Chapter 10: Dad NEVER Gives Up

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Hi, I'm your host, Jules, and I am an investigated podcaster living in the same town where Jennifer Wicks and Adriana Wicks went missing in two thousand and four. This chapter is going to be about a father's fight, and it's going to be a bit different than previous chapters. I want to give this space to Adriana's father, Billy Williams, and I want him to tell us as much as he wants can or will, so that everyone can for the first time, all together, all at once, hear his side of the story and his fight to find his little girl. Let's go. My family is about the only people that I really have ever spoken to about this. My name is Billy Williams, Adriana's father. I met Jennifer. We had a friend of the same I guess didn't know each other, but we had a friend that we both knew, and we just kind of ran into each other at a party one night. It wasn't really like a big time party, but when I was growing up we would have field parties, underage drinking going to the field and everybody just having a good time. And it wasn't a big party, like I said, But that's where we officially met, was through Matt Thompson, a friend of mine that we both knew grown up. I don't really recall a whole lot about that particular night. It was a very very long time ago, and the biggest point part of that night we had bared my friend's car. We had borrowed my friends car. I think my truck may have been messed up at the time. And my family had a roughly a sixty acre farm and we had a field in a very back You got to go through a wooded trail to get back there and it was completely secluded. But me and Jennifer had rode back there and we just laid on the hood of the car. And I don't think she even drank anything at night. I was drinking a little bit, but yeah, not a whole lot. But anyways, I remember laying on the hood of the car and I was just sitting there talking for probably a couple hours, which was Jennifer's thing. She loved to have the hard heart talks and stuff like that. And yeah, from there we just kind of hit it off. The relationship moved really really fast. I'm still living at home with my parents. We lived behind a gas station, but anyways, and I had an upstairs bedroom and her cousin, Ashley Wicks, had worked over at the store. It's called Douglas Techo. Everybody around here knows what it is. But anyways, you could see from my bedroom you could see the store, and you know, long story short, Jennifer had actually moved in with me. I snuck her into my bedroom. My parents didn't know that, I thought until afterwards my parents, my mom let me know that she knew the whole time. We thought we got away with like a week or two where she didn't know, But no, she knew the whole time. She says, Uh, Well, I mean I would go to work and I would leave Jennifer there and she would just lay in the bed and sleep all day. We had a bathroom, it was upstairs. I mean it was kind of like a little apartment up there. So yeah, she would just hang out all day and then when I would get home, we'd sneak her out and then when you know, come back here, like, hey, how y'all doing. Like I said, I loved her to death. I know loves a strong word. It was a short period of time, but we did share the word and exercise it between each other. But yeah, and to me at the time, I think my word would have been clingy. She was too clingy. And that didn't think I had any kids or any kids on the way or anything like that. So nineteen twenty years old, I want to go live a life and enjoy my childhood, I guess you could say. Before stepping up to be an adult. So that's pretty much all it was. Again, Jennifer was very fragile. I mean, if her feelings got hurt, you would know it by her crying, and then she would write you this big, long letter almost every time. I mean I got a letter at least once a day the whole time we was together. I believe she went her way. I went mine. Of course I stayed at my parents' house, but yeah, she went her way, and I really didn't have any contact with her at all after that, because this is before cell phones was a big thing. I never never seen her again after that up until later. At that point, I was in a relationship with my ex wife now Crystal Peril. So yeah, we had met at store and we'd been dating at that point. I think we were dating about seven eight months. Somewhere around that time frame. It was a Robinson County fair. I was there with Crystal. It's just kind of weird because once we broke up, I never seen her again. But when you see her at the fair like two years after you guys broke up, pretty much right, had you heard in between those two years she had a. Baby, just probably literally probably a few weeks maybe a couple months before that. Did you ever question? No, because I didn't. I mean, I thought, you know, if it if it could have been mine then, and I didn't even know how old Adrianna was at the time. I didn't know any details, so the math thing did not click. So you go to this fair in August in Robertson County without You're just going with your then girlfriend. And you see John Jennifer, Adriana and her cousin Ashley Oak through this. Well, we're just walking down through the fair and we seen them. They was walking toward us, and we was walking toward them, had head on and again my memory is very vague on this, but I do remember us seeing them and walking up was kind of just walking past them, and then you know, hey, how y'all doing pretty