Ep 50 | William Dyer Part 1 Transcript
Ep 50 | William Dyer Part 1 Transcript
Before we begin this podcast, please be advised that the following episode contains language that some listeners may find offensive and inappropriate. The opinions expressed by the host and guests are their own and do not reflect the views of the podcast producers. Listener discretion is advised.
I think what we're about to get into, it's going to be difficult to hear, but you're going to be basically telling me what you did as a child. It was a nightmare. My case is extremely stupid, but stupid hurts. Dude, I can't f***ing imagine you being out on the streets, I'm gonna be honest with you. The crazy thing about this is it seems like everybody involved from the perpetrators to the victims are all children.
I moved out here to the Midwest and all of a sudden I felt like an outsider. Whenever you shot him in the head, was he, did he look back up at you as you put the gun there? Once I pulled that trigger, I felt like there was no turning back.
You are now listening to the podcast Voices of a Killer. I'm bringing you the stories from the perspective of the people that have taken the life of another human and their current situation thereafter in prison. You will see that, although these are the folks that we have been programmed to hate, they all have something in common.
They are all humans like us that admit that they made a mistake. Will you forgive them, or will you condemn them? They are currently serving time for their murders, and they give us an inside glimpse of what took place when they killed, and their feelings on the matter now. Here are the voices of those who have killed.
One rainy evening in 1977, Camden County Police entered a lake cabin in the Ozarks, where they found what can only be described as a bloodbath. Four young children lay slaughtered inside their family home, stabbed, shot, and beaten in various ways, and strewn across the house. But while police initially profiled the culprit as a young adult man, little did they know that the real killer, who lived a few doors down, was only a 14-year-old boy named Billy Dyer.
Today, Billy joins us to revisit the crime that rattled a quiet Ozark community and traumatized a young family as we seek the answer to one question: why did he do it? In this two part episode, Billy gives us his exclusive insight into that night and details what it was that drove him to do it. We'll discuss the long-lasting repercussions of Billy's crime and the complex ethics of charging a juvenile for a crime like Billy's.
This story will be difficult to listen to and even harder to begin to understand. So listen closely as we hear Billy's recollection of this crime in this episode of Voices of a Killer. So Billy, I read that you're from Missouri. Were you born and raised in the Ozarks? No, I'm from Connecticut.
Connecticut. Okay. Yeah, I actually moved to Missouri four months prior. Oh, so what, uh, what was your family life like in Connecticut? What'd you do there as a child? I mean, I was a kid, of course. So, my folks ended up divorcing. Oh. Um, they split up, but we ended up moving for a short time to New Jersey. How old were you whenever they split?
13. Why did they do a divorce? They should have got divorced many years before. The marriage was ended. Yeah, it was just an unhappy marriage. Very unhappy marriage. And usually this part of my podcast, I kind of, uh, skim over the childhood. But you were a child, a really young child when your crime happened.
So when they got a divorce, did you see a lot of fighting and stuff in your household? Of course, yeah. Lots of it, yeah. What? Yeah, you got two people that, two, two bitter people, just constant arguing. They never slept in the same room, of course, my parents didn't. Well, hell, they got to where they worked different jobs at different hours, just so they didn't have to be around each other.
And my dad was an alcoholic. What kind of drunk was he? Well, he was, he was, okay, he was a beer drinker. He wasn't a hard liquor drinker, but what he would do is he would come home at the end of the day, and he would be on call. He was a heating and air conditioning guy. So, of course, he was on call all through the night.
They could call him and have him go out on a repair. But he'd always start, he'd just start sipping his beer, watching TV, and that's all he did every night. Or sit on the back porch and sip his beer. And he was just bitter. He was just bitter about life. He complained about everything. Did you have siblings?
I have two brothers, both older. Do you have a relationship with them now? Not really, no. Is it in the negative or just neutral or what? No, it's just neutral. They just have their own lives. One of them turned out like my father. He's an alcoholic. The other one, he's married. He's got a family up in Minnesota. So were they older or younger brothers? They were both older than I. Older than you. Yup. How was your relationship as a child with them? Not bad, I mean, of course they were both a couple years older than me. They were closer in age with each other than I was, so they hung out together.
