Original subtitles

The standoff took place this morning in front of

this house, after police say they responded to

reports of a shooting...

...85-year-old, Janette Becraft

was killed yesterday morning at a home.

You want to say that nothing in wrestling surprises you...

The former professional wrestler is now accused of

shooting and killing his wife.

That's surprising.

And then, all of a sudden, the news broke.

It's Billy Jack.

He just electrifies the crowd, and they love him.

What? Billy Jack did what?

I could have believed it, but I didn't.

I didn't want to believe it.

Billy Jack Haynes!

[Narrator] Years before this shocking crime,

Billy Jack Haynes had lived the dream,

rising from Oregon's regional circuit to stardom

in wrestling's golden age of the 1980s.

From Portland, Oregon...

Billy Jack Haynes!

Billy Jack had everything...

All the tools to be a top professional wrestler.

Whoa! Oh, look at the slam! Billy Jack is strong.

His career was in reverse.

He started as a star,

and he finished as a nobody.

But Billy Jack's dealings outside the ring

hinted at a mysterious life,

one almost too extraordinary to believe.

Billy said he had been involved in the drug business

as a collector and enforcer.

When I was in Portland, I was about

a kilo a day cocaine dealer.

Billy has made many, many claims.

I was contracted to go down there to kill

two Arkansas State Police officers.

You don't know fact from fiction with Billy Jack Haynes.

I kept that secret from everybody.

Now, as the former star faces murder charges,

those who knew Billy Jack Haynes

look back on the road that led him here.

So Billy Jack was his own worst enemy...

and didn't even know it.

He was a loaded gun, brother.

You never know what he's thinking.

You know, a lot of guys fall hard in wrestling, but...

he fell harder than most. Without a doubt.

♪

♪

[cheering]

In the wrestling industry, I guess a lot of people

may have forgotten about him.

I got Oregon blood flowing through these veins!

Even the most diehard WWF fan today would say,

"Well, yeah, Billy Jack. He was there."

Billy Jack reaching down! That intentional fortitude.

What did he do?

People now in the present day are trying to go back

because of what's happened with Billy,

and trying to figure out, where did this start?

We knew one day Billy Jack would do something crazy.

But, we never thought it would be that crazy.

It shocked me, and then again, it didn't.

I don't know if you can understand that.

That's one thing where, when Billy messed up,

he messed up. Final mess up.

I guess if you took everything and laid it

on the table, you could see it coming up.

Before his recent murder charge,

Billy Jack's past reveals other crimes,

including two assault charges before he's 30.

But the same mean streak that gets him into trouble also

creates new opportunities in the wrestling business.

Billy Jack Haynes was a thug.

He was a street fighter.

He was a boxer, a wrestler.

Tough guy, don't get me wrong.

My dad found him as a gym rat, and he's...

below that now.

All his bios say he was trained by Stu Hart.

Stu Hart threw him out of Canada 'cause he was

too rough and beat all his boys up.

So, he was back to being a gym rat in Portland, Oregon

when my dad, and "The Assassin"

Dave Sierra, found him.

Well, he came to the Portland Sports Arena looking for work.

And, we got him hooked up.

He looked unreal, he was like, you know,

jacked to the max.

Look at him!

Me and Rip "The Crippler" Oliver...

talked to promoter Don Owens into using him.

We knew with that size body,

and his home being the Pacific Northwest,

that we can draw money with him.

Billy Jack Haynes, I mean, he just, he fit the part,

and everybody was giving him a chance.

In 1982, Billy rockets to the top...

with a persona tailor made for fans

in the Pacific Northwest.

Billy Jack's gimmick and look came from the movie

Billy Jack, starring Tom Laughlin,

about the ex-service man

who was a karate expert and a loner.

He was a dangerous man, but soft spoken.

But don't cross him.

Billy Jack, whose look, physique,

the aura, and the presence he had,

the fans went crazy for him like he was

their very own hometown movie star.

The Portland, Oregon boy is coming up victorious!

So Billy Jack was a very effective babyface promo guy

for Portland, Oregon.

Thank you everybody in Portland for supporting me.

I love you. Thank you.

