underbrush in the woods was thick and at it’s seasonal peak, just as it would have been that July when Randy was found.  As we walked further into the woods, I was looking for the cliff we’d been told Randy accidentally ran off.  We came to a moderately steep slope that led down to the holler below.  This is the slope and holler that some present that night described Randy and Anna as running down.  This expedition wasn’t preplanned for that day.  I had on white pants and sandals.  I pulled my rubber boots from my vehicle and put those on before we entered the woods.  They are traditional rubber boots.  The sole of the boots have some tread but nothing substantial.  They are loose on my feet and legs so they offer no real support when it comes to climbing steep hills but I had no problem walking all the way down the slope in the boots.  The hillside was covered in trees and dense overgrowth.  I remember thinking that if I slipped, I didn’t have to worry.  I wasn’t going to slide or roll far because the trees and bushes would stop me within a few feet at any given point.  There were some rocks on the hillside too and the forest floor was covered in a deep layer of pine straw and leaves. When we reached the bottom, Michael and I looked around in surprise.  Where was this cliff Randy was found at the bottom of?  There is no cliff.  We were standing in the holler at the bottom of the hill.  We continued to walk around the holler trying to find a cliff that we had somehow overlooked.  We did find one large boulder jutting out of the ground on 1 side.  It’s positioning creates a small drop off, maybe 6 feet.  Michael and I took photos and videos of the area showing the lack of a cliff and started the climb back out of the woods.  Again, I was able to make the climb in my slippery rubber boots with no issue.  

The next morning, I texted the photos and videos of the area to Sheriff Smith.  I expressed our concerns that there wasn’t a cliff there.  To be clear, Randy Hicks’ body was found years before Nick Smith became sheriff and the investigation was closed well before he was elected.  I doubt he’d ever had a reason to look at the file but after what Michael and I saw that afternoon, I asked him to please do so.  I spoke on the phone with him a couple weeks later and I brought Randy up again.  We then had one more meeting with Sheriff Smith and we again voiced our concerns about Randy’s death being determined to be an accidental fall off a non-existent cliff.

Amber: (35:58)

Did you look at that video I sent you about Randy Hicks?

Nick

No I haven’t. 

Amber:

Would you take a look at that file please? Sometime. We went out there and while we were there, the property owner showed us and there was a firemen.  There is no cliff. It's a slope. I mean there's no cliff. There's no way. If that was where he fell, he didn't run off a cliff. I mean if you fell you might roll five feet before a tree stopped.

Nick Smith: (36:35)

Umm hmm.  I'll see what we can do. I mean we can, I'll, I'll pull the file and look. Um, but you know, again, this is one of those things that….

Amber

It was before you time

Nick

well it was before my time, but people really don't understand. Um, and we're getting ready to do a series with, with the mountain Eagle on all the missing people that we have in Walker County. And there's a lot that just don't have attention. There's some that I don't even know about, you know, that I'm not aware of that we haven't really had a chance to sit and dig in because not only with that, you know, we're dealing with current events and it would take me somebody having someone full time. A whole division. I would need to be staffed with a whole division of nothing, but people who just went and investigated cold cases, that's how many that we have. We'll never financially get to there. Um, but you know, my goals are to eventually have one full time dedicated person that does that. Right now we just hired someone part time that's been working here for a couple of weeks that's starting to do that. And my ultimate goal is to convert them into a full time position.