So I was the youngest of the bunch, and I did my, I was always off by myself. Well, I was just gonna say, I have three older brothers, so I kinda know what it's like to have brothers. They ever pick on you or anything? No, not really. No, normal brother stuff. Normal stuff, yeah. Yeah, it was actually, we got a pretty good relationship, for real.
So did your parents ever abuse you or your brothers? Well, my dad was, he wasn't physically abusive. I mean, a couple of times, yeah, but as far as hitting him, but he was very demeaning and very verbal. And he was cruel in other ways. When he would get drunk, he would, he, my dad liked to kill animals. He liked to kill animals?
My dad would get drunk and he would kill the cat. You know what I mean? Or he would kill pets. Just like many occasions or like this one time? No, it happened several times. Yeah, it had happened several times. What did your mom think about that? My mom, of course, I think that was part of the problem.
She thought... She, like I said, that marriage should have ended at least 10 years before it did. But no, she, she was not happy with it. It was, it was, it was bad. In the year 1976, 1 million couples got divorced across the U. S. and Billy Dyer's parents were one of them. At the time, Billy was a regular kid living in Connecticut with his two older brothers.
The youngest in the family, he often felt like the odd one out and kept to himself. A young Billy had to contend with a turbulent family home and a father who was a bitter alcoholic with a cruel streak. From the way Billy talks about his Dad, it's clear that they had a challenging relationship and Billy even recalls his Dad's disturbing habit of killing animals when he fell into a drunken rage.
Eventually, the stormy marriage between Billy's parents collapsed in divorce. By 1976, Billy's mom hopped states to Missouri with a new boyfriend, taking Billy, now 13, with her. This marked a big shift in his life, as Billy, an East Coast kid all his life, traveled 1, 200 miles out west to the picturesque system of lakes at the heart of Missouri, known as the Ozarks.
So, you eventually, because of the divorce I guess, your mother moved to the Ozarks in Missouri? Right, right, what happened is we, after they split up in Connecticut, we moved to New Jersey. We moved in with a friend of my mom, who later became my stepfather. Oh, okay. How was your relationship with him? Very good, actually. He was a good man.
Really? He's passed away now, but he was a very good man. Yeah, he really was. Everything my dad wasn't. Well, it sounds like him coming in your life, it sounds, you kind of perked up a little bit. So, he was a good influence? Yeah. I think it would have been. I think it was too late. Why was it too late? Well, because I didn't last very long.
Within a year I was in jail. Oh, 'cause of this crime? Yeah. Because of this crime. So he was, uh, somebody that you looked up to, I guess. Did he make your mom happy? Yeah, exactly. He treated my mom well. Yeah, he really did. And so was it his idea to move to the Ozarks? Yeah, the reason he wanted to move to the Ozarks is because his parents had moved out here. Because he was from New Jersey, he was from South Jersey.
Yeah. His parents had moved out here several years before, and his father had died in a house fire, so he decided to move out here to be with his mom. Ah, I got you. Where at in the Ozarks? Camdenton. Oh, that's right, Camdenton. That's a pretty area, so you probably as a kid moving out to that area, it's kind of probably a nice place to live really as a kid because of the lake and all that stuff.
How did you take the moving because you're moving away from your real dad and a different state? Okay. How would you take it? I didn't really, not very good. I didn't miss my dad at all for one. No. Me and my dad, I never had any love for my father, so no, I didn't miss my dad. But I'll tell you what, I felt estranged when I moved out here.
Because then I was an East Coast kid. You're growing up on the East Coast, you do things, and I moved out here to the Midwest, and all of a sudden I felt like an outsider. I talked to different people. Yeah, were you kind of bitter about it? I don't know if I was, yeah, I think so. Yeah, I think I was there.