Nice guy, loved his father. Loved Oregon,

loved Portland. You know what I mean?

And he was Billy Jack from the movie,

trying to get revenge on, on these different heels.

Make a little bit more noise and I'll get it for you.

Let's go, come on!

Everyone knew he was a rising star.

You know, the 80s was all about the look.

He had the look.

And I'm sure all the fans here are going to

like this man, Billy Jack Haynes.

What a fantastic build on this young man, Johnny.

They loved him, you know?

Every time Billy Jack was on the card, we sold out.

From the time he first stepped foot in the ring,

he was featured.

He was pushed by the promoters.

Small territory, pushed him.

Went to a bigger territory, pushed him.

I know Billy Jack Haynes from the territory days,

when he came to Florida Championship Wrestling.

He was pretty laid back.

Kind of a low key guy and a loner.

♪

My name's Bill "Fonzie" Alfonso,

and I've been in the wrestling business

for 45 years.

♪

I don't want to use the word oddball,

but he was kind of different from all the wrestlers.

♪

We'd go out to the after party,

have cocktails and drink and smoke a joint and so on.

Billy Jack would go with the fans

and their kids to pizza,

and have pizza with 'em.

The fans loved him.

He loved the fans. He was committed.

After just four years of working in smaller promotions,

Billy Jack Haynes gets the call in 1986 from

Vince McMahon's World Wrestling Federation.

From Portland, Oregon...

If you wanted to go deep into Vince McMahon's mind

and create a professional wrestler based on

what he thought they should look like,

Billy Jack was the guy.

And now I'm here in the WWF,

it's the World Wrestling Federation.

And believe me, I know full well this is where

the stiffest and the toughest competition is.

He wrestled in that Detroit WrestleMania.

They had over 100,000 people show up.

Billy Jack Haynes!

For a wrestler, that's top of the mountain.

Look at the builds on these two guys.

[cheering]

Ken Patera!

And his tag team partner.

Billy needed a tag team partner

to elevate his persona, so...

it worked out good. It worked out real good.

This is Ken Patera, coming straight at you.

And I used to wrestle with Billy Jack Haynes.

His appearance was, "don't ---- with me."

How's that? [chuckling]

[cheering]

Well, we weren't told anything about the gimmick.

Pat Patterson came in the locker room, and said,

"Well, we got chain saws, and you guys are

the Oregon Lumberjacks now."

And they wanted us to crank those chainsaws up

so they were actually running.

I said, "Are you ----ing nuts?"

"I'm not gonna turn this chainsaw on."

You know, somebody could get an arm cut off.

Just stupid.

Oh, there it is!

Billy had a super nice personality and everything,

soft spoken and whatnot.

The nicest guy you'd ever want to meet.

Billy Jack Haynes! And Ken Patera!

But the gloss

wears off after a while.

All respects, Billy Jack had a fantastic body,

stayed in shape. But upstairs, brother,

that's a different story.

Everyone knows me in pro wrestling as The Grappler.

I wrestled Billy Jack Haynes many times.

He's one of those guys you never know

what he's gonna try. I never could trust him.

He's liable to decide, you know,

he's mad about something and all of a sudden

knock the hell out of ya.

[indistinct commentary]

He was an off the hinge type character.

[screaming] Ah!

-Oh, baby! -[cheering]

His finishing maneuver would be the Full Nelson,

and once he locked that Full Nelson into you,

you felt like he was gonna break your neck.

Nobody has ever gotten out of the Full Nelson

once Billy Jack Haynes has got it locked in.

Once you gave up, he would just sling you, I mean,

like a piece of trash to the side.

♪

In the locker room, he had a reputation for- [snaps] Boom!

I could see in his eyes,

he was like a Dr. Jekyll, Mr. Hyde.

I've seen him snap several times.

There was one night, we're in Florida.

The match is over.

And Percy Pringle was Rude's manager.

And Billy Jack came in,

and he didn't like the way the finish went.

He walks in and slaps the piss out of Percy Pringle.

He goes, "This guy screwed up the finish.

You idiot!" That was his mentality.

That's the way he handled things.

We did a show and, ah...