good? How are y'all? And that was It was very brief, and yeah, I remember seeing Adriana, but the time, again, did not know any clue that she could possibly be mine, so I didn't really go that far into thought or anything like that. So that what happens after that. We just split ways and I didn't see her again at the pair. So you didn't know at the fair that Adriana was. There was no inclination. No, her cousin Ashley had actually called me. I think it was just a few days later. I think that's right. Again, my memory on all this it's not good, but I think it was just a few days and said, hey, Adriana is yours. So it's kind of like a big smack in the face because I did just see him apair not too long before that, I'd set up a Jennifer to meet actually go and meet Adriana. She was at her gr Granny and Grandpa Wix's and I'd got off work. Excuse me, I'd gotten off for work and by myself, Crystal knew about us. Well, sorry, take that back, Crystal did not know about it the time. I told her immediately after, but I didn't want her going with me because it was something that I felt I needed to do by myself. So I go over there and Jennifer meets me outside. When I pull up, briefly talked. We walk in and there's Adriana standing in the living room. I didn't stay real long. I'm gonna say it was probably a thirty minute visit at most, maybe twenty to thirty minutes, but I did get to interact with Adrianna, but as soon as I seen her, I knew how I looked at her. Yeah it looked just like my baby pictures that she did. And yeah, but I did, Like I said, I got to interact with her for a few minutes because I remember. It's sad that it's the only memory that I have. But there was a clothes basket. There's a white clothes basket, and I'd put Adrianna inside of it. One was pushing around the house in it. So yeah, it was. It was a good trip. Just wish it wasn't the last i'd left. Chris or Jennifer had walked me out on the porch and we did discuss then as far as I told her, I said, I'm not going to fight for Cussier or nothing like that if she's my daughter, which I think she is, and I would just like to see her every once in a while. And she is complete agreeing with it. We was both on the same page with every saying when I left at night. Is that the last time you saw Jennifer. No, that's the last time I seen Adriana. Now, the last time I seen Jennifer was a friend of Crystal's and mine, and I guess Jennifer's too. Sean Knight had passed away and his funeral was right up here at Austin Ball in Springfield, and we was there at it, and me and Crystal was together, and Crystal was very pregnant, very noticeable, and we'd seen Jennifer and she looked over at me and just seen Crystal and rolled her eyes and walked off, which is Jennifer. So me and Crystal, of course, not having a lot of money, being young, we had moved back in with my parents again. My oldest son that she was pregnant with had a lot of complications, so we moved the wedding date up, and again didn't have a lot of money. So our honeymoon we went to Lake Malone, which is right down the road in Kentucky, and proceeded in biting or renning a john boat that she steered with motor, and that's the only thing we've done. We went and had lunch on the water and rode a boat around the lake all day. Again cheap fun. So we came back from Kentucky, was actually on our way back almost back home. It was about a forty five fifty minute drive and her uncle Dale that lived in Orlanda he's de ceased now, had called Crystal because they was close, so he knew what all was going on and everything, and uh and told her that he had heard something about it. So that's and then of course it was all over the news and everything very quick, just a time frame. And then after actually talking to miss Cassie and everything, everything kind of started becoming real. I guess would be the word to use there. You know that it had been around three days and nobody had heard nothing. And because again that's not Jennifer to go that long without talking to her mother or even Ashley, her sisters or anybody that was Yeah, not Jennifer that I knew when we was together, not gonna lie either. Thought crossed my mind. Did Jennifer get scared that I was going to try to take custy of Adriana and say, hey, let's get the heck out of here, not even give them a chance. Because she was not an unfit mother at all, from what I understand. She was a great mother to Adriana, So that thought did cross my mind, you know, and hey, it'll suck, but they will be back eventually, and I've always kept that. The hope for them returning is still there for me, not near as much, but it's still there. There's nothing I'd love more to be able to see Adriana arm went to Miss Cassie's that's when she lived in cross Plains, right off of twenty five. We went there and picked up flowers, passed out flowers. And that was another big time that it hit me when it was passing out flowers, because you shouldn't be doing that unless you are really concerned. And this is still you don't have the confirmation from the opportunity task that you were out there passing out flyers going to door. Uh we did that day, I know, and I didn't do a lot. And that's if you don't mind, know kind of passed forward just a little bit because right around in that time framement is when everything started getting tricky for me. In Crystal, my oldest son was diagnosed with Down syndrome. Went five months of birth or into the pregnancy. We had to go to two Baptists to see