Did people kind of poke at you? No, no, the people didn't do anything to me. That's, that's, that's the thing about this crime. This crime is, it really is a s***ty, s***ty bad crime, because it's senseless. Well, sure. Here's the thing, man. I, I know that, uh, you're probably a completely different person now. I mean, I'm, what we're about to get into, for the listeners out there, you're a, you're a f***ing child, man.
I know, but they don't see that. I know. Here's the deal, man. It was still you that did it. It was the child portion of you. And I, I think what we're about to get into, it's going to be difficult to hear, but you're going to be basically telling me what you did as a child. And I think that 14 years old, man, I don't even, gosh, I feel like... I know everybody and I'm not trying to, in no kind of way, am I trying to say what you did was justified or anything like that. But 14, man, that's like pushing it. But I want to know, and just answer me this, is the victims in your case, what was the relationship you had with them? Were they just friends? Yeah, we were friends and they actually treated me. They actually treated me very well.
Okay. And one of those is Greg and... Yup. He's also got a brother named Steve. And then... Yup, that's true. And then there's two sisters, Tonya and Stacey? In the spring of 1977, Billy and his mom moved into a mobile home in the Ozarks. The trailer, which belonged to the mother of Billy's stepdad, sat right in front of the lake of the Ozarks, on a peninsula 13 miles from Camdenton, that was lined with holiday resorts.
The Ozarks must have been a sudden change of pace for Billy with its laid back lifestyle and rich beauty a far cry from the bustling Connecticut city he'd come from. And as the new kid with a funny accent, Billy found it hard to fit in here with his new peers. Among the few friends that Billy did make were the neighbors who lived two doors down.
A summer Baptist church separated Billy's trailer from the small two bedroom lake cabin in which the Swift family lived. George Swift was a former police officer who had moved from Kansas City with his 19-year-old second wife, Joy. Into this tiny home, they settled with their two youngest kids, Tonya and Stacy, along with two of George's children from a previous marriage, 16-year-old Steve and 12-year-old Greg.
Occasionally, the eldest daughter Stephanie stayed with the Swifts too. The older Swift kids were close in age to Billy, and, before long, he took to hanging out at the cabin. Particularly, he struck up a friendship with Greg, who was enamored with the two pet snakes Billy had, a one eyed king snake and a blue racer.
Billy and Greg would play together and take the school bus together up to Camdenton. Once or twice, Billy stayed the night, and by summer, he had become a frequent fixture of the Swifts' Ozark home. What kind of little boy were you back then, like, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 years old, all that? Ah, I mean, I really, I mean, it's really hard to put a finger on.
Um, I was a loner, I spent a lot of time, I loved the outdoors. I was an animal fanatic, I liked the woods. Did you ever have, like, these episodes where you got extremely angry at, at some other kid at 8, 9, 10 years old? No. Up to the point where, no, not like that. I didn't have those little rage flashes or anything, no.
So around the time that this happened, I'm talking like maybe a month, two before, what was life like about a month or two or a week before this happened? What was life like for you? Okay, I think I was losing touch. You were 14 at the time? Yeah, I'm 14 at the time. How does a 14 year old lose touch? Well, I felt so outside.
And if I thought about this, you know how it is, you think about things over and over for years on end trying to figure out why and all this other stuff. Why did I do this way back when, of course? And to me, this whole thing, it's... I don't know where to begin. I felt out of place out here. I didn't have any friends.
The only one I had for a friend was a 20 year old that lived next door to us. And having a friend was pretty important to you, wasn't it, at 14? Yeah, and you know what? I think it was just as important to him, because I don't think he had any either. The 20 year old? Yeah. Is the 20 year old your accomplice?
Yeah. So this accomplice of yours, what's his name? Ray Richardson. Is he in prison? No, he's dead. Did he end up going to prison? Yeah, he did 5 years, a little over, just under 6 years I think. He's your accomplice, he did 6 years, you're 14 years old and you got what, what was your sentence? Well, I got 2 lifes, he got 2 10 year sentences.