Smirnoff pulled a fire alarm. Got us in trouble.

Next thing I know, Billy done face lock Smirnoff.

Smirnoff went to the bathroom on himself.

It was so bad.

In Tampa, some smartass guy was checking Billy Jack out.

Said, "Oh, that fake bullshit.

I could kick ass."

I just remember him snatching him in

a headlock and punching him in the face

about 20 times, really quick.

Bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam!

He'd beat the hell out of the person,

and then kick right out of it like nothing happened.

He did it because he could.

I mean, right there I know is this guy's a bully.

He takes on who he knows he can handle.

You know, so I didn't respect that.

He went to jail on two or three occasions, I believe,

for beating people up.

But he always said, "They deserved it!"

Oregon men don't back down to nobody!

You know, he's got a heart.

But then he's got the other side...

you know, where you screw him over,

he'll come in your house, pull you out,

and beat you to death.

♪

I would never think that the Billy Jack that I knew

in the 80s would 'a ended up doing what he did.

♪

Police have now confirmed a woman was found dead

and a man was taken into custody

after an hours-long police standoff.

♪

♪

♪

♪

There's a whole lot that people don't know about me.

And, the law isn't always right.

The law isn't always wrong.

Believe half of what you hear and nothing of what you see.

Billy Jack Haynes!

I'm Billy Jack Haynes,

from the World Wrestling Federation,

and a 14-year pro. Ready to talk to you.

Right now, I'm in Multnomah County Justice Center jail.

I've been incarcerated six months.

What I'm talking to you guys today about is

one small percentage of my life,

and there's a whole big part of my life

I'm leaving out here.

The position I'm in right now,

it's hard for me to bring up anything and talk about it.

I have my attorney out there,

and I'm glad that he's here today.

It's second-degree murder.

♪

And, it's just way over charged.

It didn't happen.

There's only really two human beings I really love.

That was my father, who was blind and in a wheelchair.

And then, the other was my wife, who...

allegedly I murdered,

which you're gonna find I didn't.

And, ah...

I loved her more than life.

[cheering]

Weighing 247 pounds...

Pro wrestling is a work. We all know that.

But we took it real serious back when we were in it.

Oh! Look at the blood just spewing out of the forehead.

I don't want to be negative towards anybody

in this industry, you know, I don't.

I respect the wrestlers so much.

But you know, they don't know me.

Throughout his wrestling career,

Billy Jack Haynes remains distant,

private to the point of secrecy.

He was not the life of the party,

the life of the locker room.

He wasn't making friends hand over fist.

He was just that big guy over there.

It's like, something's going on.

Billy Jack was a... a true loner.

Then I realized he was very manipulative.

He always had an agenda.

And, you never knew what he was up to.

Ah, we'd go check in at the hotel there.

Five minutes later, Billy'd be gone.

And he did that every ----ing night.

I didn't know what he was doing.

♪

At that time, I was, ah...

really heavy into the, into the narcotics,

into the painkillers.

Uppers, lowers, I mean, you name it.

You couldn't survive without it.

I was five days a week in and out of airports.

It's all over!

Different cities.

Billy Jack going to work now!

340 nights a year.

Heavyweight champion, Billy...

I took 20, sometimes 25 pills a day.

Vicodin, Percocet.

It got in the way of wrestling and my life.

All you beautiful children...

drugs are negative.

You are a positive influence for the world.

I love you very much. Say no to drugs.

Drugs are no good, you know...

it's not, they're not good.

Well, we're at the Oakland Coliseum...

in a tag team. It's time for the match.

Billy's nowhere to be found.

About an hour later, all the matches were over,

and here comes Billy.

Oh, he looked like hell.

And I said, "Billy, you missed the match."

"Ah-ah-ah..." Completely out of it.

♪

McMahon said that he was gonna give us a big push,

and I think...

we can throw that out the window.

Oh, yeah, yeah, now I...

I probably- What do you think about that?

On the plane?

You think I should talk about that?

♪

Now, what I heard is that he overdosed

on some codeine, I think.

He was foaming at the mouth. He was jerking.

We had to have an emergency landing.