a ultra sound specialist. They gave my oldest son a thirty percent chance to after birth. He had food on his brain they said he was missing a finger and had a heart depict so everything kind of the whole world flipped upside down, per se. At that point, I was pretty much forced to make a decision to pick one kid over the other. I had to go with him. He needed me, so yeah, that's where. Yeah, he was born, very chaotic. There was I think twelve nurses, doctors and everything in the room when he was born. But he had a small intestinary pair at five days old, so a dominal surgery at that point. You know, as soon as he was born, they started doing hard monitors and just checking everything out, the flood on his brain and everything. Luckily he was born with all his fingers. I think that was just a mishap on the ultra sound. But anyways, the fluid on his brain had went down drastically to where they didn't think that was going to be an issue. But his heart was still a very big issue. Definitely wanted to have open heart surgery at this point. So your heart is like a muscle, so a baby is yello. His heart. He had a hole in between the upper two chambers, a whole in between the lower two chambers, and only had one vow versus two one big valve feeding his heart, so his heart was overworking, but they needed it to muscle up, I guess, so they could actually do the surgery because of course they would have to sew his heart back together and all this stuff. So we had to go as far as we could, which was ended up being that December he went in for his first open heart surgery. Put him on bypassed on the surgery. Everything worked out great, stay in the hospital roughly a month after that. Well I do, I mean, I probably myself. I have been a good dad, but yeah, everybody makes mistakes. But yeah, I will always believe that Adriana there's a chance that she can come back until I get confirmation. Otherwise I do try to keep faith. That's all I got. And Adriana hies. Yes, yeah, nineteen year old brother, a thirteen year old sister, and a five year old brother. Honestly law enforcement like it was a detective Carlisle. I met with him twice. The second time was to give him the paternity results and was told by him and that yes, I would be notified on anything that they have leads or that they come across or whatnot. I've never gotten a first phone call from any of them TBI when they took it over and reclassified the case. They come and interviewed me at my workplace and the TBI agent and I can't recall the detective at tom Robinson County, but neither one of those. They both told me, yes, we feel for you. We will reach out to you with anything. As I asked them, if they could just keep me in the loop and steal nothing. I've never received a phone call from any cop or detective or TBI agent. Nobody, never, not in twenty plus years, say Adriana, I've never gave enough pope on you. You always have a special piece of my heart, no matter what I wish it could have been a lot more. But if I do get a chance to see you again one day, we can always catch up those times and make the best of what we have. Yeah, she could complete me. I love you, and. Next time I'm missing in Hushtown, We're catching you up to speed. Thank you to our sponsor, Hendersonville Family Psychiatry here in Middle Tennessee, because mental health is health. Missing in Hushtown was executive produced and written by me your host Jewles with Ale Audio House LLC. Casey Robinson was co producer. Special thanks to John Thorpe, Patrick Robinson, my parents, and Jen Rivera, and to our children. To follow our continued efforts on Justice for Jennifer and Adriana Wicks, you can find us on Facebook at Justice for Jennifer and Adriana Wicks. This page is personally managed by Casey herself and you can find me jewles Hi on Instagram at your host jewles Notes and updates can be found on our website www dot Missing in Hushtown dot com. Please help us continue to grow by considering leaving a five star review and rating wherever you're listening. If you have a tip for this case, please please call one eight hundred TBI I find help us bring the Wix Girls home. To donate to this family's continued fight for justice, please visit GoFundMe dot com slash Jennifer and Adriana Wicks and to support the podcast and to help us continue this production, you may click support the show and the show notes and donate a wis Kiss. Ten percent of all profits from season one I'm Missing in Hushtown will be given to the Wicks family indefinitely. As always You're wanted, you are loved, and you deserve to be found. Don't you forget it. I'll see you next time. Why it is Ryan Seacrest here. Everybody needs some variety in life. That's what I love about Chumba Casino. They know how to keep things fresh and exciting. All their games are free to play at spin slots, Bingo and Solitaire. 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You can get one hundred dollars off any cocktail maker or cocktail maker bundle when you spend four hundred dollars, or more so, if the cocktail lover in your life has been good this year or the right kind of bad, get them Bartesian at the push of a button, make Bark quality Cosmopolitans, Martini's, Manhattan's, and more, all in just thirty seconds, all for a hundred off. Amazing toys aren't just for kids. Get a hundred off a cocktail maker when you spend four hundred through iber Monday, visit bartisian dot com slash cocktail. That's b A r t E s i a n dot com slash cocktail