So, what was your relationship like with Ray? Was it, y'all were just kind of mischievous together or what? Yeah, Ray kind of latched on to me when I moved out there, because he didn't have any friends. Yeah. And I didn't realize until years later just how strange that was. Yeah. Does that make sense? But yeah, he didn't have any, but yeah, in retrospect, he was actually looking up to me.
Of course, I didn't realize it at the time. And I'm a dumbass, yeah, I'm just a dumb kid. Sure, at 14. I'm 14. I'm impulsive. Do you feel like you were an impulsive person back then? Yeah, very, extremely, yeah. I think I was very confused and very impulsive, yeah. I think I was looking for attention. Can you think of anything that you can tell me as an example of your impulsiveness?
Oh heck. Oh my God. I mean, I mean, I would do, let's see. The fact that I went down there and, and came up with this whole stupid idea to begin with was, for one. I was acting up in school. I was getting in trouble in school. I was, oh heck. No, I mean, it's really hard to remember I was getting a little trouble, but nothing major. Who was Billy Dyer in 1977?
Even Billy himself battles to pinpoint what had gone wrong in his life at that point. With the benefit of hindsight, Billy has now spent years agonizing over who that 14 year old boy was, trying to analyze his own thoughts and locate any warning signs that might have precipitated his crime. What he can say for certain is that, at 14, Billy had fallen off track in his life.
In the Ozark region, he felt like an outsider and he regularly acted out, desperate for any attention he could get. During this time, Billy had also started up an unusual friendship with 20 year old Ray Richardson. Ray was a loner who lived some two miles north. Despite their six year age gap, Ray and Billy became quick friends, possibly sharing the same challenge of making friends in the area.
Looking back, the Swift parents would remember Billy as a strange boy with some concerning quirks. Once Billy brought over an animal trap and played with it, snapping it shut over and again. And Joy Swift kept a watchful eye on Billy at the time and started to worry that Billy was a bad influence on Greg as the pair broke rules and got up to mischief when they were together.
To outsiders, Billy might look to be just a lonely kid who was struggling to find his feet in a new town and make friends. But nobody could have forewarned the nightmarish plan that had started to formulate in young Billy's mind. So William, you said that you concocted this plan to hurt these people?
Yeah, I did. Did you approach Ray and say, hey, I'd like to do A, B, and C? Yeah. Yep, that's what happened. What was his reaction whenever you said, I want to hurt these people? Okay, it didn't start out like that. Okay, how did it start? The original idea was that we had lived next door to them for a brief period, the victims. And the two boys were friends of mine, I went to school with them. And I knew they had an expensive gun collection in the house because they had showed it to me. Right. And I came up with this idea to steal this gun collection. And I broke it to Ray, and of course Ray said, "Yeah, we'll do that." And deep down inside, I don't think he really believed I was serious.
I think he just agreed to it. What you just explained was theft. Did you explain also in the deal that, hey, we're going to also kill some people? That, see, that changed after a period, after, because we talked about this for about a couple of weeks. So a couple of weeks, y'all are talking about taking guns from him, basically?
Right. And then it was like, well, why don't we just wait until the parents are gone to just go in there and kill everybody and take the guns? Who's the one that first said that? Me. My dumbass. Right. And what was his reaction? Ray's? Again, again, he was like, he was agreeing with me. Yeah. But you know what, he did not believe it.
In his mind, he thought I was just some confused ass, because of what happened later, he just, I think he was just going along with it because he wanted, he needed the money. Once you said that and you didn't get an objection, um, now you kind of got confirmation from the guy that's going to do this with you.
In your head, what were the different types of ways you were going through that you were going to be able to accomplish killing them? Was it all the same way, or did you have different methods that went through your head? Well, Ray had a pistol, but I also knew that they had guns in the house. So I thought I would just go up in and ask to see one of the guns so they would show them to me and then just turn the gun on them.