Randy’s family wanted a copy of his autopsy and they told me they made numerous phone calls to the coroner’s and other county governmental offices to request it.  Finally, Walker County Coroner Joey Vick told them he had what they wanted and they could come pick it up from his office.  Randy’s sister in law is the one who met with Coroner Vick.  We were provided the documents she received from him that day.  They’d been described to us as the autopsy.  When we received the documents, we found that it was not the autopsy.  The 1st document was titled Personal Effects Form.  It stated the personal effects that were with the body included 4 bracelets and clothing fragments.  It noted that the clothing fragments were sent to fire debris.  We were confused.  Randy wasn’t in a fire so what fire debris?  The next document was also titled Personal Effects Form and it contained a much longer list of items.  It lists off one pair of underwear, 1 wallet, $154 in cash, 2 state of AL non driver IDs, several credit cards and other prepaid cards, one shoe, one sock, 1 pair of shorts and 1 yellow plastic object.  I have to say I’m frustrated with the lack of description of the items on this form.  This document is an official document in a death investigation.  The shorts are never described on this form. Were they swim trunks?  What color were they?  Were they solid colored or did they have a pattern?  I have no clue what a yellow plastic object could be.  It gives no description of the size or shape of it.  Initially, we didn’t think too much about there being 2 copies of the same form.  The blanks provided on one of the forms were completely filled in so we assumed they used a 2nd form to continue listing the items found with Randy’s body.  Then we began to examine the 3rd form provided to Randy’s family.  It is titled Evidence Receipt of Body.  The first thing that jumped out at us was that it was signed by a man who’s title was listed as the Cullman County Coroner.  Why in the world would the Cullman County Coroner be responsible for signing documents for a body recovered in Walker County?  This caused us to intensely scrutinize the 3 documents and it was discovered that there were 2 different case numbers on these documents.  The case numbers were off by only 1 digit.  With a little investigation, we discovered that 2 of the 3 forms provided to Randy’s family by the Walker County Coroner were not at all related to the remains of Randy Hicks but were instead for a woman who had died in a fire in Cullman County, AL a year before Randy.  I’m still not sure how this happened but we couldn’t help but wonder if the autopsy received by the coroner and law enforcement was Randy’s autopsy or this woman from Cullman.  Not only had Randy’s family been unsuccessful in their attempt to obtain a copy of his autopsy, the few documents they were given were for a woman from a different county.  Why weren’t they given a copy of Randy’s autopsy?  The code of Alabama states that autopsies are public record meaning ANYONE is entitled to a copy.  The exception to that is if there is an open criminal investigation but Randy’s death was ruled an accident.  Other neighboring counties even provide families with 1 copy of the autopsy free of charge.  Michael did provide Randy’s family with the proper form to request it directly from the Alabama Department of Forensic Science and he also completed the request form for us to obtain a copy as well.  Randy’s family isn’t the only family that’s contacted us to describe the difficulties they are having obtaining a copy of autopsies.  Since we began season 2 about Eric Cates & Gypsy, we’ve received numerous private messages from families that are upset because they say they are being denied copies of their loved ones autopsies.  Many of these deaths were ruled to be accidents and suicides.  I don’t understand this.  There should be no difficulty.  I’m going to say it again, these families are ENTITLED to obtain a copy by Alabama law.

Michael sent in our request for the autopsy in mid December.  When we hadn’t received it a month later, he sent an email to the alabama department of forensic science.  He promptly received an email response that read in part “We received your certified request on Randy Hicks on 12/18/19 and sent out a District Attorney Release letter to make sure that it is public record.  We have not heard back from their office.  I will be sending out another letter to them.  Once they respond, we will quickly process your certified request.”  Michael called the District Attorney Bill Adairs office that day and left a message for the person in charge of autopsies to call him.  He never heard back from them but he did receive the autopsy 1 week later.  Here are some of the key pieces of it.

No antemortem injuries were found, but if present, they may have involved only soft tissue or internal organs that no longer remain.  Therefore, the cause and manner of death are undetermined.

No suitable specimens could be obtained for toxicology testing.

An adult human skeleton is received wearing clothing that includes shorts, a white sock and right high top FUBU black and white shoe.  Entangled within the bones is a pair of underwear.  Zippered into the shorts pocket is a fabric wallet containing two fifty dollar bills, 2 twenty dollar bills, 1 ten dollar bill, 4 one dollar bills, 2 nondriver Alabama ID cards, 1 department of corrections inmate ID card, one Medicaid card, 2 EBT cards, one Walmart card, one MasterCard, 2 Green Dot Visa cards, one PayPal MasterCard and miscellaneous papers and photographs.

The skull was intact but the mandible was not received.

The hyoid bone is not received.

His chest area was noted as fully intact, meaning all the bones were received including all of his ribs.  It states there were no fractures on the ribs.

No internal organs, soft tissue or skin remained.

There are many of the bones in his extremities that were not received.

Randy’s remains were almost entirely skeletal and had evidence of animal scavenging including disarticulation and missing bones and organs.  This appears consistent with 3-4 weeks of decomposition in the open during hot and humid weather, though information from the scene where he was found would be beneficial in that regard such as his body position, soil discoloration and invertebrate presence.   The advanced decay and lack of organs meant toxicology testing could not be performed, so we don’t know anything about drugs or other substances that may have been in his system.  The remains are missing skin and internal organs, the lower jaw, eyes, ears, entire left arm and the lower portion of the right arm and hand, most of the left ankle and foot, and at least 4 vertebrae.  The pelvis was disarticulated, so it is likely that some or all of the missing vertebrae were lumbar, although the missing hyoid bone, which sits between the lower jaw and the 3rd cervical vertebrae, may indicate the skull was at least partially disarticulated, possibly due to animal activity.  The presence and positioning of remains with clothing indicates he was wearing the clothing prior to decomposition and animal activity.  The shorts were noted to have a zippered pocket and the zipper was apparent on the xray taken by forensics.