They thought he was dying.

I was this close away from death.

And they had to jump start me twice.

I'd be gone.

You know, and with WWF, I mean, it's like,

they don't want that bad publicity getting out.

You know what I mean? And that was the final straw.

He was never in the top spot in WrestleMania.

He was never a major singles champion.

And after about a year and a half,

he was fired by the WWF.

Returning to Portland,

Billy Jack shocks his former colleagues

by turning on the promoter who made him.

But everybody knows that the state of Oregon has the

number one wrestling fans in the world!

The Oregon Wrestling Federation is what

Billy Jack wanted to open so he could be Vince McMahon

of the Pacific Northwest. That was his words.

The OWF was gonna be his baby.

We said, "Billy, Don Owens made you,

and now you're opening a company against him?"

And, I couldn't believe it.

You gotta have money to back that.

Sponsors and all that.

You know, somebody that's got some deep pockets

if you want to try to do that.

Was there two weeks, and the shows that

were running weren't drawing anything.

There was a couple hundred people in the audience,

so it kind of fizzed out pretty quick.

And I got a check on Friday, and he said, "Fonzie,

can you please not cash it 'til Monday?"

So, I knew I was in trouble.

And I went right to the bank and cashed it, and I left.

Finally, one day we come in.

He said, "I'm closing, guys," and that was it.

The collapse of the Oregon Wrestling Federation

was pretty spectacular.

Billy Jack Haynes really left a lot of guys hanging,

and there was a lot of bad blood.

It hurt Billy's reputation with a lot of people.

And that was my bad due to the fact that

my head wasn't screwed on right.

And, ah...

probably a little bit to do with the, the pills too.

Struggling with addiction and running out of allies,

in 1996, Haynes' once promising career

crashes to a halt.

A just, a shame and a pity

'cause he had the world by the string.

He never became the star to the magnitude

of what people had predicted.

By the time his wrestling career was over,

nobody trusted him.

And all of that potential just dribbled away with it.

Though his wrestling days may be over,

it doesn't take long for Billy Jack to find his way

back into the spotlight.

He was a little strange, little standoffish,

sometimes a little off-putting, whatever.

He was kind of weird.

And suddenly, you saw him a few

years later, and there started to be this change.

In retirement, Billy Jack hits the interview circuit,

revealing a shocking detail.

While in wrestling,

he'd been living a secret double life of crime.

♪

Starting way back in the 70s,

I was about a kilo a day cocaine dealer,

and I kept that secret from everybody.

I just wanted to go in and actually do something

in the pro wrestling industry instead of a drug runner,

leg breaker, and worse.

I mean, making 30 grand a week,

I lit a lot of guys up, and a lot of guys

got addicted to the cocaine that I sold them.

You know, very nefarious things went on

back in the 80s.

In 2017, Billy Jack makes

an even more shocking claim,

linking himself to a famous unsolved murder.

It's been over 30 years since two teenage boys were

found dead on these tracks in Saline County.

The tracks are still here and so is the mystery

regarding what happened.

What's new is a witness has come forward.

I helped put the kids on the tracks.

They were already dead. They'd been murdered.

[train bell ringing]

Well, over 30 years ago, a Union Pacific train

ran over two Saline County teenagers.

The deaths of Kevin Ives and Don Henry have become

one of Arkansas' most notorious mysteries.

There was a famous murder case in Arkansas

back in the 80s, where these two

teenage boys were run over by a train,

is what they thought originally happened.

In the pre-dawn hours of August 23rd, 1987,

a 75-car cargo train made its regular night run

to Little Rock, Arkansas.

As engineer Stephen Schreiner grew closer,

he made the horrifying discovery that two boys

were lying motionless across the railroad tracks.

Well, then somebody else investigated,

found out they had been beaten.

They had injuries.

They weren't just run over by a train.

And Billy Jack started claiming...

that he was there and saw the murder because

these two teenagers wandered into a drug deal.

♪

His story, the drug people wanted him to supervise the

drug drop and pay off to make sure that everything

goes okay, and he was gonna videotape it also.

And, he said, "I wore a wrestling mask."

