In a county where everyone seems to know everyone else, rumors about Billie Jean Phillips' killer have simmered for nine years. Madison County residents hope those rumors will crystallize into truth this week when Clint Phillips' capital murder trial begins in Circuit Court in Huntsville.
But first, prosecutors and defense attorneys have to find 13 people to decide what's true - people who haven't made up their mind already.
Huntsville Mayor Larry Bates said finding an impartial jury would be difficult, since everyone in Madison County seems to know either the victim's family or the defendant's family or both.
"I wouldn't want to be on the jury. A lot of people have already formed an opinion based on what they've read in the papers," he said.
Ever since Billie Jean Phillips was bludgeoned and strangled to death inside her rural Alabam home in 1994, residents of the close-knit county have kept up with the investigation, struggling to understand how one of their own could be capable of the brutal killing.
One suspect was Phillips' longtime married lover, Howard "Rusty" Cain Jr., who at the time was a deputy prosecuting attorney.
But Prosecuting Attorney Terry Jones said many people believe more than one person was involved in Phillips' death.
"Every public official in the county has been mentioned as either knowing something about it or being in some conspiracy to hide it," he said.
Jones charged Clint Phillips, 27, with first-degree murder in November, after his DNA was matched to skin tissue found under Billie Jean Phillips' fingernails. The charge was upgraded to capital murder last month.
Clint Phillips and Billie Jean Phillips were not related.
Some cars in Huntsville still have bumper stickers asking "Who murdered Billie Phillips?" For eight years, a billboard standing outside Billie Jean Phillips' former convenience store asked the same question.
The victim's family also stood outside Wal-Mart and had petitions signed that kept the investigation aloft. In addition to the police investigation, the victim's family and Cain each hired private investigators. The prosecution even used satellite photos to try to locate suspects' vehicles the night of the killing, Jones said.
"We've gone to extraordinary measures to find the perpetrator," Jones said. "And that's kept everything frothing, because hundreds of people have been interviewed."
In a county that he says is more like a community, Jones thinks an impartial jury will be hard to find.
Deputy Circuit Clerk Stephanie Kammerzell said that, during the nine years police searched for a suspect, perhaps there were newcomers in the county who were unfamiliar with the case.
But the jury pool in Madison County actually is shrinking. According to the U.S. Census, from 2001 to 2002, 34 people left the county, which has a population of 14,345. Huntsville's population fell by 12 during that time to 1,930.
At the time of Clint Phillips' arrest, his Springdale attorney, Joel Huggins, said he would request a change of venue for the trial. He told the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette in November that Clint Phillips couldn't get a fair trial in Madison County.
Then the prosecution thought its chances were better if the trial were moved. Jones filed a motion in January requesting a venue change to Washington County.
In the motion, he said "most adult citizens in Madison County harbor a theory about who murdered the victim and why the victim was murdered."
The case was "subject to more media attention than any... in the county's history" and it would be "extremely difficult and time consuming to pick a truly impartial jury in this atmosphere," Jones wrote.
But by then, Huggins had decided to resist the venue change.
"He was charged in that county, and he's entitled to have citizens of that county determine his innocence," Huggins said Wednesday.
Madison County Sheriff Phillip Morgan said Huggins' motives were more obvious.
"He didn't want it moved because a lot of people still think it was Rusty [Cain]," he said.
Huggins admits that the shifting rumor winds suit his purposes.
"There are so many opinions as to who killed Billie Phillips, that I think that is good evidence, in and of itself, of a reasonable doubt," he said.
Circuit Judge William Storey denied Jones' motion, citing state law that only allows defendants to seek venue changes.
JURY SELECTION
Storey said it was the most publicized trial in his 15 years as a trial judge.
"Of course, along with that [publicity], it creates problems with jury selection. But I'm confident we can find 13 fair and impartial people who can decide the case simply based on the facts," he said.
Storey will not sequester the jury in a hotel for the trial that begins Tuesday, but will instruct them, each night, to avoid discussion and media accounts of the case.
Two weeks ago, Storey sat down with Jones, Huggins and Clint Phillips to examine the results of questionnaires that had been mailed to 300 prospective jurors.
The questionnaires asked if jurors had heard of or met certain witnesses, or if the jurors knew members of witnesses' families. It also asked jurors if they had formed an opinion about the case after reading newspaper articles.
Based on the results, Jones and Huggins threw 180 people out of the jury pool.
"The ones that we got rid of were holding strong opinions one way or another," Jones said. "The sheer number makes me worry that we'll have a difficulty getting someone truly impartial on the jury."
After a random drawing, 100 of the remaining 120 were told to report to the courtroom Tuesday morning, where the selection will be whittled to 13. Potential jurors will sit in the front of the courtroom because of its notoriously bad acoustics, Storey said. The courtroom seats about 200. Other than that, there will be no reserved seating, Storey said.
"It's going to be chaos. We're going to be so full," Circuit Clerk Phyllis Villines said.
COURTROOM SECURITY
Morgan said he would ask Arkansas State Police and the Washington County sheriff's office to assist the four deputies he'll assign from his own staff of seven.
"I'd say I'll need probably four or five extra hands, because I'm shorthanded as always," he said.
He said he would post the troopers and deputies both inside the courtroom and at the court's four entrances. He will lock a basement entrance.
At the courtroom's entrance, deputies will search the public with metal-detecting wands, he said.
Ensuring Clint Phillips' safety is his priority, Morgan said.
"I'm not afraid of him running off, I'm afraid of what might happen to him from the outside," he said.
IDLE GOSSIP
While the courthouse and sheriff 's office were hives of preparatory activity, news of the trial hadn't spread too much outside its door.
"To me, it's been unusually quiet," Morgan said.
A waitress at the Crossbow Restaurant, a haunt for oldtimers and coffee drinkers, said that talk about the trial came up only every now and then.
Rick Puryear, who was standing in the empty barber shop he operates on the town square, said his customers hadn't been gossiping lately.
"There was more interest when the arrest was made," he said.
Puryear understands the reluctance of many county residents to talk about their opinions publicly.
"This is a small community. They don't want to step on somebody else's toes," he said.