S2E6: The Disappearance of Bill Roland

Summary

Blood Trails – S2E6: The Disappearance of Bill Roland

Podcast: Blood Trails (MeatEater)
Host: Jordan Sillars
Date: May 21, 2026
Episode Theme:
This episode investigates the mysterious disappearance of Bill Roland, an East Texas outdoorsman who vanished in July 1997. Using original reporting, first-hand accounts, and expert perspectives, host Jordan Sillars retraces Bill’s last known movements, examines the evidence, explores theories (from small-town conflicts to local rumors), and considers the lasting impact of the case on Roland’s family and community.

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Overview of the Episode

Jordan Sillars takes listeners into the deep woods and waters of East Texas to unravel the nearly 30-year-old mystery of Bill Roland. Bill, a beloved family man and outdoorsman, disappeared from his lake house on a fishing trip, leaving behind a trail of evidence—including a burned truck, abandoned trailer, and a sabotaged pontoon boat—but no clear answers. Sillars interviews Roland’s family, law enforcement, and locals, dives into the search efforts, and delves into rumors and theories that swirl around “the Pine Curtain.” The episode is part one of a two-part investigation.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

Bill Roland’s Background and Last Day (02:02–05:20)

• Roland Family & East Texas Life:
  • Bill Roland was an East Texas institution—hunter, fisherman, family man. His granddaughter, Jenna Sprinkle, describes their family’s deep roots in the area and love for outdoor life.

    “We love East Texas. We love going to the lake. Just like my family has always done.” — Jenna Sprinkle, 02:44

  • Bill fished competitively and was known as “one of the best fishermen.” He was planning a solo fishing trip for crappie at Lake Sam Rayburn (03:19–03:40).
• The Last Known Movements:
  • Bill’s family had used the lake house the Sunday before; Bill returned alone Monday, intending to fish (03:53).
  • No contact from Bill by 10 p.m. raised concerns. His wife called a neighbor to check the house, which was dark, with no vehicle, boat, or trailer present (04:34–04:45).
  • Family assumed, at first, he might have just stayed out late—but he never came home.

The Search and Mounting Evidence (05:23–15:55)

• Missing Person Turns to Crime Scene:

  • Two weeks later, Bill’s truck was found, burned and stripped of plates, 35 miles away (05:44).
  • The trailer turned up in a national forest, 20 miles off (05:53). Pontoon boat was found months later, October 1997, hidden in a cove, with signs it had been deliberately sabotaged (06:07–06:26).

• Investigation Details:

  • There were no indications of a struggle at the lake house: just a half-eaten sandwich, plate, and dog food (13:39–13:57).

    “Nothing in the house that gave any indication whatsoever. There was a half eaten sandwich in the refrigerator and some dog food on the table…” — Don Morris, Texas Ranger, 13:39

  • Bill had stopped at a vet for flea/tick meds and bought ice at a local store before vanishing—confirming he arrived at the lake house.

• Search Scale:

  • Search efforts involved law enforcement, family, and locals—with aircraft, horses, divers, and heat-sensing equipment canvassing the area and nearby ramps (15:55–16:22).
  • Early on, law enforcement didn’t suspect foul play, leaving gaps in evidence collection.

Theories, Rumors, and Small-Town Suspicion (35:54–50:10)

• Local Reputations and Rumors:
  • Bill remembered as a “pretty good outlaw” (disregard for game laws) and “ladies’ man” (10:29, 10:31, 29:33, 44:15–44:39).
• Rumors Explored:
  • Possibilities ranged from being killed by drug dealers, involvement with local women, being wrapped in a fishnet/oil barrel, or buried under a bus stop built with a man named Heath, allegedly tied to the Freemasons.
  • Life insurance rumors: Bill’s wife supposedly stood to benefit from a $1M policy (38:34).
• Community Silence:
  • Difficulty in getting people to talk on the record; even those willing to speak were cautious—reflecting East Texas’s tight-knit, secretive culture (32:54, 42:01).
• Neighbor Conflict Theory:
  • Bill’s neighbor described as a “strange duck,” long-standing conflict (parties, noise complaints) possibly escalated (47:00–47:57).
  • Don Morris (Texas Ranger) at one point (in a 2005 interview) openly stated,

    “I feel certain that he killed Bill and dumped him in that lake.” — Don Morris, quoting past opinion, 49:17

Physical Evidence & Law Enforcement Theory (20:04–30:20)

• Truck:

  • Burned on a deer lease, interior ransacked. Tools and guns taken, later dumped possibly by local teenagers who found the truck (20:04–22:20).

• Trailer and Boat:

  • Trailer hidden in the woods; boat found months later with pontoons shot with a shotgun in an apparent attempt to sink it—seats moved, strip of carpet missing (suspected to hide evidence) (25:20–27:21).

• Ranger Morris’s “Ladder Theory”: (28:33–30:20)

  • Missing 16ft orange ladder and concrete bucket anchors led to theory: Bill was incapacitated, strapped to ladder, loaded into boat (seats removed to make space), and anchored with concrete buckets before boat was abandoned.

    “He had to move the seat to get the ladder in the front of the boat. And he used Bill's concrete anchors to sink the man and the ladder in the lake.” — Jordan Sillars, 29:48

The Human Cost for the Family (31:19–32:54)

• Devastation Across Generations:
  • Bill’s son Rusty was haunted by his father’s disappearance, eventually taking his own life:

    “He just wanted his dad... it was just eating at him.” — Jenna Sprinkle, 31:19

  • Bill’s wife Lynette spent tens of thousands on private investigators, becoming reclusive until her death (31:50).

Community Interactions & More Rumors (35:54–50:10)

• Catfish Junction:

  • Local restaurant played a central role in community rumors. Employee Delwin Williams lent insights into Bill’s personality and last sightings—he often ate and tipped generously, was seen the day he vanished buying ice, and had ongoing issues with his next-door neighbor (43:29–47:57).

• Neighbor Disputes:

  • Both law enforcement and locals pointed to disputes with a neighbor over Bill’s loud parties and drinking, though Don Morris wouldn’t confirm a direct conflict with law enforcement involvement (46:03).

Search & Current Status (50:40–58:50)

• Continued Search Efforts:

  • Despite intensive searches, Bill’s body was never found. Divers, sonar, and heat-sensing equipment searched Lake Sam Rayburn, which is filled with underwater forest, complicating recovery (52:35).

• Possibility of Discovery with Modern Tech:

  • Michael Hadsell (Search and Rescue Expert) explained how new sonar and canine technology could now succeed where previous efforts failed (54:16–55:35).

• Case Remains Active:

  • Current Texas Ranger investigator Chris Perkins states the case is still open and tips are pursued, as time can create investigative opportunities:

    “People's relationships change... it can also be a benefit... when they get comfortable and they go back to life and they think nobody's ever going to find them. And that's usually when we can... bring charges.” — Chris Perkins, 57:11; 58:26

• Family’s Hope for Closure:

  • Jenna and Bailey, Bill's grandchildren and now the last Roland family members in Lufkin, underscore how critical closure would be:

    “We would love to see or love to hear what truly happened. That'd be closure for our family that our family has wanted for a long time now.” — Jenna Sprinkle, 59:19

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Notable Quotes & Moments (with Timestamps)

• “We love East Texas. We love going to the lake. Just like my family has always done.”
  — Jenna Sprinkle (02:44)
• “It had been abandoned. The front end had been burnt and the license plates was gone and the keys were gone.”
  — Don Morris (05:44)
• “There were so many missing things that nothing made sense. So right still doesn't.”
  — Jenna Sprinkle (06:42)
• “A pretty good outlaw.”
  — Bailey Rowland (09:54)
• “He also mentioned that somebody… told him that Bill was wrapped in some kind of fish net and dropped in the lake. Someone else said he… was stuffed in an oil barrel and buried underneath something.”
  — Delwin Williams (37:43)
• “Nothing in the house… a half-eaten sandwich in the refrigerator and some dog food on the table.”
  — Don Morris (13:39)
• “If it had something happened, it had to happen at the house. I don't know what happened or what happened to Bill there.”
  — Don Morris (50:29)

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Important Segments by Timestamp

| Segment/Discussion | Start Time | Notes | |-------------------------------------------|-------------|-------------------------------------------| | Introduction & Bill’s Disappearance | 02:02 | Family, Bill’s background, disappearance | | Search and Discovery of Truck/Trailer | 05:23 | Finding burned truck, missing trailer | | Theories and Community Rumors | 35:54 | Catfish Junction, rumors | | Examination of Physical Evidence | 20:04 | Details of truck, trailer, boat | | Law Enforcement Theory (“Ladder Theory”) | 28:33 | How Bill might have been disposed of | | Impact on Family | 31:19 | Family trauma after disappearance | | Local Interviews/Neighbor Disputes | 43:27 | Catfish Junction, neighbor conflict | | Modern Search & Current Status | 54:07 | Search tech, ongoing investigation | | Family Hopes for Closure | 59:19 | Jenna expresses need for answers |

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Tone, Language, and Presentation

• Original, Respectful Tone: The episode balances compassion for the Roland family with clear-eyed investigation. Jordan Sillars maintains a calm, thoughtful delivery, letting locals and family speak for themselves and carefully sifting through rumor vs. fact.
• Language: Matter-of-fact with regional color (terms like “outlaw,” “pine curtain”), straightforward discussions of both evidence and community dynamics.