So William, out of all the ideas, it was mainly going to be the gun situation, some kind of way you were going to shoot them? Yep. Yeah, there was no other methods that y'all thought about? Okay. Well, no, yeah, and I think we also had, we had planned at one point after the fact to drive by the house and fire a flare through the window.
To burn the house or what? To burn the house down, yeah. So, you guys basically came up with the idea, the final idea was to ask them to look at the gun and then turn it on them? Yeah. How did he feel about that idea? Was he just said, yeah, that's, that's fine. Or did he have an opposition to that and wanted to do something different?
Actually, yeah, he pretty much he was like, yeah, that's fine. Okay. Did y'all have a date and time that y'all wanted to do this when the parents were gone? Yeah, we set it up for a Thursday night because that was a bingo night and that way we knew that the parents wouldn't be home.
And how many people were going to be at the house that you had to attend to? Four. And the crazy thing about this is it seems like everybody involved from the perpetrators to the victims are all children. Except for maybe Ray, and I know that 14 years old, the thought process is not exactly keen, but during the process, was there any point in time, just one, where you were like, killing somebody is not, it's not the right thing to do, it's going to hurt people and people's families, did that ever go through your mind?
Do you mean prior to the actual event? Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I'm sure there was. In fact, I had even mentioned it. I didn't even... I think I was wanting people to tell me not to do it because I, I told several people I was going to do it. Including two adults. Wow. Did you feel like whenever you kind of said it, you were being tough.
And then whenever people were not saying, "Don't do it", you were like, "Well, s***. Now I got to do what I said." Was it something like that? Yeah, of course. Absolutely. Yeah. Of course you're going to bat yourself. But kids do stupid things. Who were the two adults you told? My stepbrother, Scott and his girlfriend. How old were they? At that time, Scott was, I want to say, 20.
Remember, Chris, he was 26, I think. So, mid 20s. Mid to late 20s. What was their... Of course. They just think you were 14 year old bulls***ting? That's exactly what they thought. That's exactly what they thought, yep. Wow. In Joy Swift's later account of the fall of 1977, she wrote that Billy had an unhealthy obsession with guns for his age.
After eight years on the police force, her husband, George had built up a substantial gun collection at his home, and this had perhaps stirred some kind of dark fascination within Billy Dyer. George had a .22 long rifle pistol used for target practice, a shotgun for hunting in Kansas, and a few collector's guns, some of which had never been fired.
When the Swift children showed Billy this gun collection, he was hooked. Later, he was found paging through gun catalogs, talking about the gun his stepfather had promised as a birthday gift, and asking where he could buy ammunition. Joyce Swift found Billy's interest in guns unnerving, though it was more sinister than she could have guessed.
Unknown to her, a plan was germinating in Billy's mind. He was going to steal George Swift's gun collection with his friend Ray. But over the weeks that followed, this plan evolved into something much darker. Billy planned to wait until the Swift parents were out of the house at Thursday night, bingo.
Then he would take the guns and kill the children. The motive behind Billy's plan is unclear. It sounds like he wanted to experience the thrill of bloodshed and the power of wielding a gun. And the curious thing is that Billy didn't try to keep his plan a secret. He openly spoke about it to several adults in his life and kids at school, none of whom did anything.
Those around billy dismissed it as the fanciful musings of a teenager and failed to recognize his seriousness. Disclosing his plans to others, however, gave Billy the confidence to turn what was a disturbing fantasy into a reality. So, you planned this for a Thursday evening while the parents were at bingo. Yeah. You and Ray head over there at what time?
Yeah, Ray drove me there, yup, about 7 o'clock. How far was the drive? At that time we had moved, it was about maybe a half a mile. What was the drive like? Did y'all talk about anything? That you can recall? No, not really. It was, of course, it was all on the same road. It was State Road AA. It was, it was raining.
He dropped me off because they didn't know Ray. So he dropped me off a short distance from the house. He dropped, oh. So I went up there on my own. Okay. On my own, yeah. Yeah. Did he ever come or you did the whole thing by yourself? Yeah. No, he ended up coming after, after, after a minute. Okay, so whenever he dropped you off and you're walking down the street, are you armed at all?
