Nearly 14 years have passed without answers since the body of an Arkansas college student was found at the bottom of a 35-foot highway embankment. Investigator Catherine Townsend hopes to change that.
Previously a writer based in New York, Los Angeles and London and now a licensed private investigator, Townsend said her ties to Arkansas drew her to Rebekah Gould's case. Townsend grew up in Pine Bluff, and her sister went to high school with Gould's younger sister in Mountain View.
"From everything we've heard, [Rebekah] was just an amazing person," Townsend said. "It's time to get this solved."
Townsend said she has been talking to people involved in the case — Gould's family, her friends and people rumored to be involved.
"A lot of people have been coming forward," she said.
Gould, 22, was a student at Northwest Arkansas Community College in Bentonville. She was reported missing by her mother in September 2004 and found dead off Arkansas 9 a week after she was last seen at a convenience store in Melbourne.
"All of our leads indicate that foul play is suspected," Arkansas State Police spokesman Bill Sadler told the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette at the time. "This was not just a case of Rebekah wandering off or getting into a friend's car and leaving."
Townsend said she and a team are working on a documentary podcast called Hell and Gone about the case, set to be released this summer through the HowStuffWorks network.