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Conclusion

• The disappearance of Bill Roland remains one of East Texas’s enduring mysteries. Despite a trail of scattered, suspicious evidence, no one has been charged, and rumors continue to surround the case. For Bill’s family, especially his grandchildren Jenna and Bailey, the story is not just true crime, but family history—and closure remains out of reach.
• The Texas Rangers continue to work the case, hoping that time, changing relationships, or new search technology will finally bring answers—and justice—for Bill Roland.

Tip Line:
If you have information, contact the Texas Rangers Cold Case Unit or Texas Crime Stoppers at 1-800-252-8477.

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(End of summary)

Transcript

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[Jordan Sillers (Podcast Host/Narrator)]

summer of 1997, Bill Roland went to his lake house for a quiet day of fishing and never came home. But the trail he left behind, burned, scattered and deliberately hidden, left just enough evidence to suggest a crime, but not enough to explain it. That's next on Blood trails. East Texas is a place where heritage runs as deep as the tap root of a loblolly pine. Family is everything. Traditions are sacred, and the yearly cycles of deer hunting and bass fishing make up the fabric of daily life.

[Jenna Sprinkle (Bill Roland's Granddaughter)]

We love East Texas. We love going to the lake. Just like my Family has always done.

[Jordan Sillers (Podcast Host/Narrator)]

That's Jenna Sprinkle. She was born in Lufkin, a small town in Angelina county, and her family has been there for as long as she can remember. Jenna reached out to me few months ago because she heard I was asking questions about another East Texas resident named Bill Roland.

[Jenna Sprinkle (Bill Roland's Granddaughter)]

Bill is my grandfather. That would be my dad's dad. My dad is Rusty. And so that was Bill's oldest son.

[Jordan Sillers (Podcast Host/Narrator)]

Like his granddaughter, Bill Roland was steeped in East Texas culture, and that included a lot of hunting and fishing.

[Jenna Sprinkle (Bill Roland's Granddaughter)]

I've always heard that he was one of the best of the best fishermen. If you want to catch some fish, you better go with Bill. He also loved to hunt. His two sons, Toby and Rusty, they were big fishermen as well, and they loved to go with him. Yeah, that was one of their favorite things to do with their dad. He was a family man. He loved his family, things like that. But when it was time to go fishing, he was going fishing and hunting.

[Jordan Sillers (Podcast Host/Narrator)]

Yeah, Bill was a member of a bass fishing club and he even fished competitively. But on Monday, July 21, 1997, he was hoping to go out by himself and catch some groceries. Crappie, that is.

[Don Morris (Texas Ranger)]

Well, the family had been out there Sunday before, and they. They generally put the boat up in a. In a boathouse, but they left it out on the pull up on the bank because Bill's going to come back in the morning, do a little fishing. So that's why he was out there.

[Jordan Sillers (Podcast Host/Narrator)]

Don Morris was a Texas Ranger, and in 1997, he'd been with the law enforcement agency 16 years. He told me that Bill owned a small lake house on Lake Sam Rayburn, and the angler had planned to go back out that day on his pontoon boat. But as far as anyone knows, Bill didn't do any fishing that day. No one had heard from Bill by 10 o' clock that evening. So Bill's wife, Lynette, called to see when her husband would be coming home.

[Don Morris (Texas Ranger)]

She called Lake out, which had a phone over there, and it didn't get any answers. No answer whatsoever.

[Jordan Sillers (Podcast Host/Narrator)]

Lynette called a neighbor woman and asked her to walk over and see whether Bill was still at the house.

[Don Morris (Texas Ranger)]

She went over there to check, and all the lights was out. There was no pickup, no boat, no trailers. It was just like nobody's there, you know?

[Jordan Sillers (Podcast Host/Narrator)]

It wasn't like Bill to disappear without telling anyone. As Jenna said, he was a family man. He wouldn't have wanted to worry his wife. But it looked for all the world like he'd Hauled his boat out of the water and left. I'm sure officials assumed at first that he'd turn up before too long. He was known to throw a party now and again and maybe he'd drag himself back home the next morning after a night on the town. But that didn't happen.

[Jenna Sprinkle (Bill Roland's Granddaughter)]

I've just always heard he went fishing and it never came back.

[Jordan Sillers (Podcast Host/Narrator)]

As hours turned into days and days into weeks, it became evident that either Bill had run away for good, or something much worse had taken place. That second possibility started to look like the tragic reality when two weeks later, they found Bill's truck parked on a deer lease 35 miles from the lake house.

[Don Morris (Texas Ranger)]

It had been abandoned. The front end had been burnt and the license plates was gone and the keys were gone.

[Jordan Sillers (Podcast Host/Narrator)]

The trailer was discovered about a month later in a National Forest 20 miles from the house. The location of the boat remained a mystery until that October when a duck hunter found it tied off on a small cove on the lake.

[Don Morris (Texas Ranger)]

After we pulled it out, we was able to determine that the floaters, pontoon floaters, had been shot two times on each side, and it was at an angle to where somebody was on the boat and shot down into it.

[Jordan Sillers (Podcast Host/Narrator)]

The burned truck, the abandoned trailer, and the shot up boat strongly suggested that wherever Bill was, he wasn't in great shape. But beyond these troubling signs, investigators weren't able to piece together what happened to the husband, father, and avid outdoorsman.

[Jenna Sprinkle (Bill Roland's Granddaughter)]

And they kind of did the best they could during that time. There were so many missing things that nothing made sense. So right still doesn't.

[Jordan Sillers (Podcast Host/Narrator)]

It will soon be 30 years since anyone has seen Bill Roland alive. What happened that hot Summer Day in 1997 remains a mystery, one that the pine curtain of East Texas has yet to reveal. These forests offer solitude for those seeking a reprieve from the rat race of modern life. But the dense woods and deep lakes can also hide secrets. In this case, those secrets have spawned rumors of infidelity, drugs, poaching, neighborhood conflicts, and a man who everyone seemed to know. But these days, no one wants to talk about. I'm Jordan Sillers, and this is blood. The Disappearance of bill Roland Part 1 the Fisherman Whenever someone goes missing under suspicious circumstances, investigators spend a huge amount of time digging into the life of the missing person. In Bill's case, that wasn't difficult.

[Don Morris (Texas Ranger)]

He is well known in Lufkin. Everybody in Lufkin knew him and thought of him.

[Jordan Sillers (Podcast Host/Narrator)]

Bill worked alongside his wife at a construction company owned by Lynette's family. He was well respected as someone who knew his trade, and he'd become a fixture in the Lufkin area.

[Jenna Sprinkle (Bill Roland's Granddaughter)]

He was a big man. He never met a stranger. Everybody around here knew him.

[Jordan Sillers (Podcast Host/Narrator)]

He was known not only as someone who could build you a sturdy metal building, but also as someone who could catch a fish and shoot a deer.

[Don Morris (Texas Ranger)]

He was a big fisherman, big outdoorsman. He loved the cars, he loved to fish. He loved, you know, anything outdoor like he does. He did that all the time.