No, not at all. I didn't have anything on me at all. Okay. And did they expect you to be there? Obviously, you can't text them. It's 1970s, but No. No, they didn't. They didn't know I was coming. And people showing up at someone's house that day and age is completely freaking normal. Would you admit there was no surprise that you showing up?
Yeah, probably not. No, yeah, especially me, because I was weird like that. Yeah, I was really glad I showed up at any time. Also, my dog had been missing for a couple of days, so that was the excuse for going down there was when we were looking for the dog. Gotcha. Did you knock, or did you just walk in? I knocked.
Who was the first person that answered? I want to say Greg. Greg. Now, at this point, you're putting on a show, basically saying, I need to... Yeah. Uh, help looking for my dog, or have you seen the dog? Yeah "Have you seen my dog? She's been gone for a while." Yeah. And once you got past the whole dog thing, were you like, "Hey, I want to see the guns?"
No. What I did was I pulled Greg into the bedroom, into his dad's bedroom. You pulled him in there? Yeah. I-I-I-I motioned him in there, said, "Let me talk to you." Away from everybody else. Because he and I had been shooting his dad's .22 pistol a couple days before. Ah, okay. So I used that as a point of entrance, and I said, "Look, we might have to reload that before he realizes somebody's been firing a weapon."
What did he say to that? Yeah, he said, "Okay, that's a good idea." So whenever y'all went into the bedroom, you take the gun out, what is your nerves like right then? Because now you're getting down to the last seconds of going through with this plan. Yeah, now, now stuff's starting to get pretty intense, uh.
Were you shaking or was it felt like you were just, this was gonna be okay? Yeah, it's uh, I wasn't shaking. I was actually confident in walking outside the house for some dumb ass reason. He takes the gun down, does he put some rounds in it? Yeah, there were still a couple rounds in it. Okay, so... So he actually handed me the pistol, it was a revolver, he handed it to me, I put it in my pants and covered it with my shirt and we walked out of the house.
What did you tell him you wanted to talk to him outside for? So his brother couldn't hear what we were talking about. Okay, so y'all go outside, where'd y'all go, around back, side? Out to the backyard, yeah. So y'all walk around to the backyard, is he looking at you or did he walk ahead of you, or what? He kind of led the way, then turned around as we got out there to where he was standing facing me.
He was standing facing you? And what was he doing? Did you actually start telling him anything or did you just pull the gun out? I pulled the gun out and I cocked the hammer. Okay, so you pulled out the gun and you cocked the hammer, and what was his reaction to you? Cocking the hammer. He looked at me kind of, kind of strange.
And he started to back away. Did you feel like you had a look in your face or something? Yeah, I think so. And they started running. I said, come here man. I'm just playing. I'm not gonna do anything. He ran? And he turned around. Yeah, he turned around and started coming back. How far did he run off? No more than a couple of feet.
He didn't really run, he just started backing away and started like he was gonna run. Yeah. And then you kind of coerced him back. How close up did he walk to you whenever you coerced him back? I wanna say no more than six feet. So you're pretty close to him. Is that when you raised the gun to him? Yeah, I don't even think I raised the gun.
I think I just fired it from hip level. Wow. What was his reaction when that pop went off and it hit him? He just collapsed. Where did the bullet hit him? In his left eye. His left eye. Wow. Yeah. What was your thoughts of doing that? You're 14 years old and you just took somebody's life. Yeah. At that point, because at that point, because, well how do you describe something like that?
Because tension is building at this point, right? And I'm thinking to myself, I could turn back at any time, turn back at any time, turn back at any time. Once I pulled that trigger, I felt like there was no turning back. I instantly wished I wouldn't have did it. I instantly f***ing wished I wouldn't have did it.