Apparently, these kids wandered up on it and

as a result, the drug people killed them

and put them on the railroad tracks.

The truth is gonna come out so this woman,

Linda Ives, can have a life.

Billy Jack's claims about the unsolved murders

are taken seriously by the mother of one of the victims,

as well as by the family's private investigator.

I mean, there is no good reason to insert yourself

into a murder case.

He has nothing to gain and everything to lose.

He's put himself in jeopardy.

Not only his freedom, but also his life.

They're hopeful that law enforcement

will now take a look.

♪

♪

♪

As Billy Jack continues sharing his story,

other details sound increasingly unbelievable.

I was sent down there to...

take care of two state police officers from Arkansas.

He told me that he was running with one of the

biggest drug dealers in the country.

Well, in the beginning, when I first started hearing

the stories, I thought, come on, Billy. Really?

But when it gets right down to it, he can prove it.

He brought it all out in an interview.

On several occasions, as a matter of fact.

The things that he said about it and all the stuff,

it's all verifiable.

But that's about all I can say about.

I can't talk about.

I'd love to, but I can't.

I wish I could talk to you guys. I can't.

♪

Did you hear that?

Leave it alone.

♪

♪

As Billy Jack's interview appearances become

more frequent, his claims extend far beyond

drug dealing and the boys on the tracks,

and many begin to wonder what's behind it.

Bombshell tonight! Nancy Grace would say!

Everything you're gonna hear is the truth.

He looked completely ridiculous,

and then he had this white hair,

but it was like a mop top cut,

like he was Pete Best, the fifth Beatle.

My, my mother and my uncle, when I was 15,

were both murdered.

There was two politicians that were involved.

And he started concocting these stories...

where he was in the middle of

a variety of newsworthy events.

Andy Gibb had a gig in San Francisco,

and one of my first big deliveries was, was,

was there to the concert.

I delivered one kilo to him July 31st, 1978.

Some say, well, he knows stuff that nobody else knows.

Well, this dude studies shit, I can tell you that.

And that's how nutty he was.

He don't have nothing better to do but to try to find

a way to make himself back in the scene.

I had cocaine from the meeting cartel in Colombia,

so I started making more money.

Well now, was he a drug enforcer for the Clintons?

Why the ---- would Bill Clinton

call Billy Jack Haynes? Yeah, that's stupid.

I took it for a, a grain of salt.

He had to be on some good drugs to think that.

But then the question becomes,

where was the bizarre behavior originating?

Conspiracy theories and being the Forrest Gump of crime,

it not only sounds so preposterous,

but there was no upside to him.

It was just interviews being done with this

kooky old man that

people would put up on the internet.

I've wanted to know who my real dad is for a long time.

Whether it's Lenny Montana.

Whether it's Vince McMahon Sr.,

which it could have been.

'Cause he supposedly had sex with my mother.

Vince Sr. could be my father.

There's a long history to that.

I don't know if we can get into it today or not.

Claiming to be the son of Vince McMahon Sr.,

you know, aside from being ridiculous, that's,

that's unbelievable that someone even

tried to pass that off.

When I heard stuff like that, I would say,

man, Billy's really losing it.

What's causing Billy Jack

to make up stuff that's obviously not true?

9/11 was an inside job.

There's no question about it.

All you have to do in this world is follow the money.

So, this isn't gonna make the Bush family too happy,

but they're involved too.

He did look like someone that would say anything

just to be on a podcast.

[laughing]

Get more money out of that podcast.

I'm not afraid to come in front of this camera and

tell you the truth, and either you're gonna believe it,

or you're not gonna believe it.

The idea was, if you tell crazy stories

and there will be an appetite for more,

even though it's all bullshit.

You're probably gonna be looking at a dead man.

Maybe by the time this video gets out.

Everything I've said could get me killed.

Everything I've said with Vince can get me killed.

One preposterous thing in wrestling can be true.

With some people,

a couple of preposterous things can be true.

But when you're just pulling shit out of your ass

over and over,

then even if 1 or 2 of those things is true,

nobody's gonna believe 'em.

Amid all the astonishing claims Billy Jack makes,

at least one truth stands out.