[Jordan Sillers (Podcast Host/Narrator)]

I live in East Texas, and when we drove down to speak to Jenna, we also got a chance to meet Bailey, one of Bill's other grandchildren. Bailey brought photos of his grandpa, and virtually all of them involved the field and the water.

[Interviewer/Podcast Host]

That's Bill.

[Bailey Rowland (Bill Roland's Grandchild)]

Yes, sir.

[Interviewer/Podcast Host]

Right. Do you know who that is?

[Bailey Rowland (Bill Roland's Grandchild)]

Tude Henry.

[Interviewer/Podcast Host]

Oh, okay. Who's that?

[Bailey Rowland (Bill Roland's Grandchild)]

One of his friends.

[Interviewer/Podcast Host]

Okay. Suspicion buddies.

[Bailey Rowland (Bill Roland's Grandchild)]

Yeah, Gotcha.

[Interviewer/Podcast Host]

Yeah, those are some big catfish, man.

[Bailey Rowland (Bill Roland's Grandchild)]

Yeah, looks like they're racing a boat race because. Number on the side.

[Interviewer/Podcast Host]

Oh, yeah, yeah, Gotcha. So they did, like, boat races too.

[Don Morris (Texas Ranger)]

Nice.

[Interviewer/Podcast Host]

So just like a lot of stuff on the water.

[Jordan Sillers (Podcast Host/Narrator)]

Yeah, a lot of stuff on the woods. Bailey runs a tree service, but he told me that, like his grandfather, he spends most of his free time hunting and fishing. Like Jenna, Bailey is too young to have personal memories of Bill, but he still hears stories from people around town.

[Bailey Rowland (Bill Roland's Grandchild)]

A lot of people, you know, just tell me they know. They used to know Bill and stuff.

[Interviewer/Podcast Host]

Right, Right.

[Bailey Rowland (Bill Roland's Grandchild)]

Anywhere from, you know, I go bid a job or working somewhere to be on, like, just anything, you know?

[Don Morris (Texas Ranger)]

Yeah, yeah.

[Interviewer/Podcast Host]

So people still remember him and they know, grandson. Yeah, they bring it up.

[Bailey Rowland (Bill Roland's Grandchild)]

Yeah. I can't get on some deer leases because of it, but.

[Interviewer/Podcast Host]

Oh, you can't?

[Bailey Rowland (Bill Roland's Grandchild)]

Yeah.

[Interviewer/Podcast Host]

Oh, really?

[Bailey Rowland (Bill Roland's Grandchild)]

Yes, sir.

[Interviewer/Podcast Host]

Oh, man. Why is that?

[Bailey Rowland (Bill Roland's Grandchild)]

Pretty good outlaw, you know, he liked to kill stuff.

[Interviewer/Podcast Host]

Oh, building.

[Don Morris (Texas Ranger)]

Yeah, yeah, gotcha.

[Bailey Rowland (Bill Roland's Grandchild)]

He didn't really give a crap. What you know is what I've heard, you know?

[Interviewer/Podcast Host]

Right, right.

[Bailey Rowland (Bill Roland's Grandchild)]

I don't know if that's true, but that's what I've heard.

[Jordan Sillers (Podcast Host/Narrator)]

A pretty good outlaw. In East Texas and in much of the south, this term isn't used to describe a bandana wearing stagecoach robber on a Most Wanted poster. It's used to describe people who don't care much for wildlife laws and like Bailey says, prefer to do things their own way. Bailey wasn't the only person I spoke to who mentioned Bill's outlying ways, but we'll get to that later in the episode. This also wasn't the only interesting thing Bailey told me about his grandpa.

[Bailey Rowland (Bill Roland's Grandchild)]

Hers pretty good ladies man, too.

[Jordan Sillers (Podcast Host/Narrator)]

Oh, really?

[Bailey Rowland (Bill Roland's Grandchild)]

Yeah.

[Interviewer/Podcast Host]

How did you hear that?

[Bailey Rowland (Bill Roland's Grandchild)]

Just old ladies. Oh, I work for today. Yeah, Yeah. I got a call, like, two days ago. She wanted to tell me a story.

[Jordan Sillers (Podcast Host/Narrator)]

Bailey didn't elaborate, and I unfortunately wasn't able to track down this woman. It sounds like she had a story to tell tell, but I bet she wasn't the only one. Bill was one of those guys who was larger than life. He was literally a big man, Don said, close to 300 pounds. But he was also gregarious, friendly, and he liked to have a good time. He made an impression. And even to this day, strangers will approach Jenna and bring him up.

[Jenna Sprinkle (Bill Roland's Granddaughter)]

I mean, they. Yeah, they ask. They ask us about it some, like, oh, that's your grandpa, right? We're like, yeah, that is. People like to almost make jokes in a way, like they've seen him in Vegas before and stuff. And I'm like, that's not. You don't really say that stuff, you know.

[Jordan Sillers (Podcast Host/Narrator)]

These kinds of comments put Jenna and Bailey in an awkward position. They're Bill's only living descendants, but since they never knew him, they can't do much to satisfy the curiosity of strangers. It also wasn't a topic of much discussion in their households. Jenna's grandmother, the woman to whom Bill was married before Lynette, is still alive, but she declined to be interviewed for this episode. Bailey was close to his father, but he said he almost never talked about Bill.

[Bailey Rowland (Bill Roland's Grandchild)]

I mean, nobody really talked about it much. You know, it wasn't something you talked about.

[Don Morris (Texas Ranger)]

Yeah.

[Bailey Rowland (Bill Roland's Grandchild)]

You know, whenever it just was a sore subject and what it was.

[Interviewer/Podcast Host]

Right, right.

[Bailey Rowland (Bill Roland's Grandchild)]

Nobody really talked about it.

[Jordan Sillers (Podcast Host/Narrator)]

Jenna may not have known her grandfather, but his death still had a devastating impact on her childhood. Bill had two sons with Jenna's grandmother, Jenna's father, Rusty, and Bailey's father, Toby. Bailey's photos illustrate how close Toby and Rusty were to Bill. And I was told his passing hit them hard, even if they didn't always express it. Bill Roland was many things to many people. A fisherman, a hunter, a husband and father. But for all Bill was in life, what defines him now is the mystery of his death. The man who loved the lake, who knew every corner and channel on Sam Rayburn, disappeared into it. And the people he left behind have spent decades trying to understand how and why. Finding those answers would mean tracing the last hours of his life. Where he went, who he talked to, and what or who he may have encountered that morning at the lake house. Part 2 the search as we Learned in the Bob Smith case from earlier this season. A disappearance is often one of the most difficult criminal cases to investigate. Unless there are obvious signs of foul play. Law enforcement sometimes doesn't do what they normally would to interview suspects and collect evidence. This case is still open, so we don't know everything investigators did and didn't do in the days after Bill disappeared. But ranger Morris tells me that there wasn't anything in or around Bill's lake house to suggest that Bill had been the victim of a crime.

[Don Morris (Texas Ranger)]

Nothing in the house that gave any indication whatsoever. There was a half eaten sandwich in the refrigerator and some dog food on the table and a plate there. And his wife Lynette said that wasn't their Sunday when they were there, so it had to happen sometime after Bill got there.

[Interviewer/Podcast Host]

And then there was. You said dog food there, but there wasn't any sign of a struggle? No. Like blood anywhere?

[Don Morris (Texas Ranger)]

No, just no struggle inside or outside either one.

[Jordan Sillers (Podcast Host/Narrator)]

Lynette's daughter told a local paper that Bill had been going to the lake house to fish, but also to feed a stray dog that had wandered onto the property. This explains the dog food, but that and the half eaten sandwich told investigators that Bill made it to the lake house safely. The dog food also suggested that Bill had been somehow interrupted. As Lynette's daughter pointed out to reporters, he wouldn't have prepared the dog food and then just left it on the table. Despite this evidence, Sheriff's deputies told local media that they didn't suspect foul play. Bill's relatives questioned this determination. But at that point, about a week after anyone had seen the fisherman, it was still plausible that Bill had had some kind of boating accident or had just run away. His actions that morning didn't indicate he was in trouble or afraid for his life. Investigators determined that Bill had stopped at a vet clinic to purchase flea and tick medication, and then he'd purchased ice at a small grocery store about two miles from the lake house. The problem was the San Augustine county sheriff's office was at the time ill equipped to deal with a murder investigation.