The autopsy doesn’t reveal any signs of trauma.  There were no skull fractures, no cracked or broken ribs and no other broken bones that were found.  We don’t see anything in the autopsy that would lead us to think that Randy died from falling off a cliff especially when you consider there is no cliff and Anna and Randy supposedly didn’t become separated until they’d reached the holler at the bottom of the steep slope.

There are several other things that don’t quite make sense.  Randy arrived at Julian’s that day with the clothes he was wearing.  There is no indication he had any extra clothing.  He wanted to get in the hot tub so he borrowed swim trunks.  The shorts he was found in could be the swim trunks he borrowed.  Since we don’t have any additional detail on the shorts he was found in, we don’t have enough information to know for sure but we do know he was also wearing underwear.  Would Randy have left on the only pair of underwear he had with him underneath the borrowed swim trunks?  When he went to change back into his clothes, the underwear would’ve been wet.  The next question is how did Randy get his shoes and socks on so quickly?  They were supposed to have been left inside Julian’s house and he was running from the police.  Are we to believe that he took the time and risk to go back inside to put on shoes and socks before running?  That factor just doesn’t make sense.  Also, his wallet, phone and keys were left inside Julian’s that day too but he was found with his wallet and keys as well as other items inside the pocket of his shorts.  But what happened to his phone?  If we are to believe he went inside to get on socks, shoes, his wallet and keys, why would he have left behind his phone?  His family members described calling Randy’s phone and said that one time it was answered by a woman.  Family members told us they provided this information to law enforcement.  They asked them if they could ping or track down his phone to determine who had it in their possession but they felt their requests were ignored.  Someone else told me they called Randy’s phone during the time he was missing and they said it was answered by Patty.  They know Patty well and while she didn’t have a conversation with them, she didn’t disconnect the call and they could hear her speaking to someone else in the background of the call.  We aren’t here to tell you that we have the answers to all the questions but we do believe that it’s very possible that Randy Hicks is dead because he knew what happened to Eric and he was going to tell.  There is no doubt there were people present that night that are connected to Eric’s murder.  We hope that law enforcement will do the right thing and investigate Randy’s suspicious death.  Not only could it be related to the murder of Eric & Gypsy but Randy has family, friends and children that need answers too.

If you have any information that could help in solving the murders of Eric and Gypsy or the mysterious death of Randy Hicks, please call the Walker County Sheriff’s Office at 205-522-6112.  You may also email me at secretstruecrime@gmail.com or call our confidential tip line at 205-282-0740.   If you are left still wanting even more content, please check us out on Patreon.  We have it filled with great information about Susan and Evan and Eric and Gypsy. Our next zoom call for Patreon is scheduled for December 10th.  This podcast is an independent podcast.  That means that everything that goes into making this podcast is done and funded by me.  All of the investigative tools and resources are provided by Echo 7 Foxtrot. The tragedies we highlight and investigate have had a tremendous impact on the victims' loved ones and friends. We don't burden them with additional expenses to cover their cases--we donate our time and talents because we want to help and hope to find the answers they need that are long overdue. For as little as $5 per month, you can receive exclusive access to members only photos, videos, early access to episodes and much, much more.  By becoming a patron, you too are helping us help these families. Your support as a patron of Secrets True Crime Podcast helps us cover the expenses associated with producing a high quality podcast, traveling to conduct fieldwork and interviews, and obtaining the tools and equipment needed to conduct a thorough investigation. In short, your support as a patron allows us to do MORE for these families. Become a patron of Secrets True Crime Podcast today and let’s solve these cases TOGETHER.  www.patreon.com/secretscrime.  I’ll also post the link on our Facebook page.  If you are enjoying this podcast, be sure to follow or subscribe in your podcast player of choice and by giving us a 5-star rating and review in Apple Podcasts.   I’m active on social media and often share photos of Eric and Gypsy.  Follow Secrets True Crime on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.  @secretscrime.  This audio production for this podcast is by Kane Power at precisionpodcasting.com.