On the evening of September 15th, 1977, George and Joy Swift drove 13 miles through a dark, foggy night to play bingo at the American Legion Hall. They left behind their four kids, Steve, Greg, Tonya, and Stacey. Knowing that the parents would be away Thursday, Billy chose this Thursday night to execute his bloody rampage.
Ray dropped Billy 80 yards away from the Swift cabin, and Billy entered on the pretense of looking for his lost dog. Shortly after, he talked Greg into loading up his dad's .22 pistol that they'd been firing together a few days prior. Then Billy led him out into the backyard, with the pistol tucked under his shirt.
Billy followed through with the deed he had been bragging about in the past few weeks. Billy shot his 12 year old friend square in the eye at a 6 yard distance. Greg Swift fell instantly dead. This is only the start of the story of the night, but it's already difficult to listen to. Billy was shockingly young,
a 14-year-old kid who had now killed one of his only friends for no tangible reason. He simply wanted to play out a crude fantasy he'd half concocted in his teenage imagination. Unlike the scripted shootouts he'd seen in TV shows or movies, the reality of shooting another person was not as exhilarating as Billy had imagined it to be.
Instead, the sight of Greg bleeding onto the ground was gory, and Billy felt an instant wave of horror and regret. However, he felt he had reached a point of no return. After killing Greg, there was no undoing what he had done, Billy told himself, and wielding the pistol, he turned towards the Swift family home, where the three other children remained. The ordeal continues after the break.
Why did you, why did you, why did you f***ing shoot? You know what, again, I don't know. I felt, I felt like I backed myself into a corner and I had to. Because I had told, I had ran my mouth. I, I told guys at school I was gonna do it. I had told Scott and his girlfriend. Ray was down. Did you look at him for a minute or stare at him and just think for a second?
Or did you immediately turn around and walk away? I, I, I thought for a second. I didn't, no, I didn't stare. I didn't want to stare. I was wanting everything over at that point believe it or not. You didn't feel disgusted by that? Yeah, I did. Yeah, at that point, I wanted everything over. I wished I would have never started.
It was instant regret. But then I felt like I couldn't stop. At that point I was committed. Yeah. Yeah. Big time. And I know you're just a child at the time, which is just so crazy, because 14 years old... I just can't wrap my mind around that. But you actually go into the house, you have more rounds left in your gun.
Only one more, I didn't realize at the time, yeah. You only had one more, so where's the first place that you went next? Well, it was a very small house. There was only one, two, three, three rooms and the kitchen in this house, not counting the bathroom. A big living room and two very small bedrooms. And there was one, two, three, four, five, six, six people living in the house.
Seven people living in the house. So when I walked in the house in the living room, you could see the oldest brother was sitting in a rocking chair watching TV. So who was the first person you went to after that? Steve. Steve is the 15 year old. Did you try to do the 15 year old because he was the oldest?
Yup. And he was sitting in a rocket chair watching TV. Whenever you walked in, did he turn and look at you and say anything? Kind of. There were some strange events going on there. But nothing major. So I said, "Hey Steve, come outside and look at what me and Greg are doing." And he had some sort of smart ass remark to make and he said something like, "Screw you, Pussy, I'm watching TV" or something like that.
Wow. Just talking s***, but. And then I shot him in the head, yeah. Whenever you shot him in the head, was he, did he look back up at you as you put the gun there? No, uh, I didn't get, I was probably three or four feet away, but I did extend my arm and aim. Did he, uh, did he fall over? Yeah, he immediately collapsed out of the chair, yeah.
Now you're two murder victims within a minute apart, how are you feeling now? This is where s*** really starts going haywire. Yeah, because your next victim is... Tonya. Tonya, who is three years old. Yeah. Because the first thing she started doing was screaming. Where was she at? Walking around the room. The two little ones were walking around the room.
She just walked around the living room. And as soon as the gun went off, the first thing she started ondoing was screaming. So I tried to shoot her and nothing happened and I tried it again and nothing happened At that point, I'm panicking because like I said, I just wanted this to be over. And then she's screaming. And then Steve on the floor was convulsing and he's like in a semi-comatose state, and he's trying to push himself off the floor, but he keeps collapsing back in on the floor.