[Don Morris (Texas Ranger)]

They're a small organization over. They don't have a criminal investigator.

[Jordan Sillers (Podcast Host/Narrator)]

By the time Don was called in to help, Deputies had already been walking all around Bill's property.

[Don Morris (Texas Ranger)]

You gotta remember now, when I got there, the search team had done been there. They'd been looking and walked around everywhere. And they hadn't been in the house that much because there wasn't obviously nobody in the house. But they'd been all walking around everywhere outside. If something happened outside, it could have been contaminated.

[Jordan Sillers (Podcast Host/Narrator)]

Law enforcement didn't initially believe Bill had been murdered, but that doesn't mean they treated his disappearance casually. Within 24 hours of bill being reported missing, friends, family and local law enforcement launched what local media described as a massive search effort.

[Don Morris (Texas Ranger)]

We did a number of searches on the lake by aircraft. The DPS flew over the helicopter several times looking for the boat, you know, on a lake or pickup or whatever we could find. And then they had numerous land searched over there and they searched, you know, around where the boat was, would have been lost, searched around the house. Everything had horses. They were riding through the brush and looking at everything and nothing's ever showed up.

[Jordan Sillers (Podcast Host/Narrator)]

The search drew officials from multiple agencies, including the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, the San Augustine and Angelina County Sheriff's offices, and the Texas Rangers. Searchers used heat sensing devices to peer through the thick brush around the house and they sent divers into the COVID Since Bill's truck and trailer were both missing, searchers wondered if he'd driven over to a local boat ramp to pull his boat out of the water. But all local ramps were searched and no one could find any sign of the missing angler. Tips came in claiming to have seen Bill or his truck around Lufkin as well as farther east into Louisiana. Investigators followed up on these tips and looked in locations Bill was known to frequent. But all their efforts came up empty. I don't know exactly when investigators started to suspect foul play, but the first time those words are mentioned in Media reports is August 5th, just over two weeks after anyone saw Bill alive. That's when two teenagers riding four wheelers stumbled upon a silver Chevy Z71 pickup parked in the middle of the woods. It was over 30 miles from Bill's lake house, but there was no mistaking it. It was Bill's truck. And it became the first real indication that this case was so much more than a simple disappearance. That's next after the break.

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[Jordan Sillers (Podcast Host/Narrator)]

Part 3 the truck, trailer and Boat There were several reasons finding the truck sparked serious concern about Bill's well being. The first, as you already heard, was that the truck had been burned from the seats through the engine bay.

[Don Morris (Texas Ranger)]

Somebody stuffed some limbs in there and maybe gasoline or what it was, you know for because there was a cloth down in the gas tank.

[Jordan Sillers (Podcast Host/Narrator)]

The other reason investigators were concerned is because before torching it, someone had stolen most of the things Bill kept in the backseat.

[Don Morris (Texas Ranger)]

He had a lot of stuff in it. He had tools, he had gun. I mean he had a lot of stuff in there and it was pretty well not, not empty, but it was, it was pretty real clear, you know.

[Jordan Sillers (Podcast Host/Narrator)]

The truck had been burned and ransacked about a mile and a half off of Neil Road in a heavily wooded area. Ranger Morris described the location as a deer lease, though he didn't mention whether that lease had any connection to Bill. If you look at this location on onx, which you can do by going to themateer.com bloodtrails. You'll see that it isn't really on the way to anything. It's not like the truck was dumped off a highway. As the perpetrator fled the area. The vehicle was deliberately hidden, and investigators hoped they'd find a clue in or around the Chevy.

[Don Morris (Texas Ranger)]

They did a search team out there. They got a horse team search around there, and they didn't find nothing.

[Jordan Sillers (Podcast Host/Narrator)]

The Tyler Morning Telegraph reported that officials also flew a helicopter over the area, but to no avail. However, they did find something strange a few days later.

[Don Morris (Texas Ranger)]

They were going to come back at Saturday, which they did after this. We found this. And as they were coming in, they started searching over and they found all kind of tools along the fence over there.

[Bailey Rowland (Bill Roland's Grandchild)]

Huh.

[Interviewer/Podcast Host]

How did they get there? What do you think happened?

[Don Morris (Texas Ranger)]

I think. Who said the vehicle on fire put put them there? They found out, hey, we got a dead man's tools.

[Amazon Health AI User]

Right?

[Delwin Williams (Catfish Junction Employee)]

Right.

[Interviewer/Podcast Host]

We don't want to take these. Yeah.

[Jordan Sillers (Podcast Host/Narrator)]

If you didn't quite catch it. Ranger Morris says he believes that the people who set the vehicle on fire were also the ones who took the tools. But he thinks they didn't know whose tools they had taken until the paper started reporting that Bill's truck had been found. Once that happened, they realized it would look bad for them to be caught with all of Bill's stuff, and so they went back and dumped it.

[Interviewer/Podcast Host]

Do you think the same person who was responsible for Bill's disappearance burned the truck or could have been a different person?

[Don Morris (Texas Ranger)]

A different person.

[Interviewer/Podcast Host]

Oh, so you think it was some kind of thief found the truck?

[Don Morris (Texas Ranger)]

Well, a juvenile is what it was.

[Interviewer/Podcast Host]

Oh, okay, okay. So some kids found the truck. They said, let's take this stuff that's in it and burn it. And then they realized, oh, like this could be this guy's truck that disappeared. We don't want these things. Yeah.

[Jordan Sillers (Podcast Host/Narrator)]

Remember how I mentioned that the truck had been found by a couple of kids on ATVs? Ranger Morris believes it was those kids that burned the truck and took Bill's stuff, Not because they were responsible for his disappearance, but just because they were a couple of hooligans. Ranger Morris didn't explain exactly why he believes that, which isn't really surprising given the open status of the investigation. The it's possible those kids confessed to their crimes. If that's the case, the burned out truck is far less suspicious than it first appears. But if they didn't confess, if their responsibility is more of a theory than a known fact, I can't Help but wonder, why would those kids burn the truck and not try to drive it, or at least strip it and sell it for parts? They might not have wanted to take that risk if they knew it was the truck that belonged to the missing man. But if that's true, why didn't they report it as soon as they found it? It's also worth pointing out that Bill had tools and guns in that truck. Ranger Morris didn't mention any guns being returned in the days after the truck was found. So did the teen steal those as well, or were they taken by someone else? Whatever actually happened, whether the truck was burned by the perpetrator trying to hide his crime or by a pair of bored teenagers, that Chevy didn't provide the answers investigators were looking for. Angelina county chief deputy Jim Casper told the media that they were, quote, basically back where we started. Even after they found the truck, they weren't able to find any clues as to Bill's whereabouts, and they weren't even willing to speculate. Casper said that while they were considering foul play, they also thought it was possible Bill had just left.

[Interviewer/Podcast Host]

So then the other piece is the trailer. Right, because the trailer wasn't with the truck, Even though it had been with the truck. According to the family, when Bill was there, it was no longer with the truck.

[Don Morris (Texas Ranger)]

The truck. The trailer was at the lake house.

[Interviewer/Podcast Host]

Oh, okay.

[Don Morris (Texas Ranger)]

What I'm saying is it was. Somebody had take it the same time he took the pickup and got rid of the trailer in the national forest in broadest, Texas, which is on the way to where the Huntley's was, where the pickup was found.

[Interviewer/Podcast Host]

Okay, so they have the truck and trailer and they dump the trailer. One place the truck, another place.

[Jordan Sillers (Podcast Host/Narrator)]

The trailer hadn't been burned or damaged, at least as far as I know. But it was clear that, like the truck, someone had tried to hide it. What struck investigators as especially odd was that Bill's pontoon boat wasn't on the trailer. Bill had parked that boat on the bank of the lake outside his house, but it wasn't there by the time the search began. The location of that vessel remained the biggest mystery of the case until October of 1997, about three months after Bill's disappearance.

[Don Morris (Texas Ranger)]

Ken Henson, the sheriff, Angelina county, called me one night about 10 o', clock, said, I think I found Bill Roland's boat. And what happened was a duck hunter found a boat.

