Last time we checked in with former pro wrestling star Billy Jack Haynes he was suing WWE for allegedly giving him Hep C and was trying to organize a UFC fight against Stone Cold Steve Austin.
On Wednesday, Haynes’ post-retirement career took an even more surprising turn: he’s come forward to claim he was a witness to a decades-old double homicide known as ‘Boys on the Tracks,’ previously the subject of a book and an episode of Unsolved Mysteries. Haynes taped a confession of sorts in a video intended to raise money for a murder investigations, mentioning his role as a drug mule, implicating an unnamed “criminal politicians” and declaring that he could be murdered himself for coming forward.
From a report via ArkansasMatters.com:
In the taped confession, he claims that while performing in the ’80s for the World Wrestling Federation (now known as WWE) as a 6’3″, 280-pound wrestler, he also transported and trafficked cocaine through the United States. His side job eventually brought him to Arkansas.
“I was also an enforcer who provided muscle to other parts of the criminal element to ensure that their illegal business dealings were collected upon,” added Haynes. “In August of 1987, I was contacted by an Arkansas criminal politician and was asked if I would provide muscle at an Arkansas drug (transaction).”
In the near six-minute video, Haynes refers to a male “criminal politician” multiple times, but never names him by name. Haynes says the politician was suspicious that cash from drug money drops was being stolen.
“While conducting security for the drug money drop, I witnessed the murders of two young boys: Kevin Ives and Don Henry. They were murdered by other individuals who were working for the same criminal politician. Their bodies were placed on the railroad tracks to be mutilated by a passing train,” Haynes alleges.
…
“I’m standing here putting my life on the line, telling you that I could very well be killed,” added Haynes. “They have to be taken down.”
The YouTube video in question is below.
The original ruling on the death is predictably “Arkansas in the 1980s,” featuring a theory on marijuana that will make you furrow your brow at your computer screen just reading it.
The state medical examiner ruled suicide. He thought the boys smoked pot, passed out on the tracks, and were then run over by the speeding train. A later autopsy found anything but. An Atlanta-based pathologist found the boys were knocked unconscious or killed before their bodies were dumped on the tracks. A grand jury concluded the deaths to be the result of homicide.
If you head over to ArkansasMatters you can see the full news report, as well as this exchange.
The big questions: why should investigators believe Haynes? And why now?
“I come with no hidden voice. I come to you straight face-to-face, because this is reality, man,” remarked Haynes in the video. “Don’t hide nothing!”