This didn't freak you out enough for anyone else? God no, I tried hitting her on the head with the butt of a gun. Thinking that it would knock her out. Thinking it would knock her out, yeah. But you see, kids don't know. You think things on TV, and believe me, it's nothing like that. So you killed the three year old by hitting her?
Is that how it worked? No, I didn't kill her, but I beat her on the head with the butt of a pistol probably a half a dozen times. And all that did was she started screaming. And that's when I panicked and ran out of the house. Can I... let me stop you for just a second. At your current state right now, do you think you should be out of prison? Do I, me right now?
At this point, I, yeah, in my opinion, I'll never get out of here. No, I won't. No, no, no. I'm not asking if you think they'll let you out. I'm asking you. Do you think you should be out on the streets? Boy, that's a tough question. Based on what I did, no. Am I the same guy that did that? Am I the one who did that? No, but I get it.
I get why they don't want to let me go. Believe me, I fully understand. I can't. I think that was another person that did that. You were 14. But dude, I can't f***ing imagine you being out on the streets, I'm going to be honest with you. I get it, yeah, it's good. I mean, we're not even finished yet and I'm already just, it's repulsive, man.
I know. I just hate the fact that something didn't happen for you to get help. It's f***ed up. In the days leading up to his crime, it's likely that Billy played this evening out over and again in his imagination. Perhaps he envisioned himself as a character on a TV show, guns blazing, knocking down bodies like cheap plastic mannequins.
But the bloodbath Billy had unleashed was far from the epic thrill ride he might have imagined it to be. In reality, Billy was a scared kid who had bitten off more than he could chew. Taking a life wasn't easy, it was chaotic and grisly, and things quickly went haywire. Unknown to Billy, George Swift's .22 pistol had room for just two bullets.
Now that Greg was shot down, and Billy hadn't yet aroused suspicion, there were three potential victims left to suffer Billy's killing spree. But a single bullet to the head didn't kill Steve, who was watching TV. He lay convulsing on the floor, barely conscious, and struggling to push himself up. Three-year-old Tonya screamed, but when Billy turned to shoot her, he found that the gun chamber was now empty.
Instead, he tried to bludgeon the young girl with the butt of the pistol, but couldn't find the strength to do more than injure her. Nothing had gone according to plan when he stepped into the house. In a wild panic, Billy fled to call Ray for help, leaving the three kids alone, two of them seriously injured.
This is where Part 1 to this tragedy ends, and we'll pick up next week in Part 2 to discover why Billy did what he did. If you don't want to wait a week, you can listen to the episode now via our Patreon. Just head to https://www.patreon.com/VoicesofaKiller to check that out. Tune in next week to find out how this story plays out, on Voices of a Killer
On the next episode of Voices of a Killer. Yeah, really, it gets worse. My stupid ass is running around the house thinking we've gotta make this look like a robbery. So I tried to shoot her and nothing happened. So this is what's going through my mind. It's a teenage kid on a thrill kill.
That's what it was. I thought it was gonna be something cool and exciting to do, and it wasn't. It was a nightmare. Actually, he handed me the gun back, and I ended up shooting Steve some more because he wasn't dead. Jesus, man. I know. Why were you doing this at 14 years old? At that point, I wanted everything over.
I wish it would have never started. It was instant regret. But then I felt like I couldn't stop. That's a wrap on this episode of Voices of a Killer. I want to thank Billy for sharing his story with us today. His ability to be open and honest is what makes this podcast so special. If you want to listen to these episodes weeks in advance, you can now do so by joining our Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/VoicesofaKiller. There, you will get access to raw interviews, unseen news coverage, and unique correspondence with the guests of voices of a killer head over to https://www.patreon.com/VoicesofaKiller to support the podcast. Your support is what keeps us passionate about bringing these stories to you.
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I'm your host, Toby, and we'll see you next time on Voices of a Killer.