[Jordan Sillers (Podcast Host/Narrator)]

The boat had clearly been there a while. It was tied off under a willow tree. And detectives found SAP on the deck that had dripped down over the preceding Months. It was also clear that someone had driven it into the COVID intentionally. It hadn't just drifted there from somewhere else. It had been tied to the tree. And the boat's top had been taken off and thrown into the water, likely so it could be driven deeper into the brush. Like the truck and the trailer, the boat had been hidden in an apparent attempt to delay the investigation.

[Interviewer/Podcast Host]

Did you find anything on the boat or about the boat that indicated anything about what happened to Bill?

[Don Morris (Texas Ranger)]

Well, there was some stuff about the boat that wasn't like it was when they left at Sunday. Like them spat seats on the back, back there where you sit and cast off like that. Well, they had been moved. They had been moved over to a corner over there. And right there at the edge, there's a little strip of the carpet been tore out for some reason.

[Jordan Sillers (Podcast Host/Narrator)]

Ranger Morris said the carpet had likely been torn out to hide something, such as a blood stain or some other evidence. The seat was one of those raised removable models that make it easier to fish. Bill's family said he wouldn't have removed the seat himself, though. It's tough to be certain. But what investigators knew without question is that someone had tried to sink that boat.

[Don Morris (Texas Ranger)]

After we pulled it out, we were able to determine that the floaters, pontoon floaters, had been shot two times on each side. And it was at an angle to where somebody was on the boat and shot down into it.

[Interviewer/Podcast Host]

Was it a rifle?

[Don Morris (Texas Ranger)]

It appeared to be a 12 gauge shotgun.

[Interviewer/Podcast Host]

Okay, so someone was standing in the boat with a shotgun, shooting down at those pontoons, do you think, to try to sink it, I assume.

[Don Morris (Texas Ranger)]

I think that's what their motive was, yes. But them things won't sink. All they do is gather more water.

[Jordan Sillers (Podcast Host/Narrator)]

The boat being more seaworthy than the perpetrator had hoped, he opted for plan B and drove the vessel to the back of a cove and tied it off. Whether he planned to come back later and sink it, we'll never know. But as it turned out, that wouldn't have been necessary.

[Don Morris (Texas Ranger)]

I think the investigation was slow going because it was hard to find the stuff because the boat had no kind of blood, anything like that on it. It was underneath the old sycamore tree, or will it rather. And I had all kind of SAP on it. We took several samples, but nothing come out of it.

[Jordan Sillers (Podcast Host/Narrator)]

Bill's 1994 low pontoon boat didn't lead investigators to a suspect, but it was nonetheless suggestive. Obviously something nefarious had happened related to that boat. Otherwise, why would anyone try to sink it before the boat was found, detectives had to wonder whether Bill was kidnapped and then taken somewhere else. Now they had evidence suggesting that Lake Sam Rayburn should be the focus of their search. That assumption was bolstered by the absence of two items that should have been found but never were.

[Don Morris (Texas Ranger)]

You forgot to ask about a letter.

[Interviewer/Podcast Host]

Yes.

[Jordan Sillers (Podcast Host/Narrator)]

Tell me about the ladder.

[Interviewer/Podcast Host]

Because Bill. Because that is one thing that the news reports say from the time is that when they're still looking for the truck. We're looking for a truck. And it usually has this ladder in it.

[Don Morris (Texas Ranger)]

So that particular day he had this 16 foot fiberglass ladder, Right?

[Interviewer/Podcast Host]

Right. So he has the ladder in the back of his pickup, but that's gone. Is that right?

[Don Morris (Texas Ranger)]

What do you think happened? I've been found.

[Interviewer/Podcast Host]

Okay.

[Don Morris (Texas Ranger)]

You know, of course I'm telling you just a theory. I don't know whether it ever amounts to anything. Was he truthful or not? I have no way to prove it. But you know, Bill weighed 300 pounds. And when you pull that pontoon boat up on that the banker, the front part up there gets high. You ever try to lift a 300 pound man? You don't like that. But if you got a ladder and you strapped it to the ladder, you pick up one end footing of fire, pick the other end up foot of fire, you got to move the seats out of the way. And then there's some concrete, five gallon buckets that are missing.

[Interviewer/Podcast Host]

Really?

[Don Morris (Texas Ranger)]

He used that for anchors.

[Interviewer/Podcast Host]

So picks him up into the boat, uses the concrete buckets to sink.

[Jordan Sillers (Podcast Host/Narrator)]

Bill's family said he had an orange ladder in the back of his pickup, but it wasn't there when his truck was discovered. Ranger Morris's theory is that the perpetrator incapacitated Bill at the lake house, strapped him to the ladder and used it as leverage to get him into the pontoon boat. He had to move the seat to get the ladder in the front of the boat. And he used Bill's concrete anchors to sink the man and the ladder in the lake. He tied off the boat close enough to walk back to the house where he stole the truck and trailer and dumped them at different locations to impede the investigation.

[Don Morris (Texas Ranger)]

I assume they wanted to make it seem like Bill wasn't there. I don't know.

[Interviewer/Podcast Host]

That makes sense. So if they take the trailer and there's no boat, then we assume Bill maybe took the boat out himself.

[Don Morris (Texas Ranger)]

No pickup, Right?

[Michael Hadsell (Search and Rescue Expert)]

Right.

[Jordan Sillers (Podcast Host/Narrator)]

This theory explains the how it accounts for the evidence we have and proposes a plausible sequence of events for Bill's disappearance. But it doesn't address the who or the why. We still have no idea who would have wanted Bill dead or whether more than one person was involved. We don't know if this was an argument gone wrong, a premeditated murder, or an attempt to cover up some kind of accident. For all the questions the truck, trailer and boat helped answer, they raised three times as many. For Jenna and Bailey, those questions have never been abstract. Bill's disappearance cast a shadow over everyone who loved him, including the sons who spent years searching for answers they never found.

[Jenna Sprinkle (Bill Roland's Granddaughter)]

When I was 8 years old, my dad took his life. And I feel as though in the stories that I've heard, like, he just wanted his dad. He wanted to know it was dad and it was just eating at him, like he couldn't take it no longer. Like he wanted to know what happened to his dad. He was 31 when it happened, so there was lots of memories, like he was old enough to understand, like, what has happened.

[Interviewer/Podcast Host]

Yeah.

[Jenna Sprinkle (Bill Roland's Granddaughter)]

So I feel as though, like he would still be here today if that didn't happen.

[Don Morris (Texas Ranger)]

Yeah.

[Jenna Sprinkle (Bill Roland's Granddaughter)]

Because I'm sure himself searched forever over there.

[Interviewer/Podcast Host]

Right.

[Jenna Sprinkle (Bill Roland's Granddaughter)]

Like, where is he? What has happened?

[Jordan Sillers (Podcast Host/Narrator)]

Rusty wasn't the only one searching for his father. I was told that Lynette spent tens of thousands of dollars hiring private investigators. But she couldn't find her husband. And the small town attention and speculation turned her into a recluse. She passed away in February of 2021, and Toby followed her in December of that year. I'm sure investigators know, or think they know the answers to some of the questions that haunted Rusty, Toby, and now their kids. But as with most cold cases, those detectives are hesitant to release too many details. And they're not the only ones. It was incredibly difficult to find people who knew Bill and were willing to talk to us on the record. Even those who did told us point blank that they knew more than they were willing to share. In one instance, someone seemed willing to talk to us but was shut down by another person who said Bill's death wasn't a topic we should be discussing. That's next. After the break,

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[Amazon Health AI Narrator]

Don't go down the rabbit hole. Amazon Health AI gets you the right care fast. Healthcare just got less painful.

