10 Things We Learned From Dark Side Of The Ring: Billy Jack Haynes
4. He Tied Himself To A Shocking Double Murder
In 1987, news spread that 16 year old Don Henry and 17 year old Kevin Ives had been killed by a freight train in Arkansas. The incident was shocking, but the trail went cold on exactly what happened to the teenagers. Then, out of the blue in 2017, Haynes linked himself to the story by claiming the boys had been killed before the train hit them, and that he’d helped put them on the tracks in the first place.
People were left stunned when Billy Jack laid out a scenario that seemed OTT. He said the two teenagers had stumbled across a big drug deal, and that he’d been enlisted to film the deal wearing a wrestling mask (?!). Jim Cornette recapping this is pretty must see stuff. The plot thickened when Haynes said he went down to oversee the drug deal after wrestling King Kong Bundy on a WWF card.
Here's some more context on that claim.
Henry and Ives were found on 23 August 1987. Billy Jack worked Bundy on a 21 August house show in Detroit, which is a 12 hour drive from Arkansas. Is it possible that Billy Jack got his dates mixed up and/or did drive from Michigan to the scene of the crime? Maybe, but exactly zero of the talking heads on VICE were willing to believe that.
Things became even more puzzling when journalist Phil Stanford revealed later in the episode that Haynes fabricated his involvement in another murder case after talking to him and hearing all about it. That's...alarming behaviour to say the least.