[Public Investing Platform Sponsor]

Support for the show comes from public. The investing platform for those who take it seriously. On Public you can build a multi asset portfolio of stocks, bonds, options, crypto and now generated assets which allow you to turn any idea into an investable index with AI. It also starts with your prompt. From renewable energy companies with high free cash flow to semiconductor suppliers growing revenue over 20% year over year, you can literally type any prompt and put the AI to work. It screens thousands of stocks, builds a one of a kind index and lets you back test it against the S&P 500. Then you can invest in a few clicks. Generated assets are like ETFs with infinite possibilities, completely customizable and based on your thesis, not someone else's. Go to public.com podcast and earn an uncapped 1% bonus when you transfer your portfolio. That's public.com podcast paid for by Public

[Public Investing Legal Disclaimer]

Investing Brokerage Services by Open to the Public Investing Inc. Member FINRA and SIPC Advisory Services by Public Advisors llc. SEC Registered Advisor. Generated Assets is an interactive analysis tool. Output is for informational purposes only and is not an investment recommendation or advice.

[Public Investing Platform Sponsor]

Complete disclosures [e-mail] disclosures when you're in

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[Jordan Sillers (Podcast Host/Narrator)]

Part 4 Catfish Junction Part of the reason I wanted to cover Bill's case is because it happened in my backyard. Lufkin is only about two hours from where I live in East Texas, and I was excited to drive down to the area and do interviews in person. If you check out the video version of this podcast on YouTube, you can see those interviews along with some amazing footage of Lake Sam Rayburn, Bill's old house and the Angelina National Forest. I drove down with my buddy and videographer David McDaniels, who you might know from his articles in Bear Hunting magazine or his video work for Brent Reeves podcast this Country Life. I tell you this because not only did David operate the camera for this episode, he also did some pretty great on the ground reporting and met a

[Delwin Williams (continued)]

guy today named Delwin at the Catfish Junction restaurant.

[Jordan Sillers (Podcast Host/Narrator)]

David called me during a trip back down to Lufkin a few weeks after we spoke to Ranger Morris, Jenna and Bailey. He was shooting more footage of the area and he pulled over at a restaurant called Catfish Junction. He asked an employee there, a guy named Delwin, if he could record video of the outside of the restaurant.

[Delwin Williams (continued)]

Delin ended up sharing a lot of really interesting details with me. He knew Bill personally, knew a lot about him that he shared, shared and just wanted to take.

[Jordan Sillers (Podcast Host/Narrator)]

Delin explained that he and Bill had fished together on a few occasions, and Bill was a frequent patron at the restaurant. But David noticed that the catfish merchant chose his words carefully.

[Delwin Williams (continued)]

Then he made some. He also made some kind of vague references. He was really kind of broken in some of his communication around it, almost like he was trying to sort through what details to share and which ones he did not.

[Jordan Sillers (Podcast Host/Narrator)]

The details he did share were interesting to say the least.

[Delwin Williams (continued)]

He also mentioned that somebody did not say who told him that Bill was wrapped in some kind of fish net and dropped in the lake. Someone else said he said that he made it sound like another person said that Bill was stuffed in an oil barrel and buried underneath something. I couldn't tell if he was saying it was underneath a structure or something, but he basically referenced that he was buried out near where his pontoon boat was found, shot up at a different point of conversation. He also referenced that there was speculation around that Bill's wife may have been involved, that I guess bill had a $1 million life insurance policy.

[Jordan Sillers (Podcast Host/Narrator)]

These are the kinds of rumors that always circulate after a disappearance. And trust me when I say there are more where these came from. For example, one of Bill's associates told me that she believes Bill got on the wrong side of the area's drug dealers. She thinks he saw something he wasn't supposed to, the drug dealers killed him, and law enforcement looked the other way. This associate declined to be interviewed for this podcast, and Ranger Morris told me he never found any connection between Bill and the drug trade. Another particularly juicy rumor was that a guy named Heath was having an affair with Bill's wife. I saw this theory on an Internet forum, which normally I wouldn't take too seriously, but when I looked into it, the details checked out. This person said that Heath and Bill were both working on building a bus stop for a high school. And the theory is that Bill was buried underneath that concrete. I asked Jenna about this, and she knows the bus stop in question and remembers law enforcement searching underneath Heath. They didn't find anything, but the fact that they looked lends at least some credence to the rumor. This anonymous Internet poster also mentioned that Heath was a Freemason, and so looking into Bill's death they claimed would be dangerous. The Masons are a secretive society that some view as dangerous. I don't know about what the Internet poster said, but Jenna did confirm that the Masons performed a ceremony at Heath's funeral. It's also worth noting that Heath was good friends with Bailey's dad, Toby, and like Jenna's dad, Heath died by suicide. I reached out to Heath's friends and associates, but did not hear back by the time of this recording. All these rumors are second or third hand, But Delwin did mention one thing he could speak to personally.

[Delwin Williams (continued)]

He shared that it was pretty well known that Bill was messing around with one of the waitresses that worked at the restaurant, the Catfish Junction, which he said that he. His words were, bill lay here every weekend. If I understood him correctly, he. He literally made it sound like that waitress. Like when they found out that Bill was missing, that a. That he saw her, like, basically weeping, and it sounded like she actually quit her job there at the restaurant after that happened. Seemed like he was insinuating that those things were actually related in some way.

[Jordan Sillers (Podcast Host/Narrator)]

Remember how Bailey mentioned that Bill was a bit of a ladies man? Delwin insinuated the same thing and it's hard not to wonder if one of those alleged relationships may have led to Bill's disappearance. Apparently, law enforcement was thinking the same thing. I called up San Augustine County Sheriff Robert Cartwright, whose father was the sheriff when Bill went missing. He wasn't involved in the investigation, but he told me his father. And Ranger Morris interviewed several people in connection to the case. Two of them were a husband and wife who lived in the county. The wife was a nurse, and Sheriff Cartwright recalled that they thought she might have been, quote, slipping around. The implication was that she and Bill had some kind of relationship and maybe the husband was involved in Bill's disappearance. It's just speculation, but when three unrelated people, one of whom is a county sheriff, mention the same thing, you have to take it seriously. But here's where things get a little weird, if they aren't already weird enough. David left Catfish Junction, called to tell me what he'd heard, and then went back to the restaurant to see if Delwin would agree to a recorded interview.

[Delwin Williams (continued)]

When I came back to the restaurant to try to talk with Delwin more, the owner of the restaurant was there. Guy named Danny. Really nice guy, but seemed really interested in just dampening the conversation. Delwin and I were starting to engage in some more conversation, and Danny jumped in a couple different times and said, basically, yeah, man, just really not good to speculate. Really not wise to gossip.

[Jordan Sillers (Podcast Host/Narrator)]

David said he had a good conversation with Danny about other topics, and he wasn't unkind or aggressive, but definitely seemed

[Delwin Williams (continued)]

like he was not interested in me talking with him or really with Delwin anymore about the situation. Situation with Bill. I wasn't sure if there was almost like an underlying. If there was a fear there or something associated with just not wanting to bring it up. But it's interesting, to say the least.

[Jordan Sillers (Podcast Host/Narrator)]

Stirring the pot in a small town has its downsides. So if that's actually the reason for Dani's hesitation, I get it. Jenna told us that while she has her own theories about what happened to her grandfather, she decided not to express them publicly. It's awkward to accuse someone of murder if you might see them in line at the grocery store. Still, it seemed like Delwin had things to say, and I wasn't about to give up. So about a week later, I called Catfish Junction to give it another shot.

[Delwin Williams (Catfish Junction Employee)]

Catfish Junction.

[Jordan Sillers (Podcast Host/Narrator)]

Delwyn was there, and he agreed to be interviewed. He told me that, yes, Bill ate at Catfish Junction all the time, and Delwin and his brother were part of the same bass fishing club.

[Delwin Williams (Catfish Junction Employee)]

The day went missing, my little Brother, I seen him on the cone of 705. There was a little store there. My little brother stopped in to get a beer and Bill was in there by an eye. Said he was getting ready to go out on lake crappie fishing.

[Jordan Sillers (Podcast Host/Narrator)]

This trip to buy ice was, as I mentioned earlier, the last time Bill was ever seen in public. Was he acting strangely at all or did he seem normal?

[Delwin Williams (Catfish Junction Employee)]

No, Alan said he's just talking. Said he was in there getting asked. He's getting ready to go on the lake, go fishing.

[Jordan Sillers (Podcast Host/Narrator)]

I asked Delwin if he could tell me anything else about the die hard angler. The first thing he mentioned was that waitress.

[Delwin Williams (Catfish Junction Employee)]

He sit down and eat with her all the time when he come in. It was sort of a ladies man away.

[Jordan Sillers (Podcast Host/Narrator)]

Yeah, yeah.

[Delwin Williams (Catfish Junction Employee)]

He's a big old guy and worked hard, made good money and he'd come in, eat and always live every fifteen, twenty dollar tip, you know. Yeah, she was our waitress.

[Jordan Sillers (Podcast Host/Narrator)]

Whether things went any farther than a generous tip and a few jokes, Delwin couldn't say no.

[Delwin Williams (Catfish Junction Employee)]

Just as he's always sitting down talking to him and all that kind of stuff. I never seen him go out with no other woman or anything like that. It was married man, but they just enjoyed talking to him, you know.

[Jordan Sillers (Podcast Host/Narrator)]

That context is helpful though it does still align with Bill's reputation as a ladies man. I also wanted to ask Delwin about the other thing Bailey told us about his grandfather.

[Interviewer/Podcast Host]

One thing his grandson mentioned is that he was a bit of an outlaw

[Jordan Sillers (Podcast Host/Narrator)]

when it came to hunting. Did you ever hear anything about that?

[Delwin Williams (Catfish Junction Employee)]

Oh, yep. He didn't follow the rules.

[Interviewer/Podcast Host]

Just like hunting maybe on like private, private land, stuff like that.

[Delwin Williams (Catfish Junction Employee)]

Shooting off the road.

[Interviewer/Podcast Host]

Oh yeah, right.

[Jordan Sillers (Podcast Host/Narrator)]

Gotcha, gotcha.

[Interviewer/Podcast Host]

Yeah, yeah.

[Delwin Williams (Catfish Junction Employee)]

Good sportsman. He's shooting while he's driving.

[Interviewer/Podcast Host]

Yeah, well, you know, it's the opportunities there. Right.

[Delwin Williams (Catfish Junction Employee)]

Back in the day when outlaw hunting was big time. Yeah, don't do it nowadays. They got it where it costs too much.

[Jordan Sillers (Podcast Host/Narrator)]

I've never heard anything to indicate that Bill's disappearance is related to his outlawing. But it nonetheless speaks to the man's tendency to do his own thing, to have his own way. And that aspect of his personality does factor into the only law enforcement backed theory about who might have killed Bill.

[Don Morris (Texas Ranger)]

There was a neighbor in the cul de. Bill lived in a cul de sac down there and just this, his house, the neighbor's house here, Bill's house here, then another one right up there and there was a cul de sac and this neighbor lived there. And he was there all day long. He's been interviewed a couple, three times and said he'd never seen Bill. Don't know what happened to him, anything like that. Hmm.

[Jordan Sillers (Podcast Host/Narrator)]

Do you.

[Delwin Williams (continued)]

Do you.

[Interviewer/Podcast Host]

Can you tell me anything about what. What the conflict was there?

[Don Morris (Texas Ranger)]

I don't know of any conflict.

[Interviewer/Podcast Host]

Okay.

[Don Morris (Texas Ranger)]

I don't know of any. Bill has never mentioned anything to Lynette about any kind of conflict, anything like that. I'm sure they've seen or talked to him numerous times. They spend the time on the Laker.

[Interviewer/Podcast Host]

Right.

[Don Morris (Texas Ranger)]

But I don't know of any conflict. And Lynette, like I said, didn't know of any conflict.

[Jordan Sillers (Podcast Host/Narrator)]

We don't know this neighbor's name or whether he's still alive. But Delwin also mentioned this person, and after a little pressing, he was more forthcoming about what was going on in that secluded patch of lakefront property.

[Delwin Williams (Catfish Junction Employee)]

Him, his next door neighbor down there on the lake was always getting into it at the house he owned them late down there. I got into it two or three times.

[Don Morris (Texas Ranger)]

Oh, yeah?

[Delwin Williams (Catfish Junction Employee)]

Pretty good argument. Yeah.

[Jordan Sillers (Podcast Host/Narrator)]

What do you know what they're fighting about?

[Delwin Williams (Catfish Junction Employee)]

No, not in. Not in particular. I don't. I just know him and Bill didn't get along real good. That's all I know.

[Interviewer/Podcast Host]

Yeah. So Bill. Bill told you he just kind of tried to. To keep to himself and not.

[Jordan Sillers (Podcast Host/Narrator)]

And not bother this guy.

[Delwin Williams (Catfish Junction Employee)]

Bill was a drinker. He drank his beer and stuff, and he. He throw parties down there at the lake house, you know, and this man didn't like the party and drinking going on next door, I guess. And he said every time he'd get a party together, that man had come over and tell him they need to leave. He didn't like all that party and drinking, loud music. And Bill told him, we'll get all that a couple times, I think so.

[Jordan Sillers (Podcast Host/Narrator)]

A conflict over a house party might seem like a weak motivation for murder, but as we saw in the Mike Kreitz case, where a hunter was murdered after getting into a neighborhood conflict, even a seemingly minor argument can spiral into violence. It's also worth pointing out that the people who live in a neighborhood like this do so for the peace and quiet. There are more homes now than there were in 1997. But when we visited earlier this year, it was dead silent. No one came out to talk to us or answered when we knocked. It was honestly a little creepy, and I wasn't sure what to make of it, but a big party would have felt very out of place. So even though it's still a Weak excuse for homicide. I can see why Bill's neighbor might have been upset. What's more, Delwin isn't the only person to acknowledge that Bill was having an ongoing conflict with his lake house neighbor. In 2005, Ranger Morris sat down with another Texas Ranger to be interviewed for a book series published by the Texas Rangers hall of Fame. Ranger Morris was asked about Bill Roland's case, which was one of the few he didn't solve. And here's what he There was another old boy in that same cul de sac he lived in. That's a strange duck. And him and Bill had so many problems over the last year or so. And I feel certain that he killed Bill and dumped him in that lake. As you heard just a few minutes ago, Ranger Morris told me that he didn't know of any conflict with that neighbor. The ranger hasn't seen the case file since he retired in 2002, so you could chalk it up to a faulty memory. I don't know how else to interpret it. Since Ranger Morris was more than happy to talk to me. It would be a weird move to agree to an interview with a journalist to try to lie about a past statement that anyone with an Internet connection can read. Whatever the reason, he said something else that suggests it. If there was a conflict, Bill Roland wasn't about to back down.

[Don Morris (Texas Ranger)]

And Bill is one of them guys, too. For what everybody tells me, if somebody confronts him, he ain't backing down. You know, he's going to stand his ground. I've heard. I know one incident they told me in broader somewhere where he backed no more down with a knife toward him. So really, So, I mean, he, he's, he's that type of individual.

[Jordan Sillers (Podcast Host/Narrator)]

Someone came at Bill with an knife, but Bill stood his ground. That situation ended without anyone getting killed. But you can imagine how a scenario like that goes very badly, very quickly. If Bill's neighbor decided to confront him on that Monday afternoon, who knows what could have happened?

[Don Morris (Texas Ranger)]

If it had something happened, it had to happen at the house. I don't know what happened or what happened to Bill there. If something had to happen.

[Jordan Sillers (Podcast Host/Narrator)]

Part five Finding Bill Investigators never found Bill's body, which means there are still plenty of people in the Lufkin area who think the East Texas man took off and made a new life somewhere else.

[Delwin Williams (Catfish Junction Employee)]

I heard it somebody had used his credit card a day after went missing on the other side of luck and over at the filling station. And they had fish of him, but never did show his face. They said from looking behind big Big guy, like, like he was. So I thought it was him, but they didn't have no picture of him.

[Don Morris (Texas Ranger)]

We've had people say, well, I see Bill over the casino in Louisiana, you know, and tell me about a month later, you know.

[Interviewer/Podcast Host]

Right.

[Don Morris (Texas Ranger)]

And so I said, well, why didn't you go up there and say hi to him? He ain't wanted for nothing. Just go up there and hug his neck, say, bill, where you been?

[Jordan Sillers (Podcast Host/Narrator)]

The problem is none of these sightings led investigators to the missing man. Ranger Morris doesn't think Bill ran away. And the reason speaks to the hunter's love of the outdoors.

[Don Morris (Texas Ranger)]

The reason I say that is cause Bill, he got an old rifle gave down to by his grandfather. And he's married to Lynette and he's been married to another woman before and he brought that rifle from there. So he's not going to run off. We'll leave that rifle. You know, if he had plans to leave, he would already got it out of the house. And there was nothing in the bank accounts to indicate any kind of drawing money out or stuff like that. Nothing, you know.

[Interviewer/Podcast Host]

Right.

[Don Morris (Texas Ranger)]

So, yeah, to me, I think he's deceased somewhere.

[Jordan Sillers (Podcast Host/Narrator)]

The question is where. As the years stretch on, the odds of finding Bill and bringing his killer to justice grow ever smaller. If Ranger Morris's theory is correct, Bill's remains are still at the bottom of Lake Sam Rayburn. Finding them will be a challenge, maybe a bigger challenge than anyone is willing to undertake.

[Don Morris (Texas Ranger)]

Let me tell you what, Sam Rayburn. Out there is a forest underneath that water. You can't, there's got, they got cuts in there, but most time it's a forest underneath that water. You go 10 foot down, it's just trees everywhere. You know, that makes it hard, it makes it difficult to try to find any, anything out there when you look at it, when divers are looking. We had several dive teams look at and you know, they can't just do the normal search like they do from a point, you know, like we had to carry them out into a boat and they had to come back over the trees. I mean, it's, it's terrible. Yeah, we've, we've done several dive searches and hadn't found anything.

[Jordan Sillers (Podcast Host/Narrator)]

The Texas Rangers are a state level agency, so Ranger Morris had the latest technology at his disposal. In 1997, along with the dive teams, they used sonar to scan the bottom of the lake for any sign of human remains, the ladder or the concrete buckets. They couldn't search the entire lake, but they thought they had a Lead on where to start looking.

[Don Morris (Texas Ranger)]

The lady that they called to come over there to check to see if Bill was there that night, she heard the pontoon boat go out and stop in the area out there. She passed her point. She don't know. She didn't see it. She don't know. But then she thought she heard a splash. Well, whether that's true or not, I don't know, but that's the best we had to go on.

[Jordan Sillers (Podcast Host/Narrator)]

That location didn't reveal what they were hoping to find. But technology has come a long way since 1997.

[Michael Hadsell (Search and Rescue Expert)]

Be better they run it nowadays. They could still, if he's still down there, they could probably find. There's a lot of ways we could find it now that we wouldn't have, you know, using resonance frequencies and using other things.

[Jordan Sillers (Podcast Host/Narrator)]

That's Michael Hadsell. Michael operates a Florida nonprofit called Peace River Search and Rescue. He's an experienced search and rescue diver, canine handler, and expert on all things water recovery. I asked him what searchers today could expect to find and what techniques they could employ.

[Michael Hadsell (Search and Rescue Expert)]

Yeah, at this point, it's just bones. What we would hope for is to be able to find, like, the mandible or some teeth along with some bone, and then we can get DNA off of that. Hopefully, if they wrapped them and they wrapped them in a tarp and they chained them and they anchored them down, there's a lot that we can find if we can find that.

[Jordan Sillers (Podcast Host/Narrator)]

The bones that are left have likely sunk into the muck at the bottom of the lake. But believe it or not, a dog's nose is strong enough to sense that odor, even from the deco, a boat. Once a dog hits on a particular location, it's up to the divers to swim to the bottom and start sifting through the mud. The trees make that project more difficult, but still not impossible. Searchers might also find some of the other items that were possibly sunk with Bill, such as that orange fiberglass ladder.

[Michael Hadsell (Search and Rescue Expert)]

It does have a sonar picture. I mean, you can see it if it's in an area where you can see it. Of course, we've got a lot of vegetation down there that's going to mask a lot of things. But if it's in a place that it's open, yeah, we can. We'll see that from the high def sonar.

[Jordan Sillers (Podcast Host/Narrator)]

Those buckets would also appear on sonar. And Michael says nylon rope could still be intact, even all these years later. Of course, whether any of those items are found depends in large part on whether anyone is looking. Anglers on Lake Sam Rayburn might find something by accident and they wouldn't be the first to discover a missing person. In using modern fish finders, Texas Ranger Chris Perkins also told me that if they learn new information, searching the lake is still in the cards, it very well could be.

[Chris Perkins (Texas Ranger Investigator)]

Certainly wouldn't rule it out. If it came up as something that we needed to do, then certainly we would do it.

[Jordan Sillers (Podcast Host/Narrator)]

Ranger Perkins is the investigator currently in charge of Bill's case. He works for the agency's cold case division and he knows his stuff. We actually had to reschedule our first interview because he had to attend a press conference announcing a breakthrough in a 1986 murder investigation. Investigation. He told me the same resources that were used to crack that case can also be deployed to solve bills.

[Chris Perkins (Texas Ranger Investigator)]

It is active and this is, this is one of the cases that we still get tips on our website on a pretty frequent basis. They are all actively looked into and pursued as best we can. Sometimes the details may not be enough to get us where we need to be, but sometimes they are. And that's, that's the whole purpose of the website is to be able to finally get that one break that just blows the case open.

[Jordan Sillers (Podcast Host/Narrator)]

I mentioned earlier that the number of years since Bill disappeared makes his case more difficult to solve. But Ranger Perkins pointed out that time can be a double edged sword.

[Chris Perkins (Texas Ranger Investigator)]

People's relationships change, so we can go back and re interview people who may have had a close relationship with whoever was involved early on and then maybe not so much now. So the longer a case goes on, it can be challenging, but it can also be a benefit to investigators because there may be a level of complacency on the part of those involved where they're just not. They get comfortable and they go back to life and they think nobody's ever going to find them. And that's usually when we can make up that ground and identify somebody and bring charges.

[Jordan Sillers (Podcast Host/Narrator)]

You can read between those lines for yourself. But it sounds to me like the rangers can guess who might be involved or at least who might know something. So they're biding their time waiting for those people to slip up, have a change of heart or tell the wrong person what happened to Bill. Because somewhere beneath the surface of Lake Sam Rayburn, past the downed timber and the silt and the dark water, Bill Roland may still be out there. East Texas has a way of keeping its secrets. The pines grow thick, the lakes run deep, and the people who know things tend to hold them close. But even though secrets carry weight, some of them eventually rise to the surface.

[Chris Perkins (Texas Ranger Investigator)]

People like this that may have been involved may be thinking that they're out of the woods and that they may be getting complacent. But I would just remind them that there are investigators out there who never stop and are always pursuing justice. So they need to keep an eye in their rearview mirror because we're coming.

[Jordan Sillers (Podcast Host/Narrator)]

Figuring out what happened to Bill won't bring back Jenna and Bailey's fathers, but for the last surviving Rolands, it would help close the circle of the mystery that has shadowed their lives. They heard Bill's name in parking lots and on deer leases and from old women who still remember his laugh. They lost their fathers to the unanswered question that is Bill's disappearance. But they're still here in Lufkin in Angelina county, in the place their family has always been waiting for answers.

[Jenna Sprinkle (Bill Roland's Granddaughter)]

It'd be huge for us. There's me and Bailey. We're the really the only Roland's left and so that'd be huge for us. We would love to see or love to hear what truly happened. That'd be closure for our family that our family has wanted for a long time now.

[Delwin Williams (Catfish Junction Employee)]

Foreign.

[Jordan Sillers (Podcast Host/Narrator)]

Thanks for listening to this episode of Blood Trails. If you have any information on what might have happened to Bill Roland, you can submit a tip through the Texas Rangers Cold Case website or through the Texas Crime Stoppers hotline. That number is 1-800-252-8477. We'll post that number and links to submit a tip on the case file for this this episode, which you can find by going to themateater.com bloodtrails there you can also see images of Lake Sam Rayburn, Bill and his sons and the neighborhood where he disappeared. You can also check out the footage we captured of this area and our in person interviews by watching the video version of this podcast on YouTube. Huge thanks to everyone who contributed to this episode. Jenna Sprinkle, Bailey Rowland, Texas Rangers Don Morris, Chris Perkins and Sam Latner, Michael Hadsell, Delwyn Williams and the Rayburn Country Resort. Also shout out to David McDaniels for his incredible video work and on the ground reporting. See you next time. Stay safe out there.

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