January 10th, 2006.

It was attempted murder on me.

♪

Once again, I'm speaking for the people...

under the ground right now.

They can't speak for themselves.

So let me do it, please.

From 2006 to 2023,

Billy Jack Haynes makes a series of

shocking statements and explosive accusations.

Vincent K. McMahon.

I call him Vincent "Killer" McMahon.

And yeah, that's right. You're a killer.

Though many of Billy Jack's stories are dismissed as

conspiracy theories, a violent incident in 2006

suggests that Billy Jack's ties to organized crime

may be legitimate.

♪

This is the file from the work I did 16 years ago.

Police reports, letters from Billy Jack, and, and...

a couple photos of Billy in the hospital.

♪

At the time, I was writing a column

for the Portland Tribune.

And so, next thing I knew,

Billy Jack is knocking on my door.

He looked like Frankenstein's monster.

He'd just gotten out of the hospital.

He'd had several bones in his face broken,

and he had stitches, as I recall.

We sat down, and he started telling me his story.

Basically, that he'd been called over to

Jimmy Longoria's car lot.

The Longoria family was certainly one of the more

prominent Portland crime families.

Billy had been a...

a bill collector, and then he said he delivered drugs

for the Longorias.

Yeah, these are letters from Billy Jack from

the months after he came to my place.

"On January 10th, 2006,

I was set up for a hit or to be killed

by two hitmen hired by Jimmy Longoria.

I drove through the open gate at the time scheduled, 9 AM,

and I parked about 30 feet inside the lot

where I met a man and asked

where I could find Jimmy Longoria.

The man motioned over his left,

and Jimmy Longoria was sitting at the desk

with his hands behind his head

with a very cocky look on his face.

I said, 'You're going to kill me, aren't you?'

It was then, I believe,

that Jimmy told me that, 'Paybacks are a bitch,

Billy Jack.'

I remember looking at the office windows

and seeing four men,

and I thought I was a dead man."

It was very clear that two guys attacked him.

They beat him so badly that he had to play dead.

♪

He knew they wanted to kill him.

♪

Jimmy Longoria had a pretty airtight alibi.

He said two tweakers came onto his lot

and provoked Billy into a fight.

He said he'd never seen 'em before

and couldn't identify 'em.

I think they probably worked for Longoria.

The surveillance cameras somehow had not been working,

which was, of course, very suspicious.

I cannot see out of my right eye.

When looking, if you can focus in here on my eye.

Billy said it was

retribution for 15 or 16 years before,

when he had ripped off $200,000.

He'd been a courier back and forth from Portland to

Los Angeles, taking coke one way and money the other.

Let's just say in the 80s, I transported drugs.

I had an 1986 Toyota 4x4.

They put the built-in cabinet, toolbox.

On the way back, he broke into the toolbox,

saw $1,200,000.

Figured the $200,000 of it should belong to him.

I gave the million bucks. I took my 200,000.

Billy said this beating was retribution for that.

♪

I think he ripped off the Longorias.

I think that much is true.

But the idea that they would have waited 16 years

didn't make any sense to me at all.

♪

♪

There are also rumors that Billy Jack's organized crime

connections might have been involved in his short lived

promotion in the late 1980s.

Oh, it's on. It is on.

I've heard rumors. I don't know,

something about the mafia,

but I don't know anything about that.

Oh! Oh!

What I understood, he had crooked sponsors,

and they seen a bunch of money get lost fast,

and they just all one by one, pulled out and that's why

I think his promotion folded even faster.

A lot of people that opened wrestling promotions get

into that because it's the easiest way to clean money.

As far as like the money coming from

nefarious characters... it's very possible.

He had a very dark life,

and he probably had some very dark friends.

♪

I'm generally sympathetic to oddball characters like...

Billy Jack.

But, he was a puzzling character.

When we were having lunch one day,

I mentioned the 30-year-old murder

of corrections official, Michael Francke.

I explained the case to him.

We went on to something else,

and about two months later,

Billy Jack sends me something,

all of a sudden, claiming to have been

involved and a witness to the Michael Francke killing.

He didn't know anything about Michael Francke

before I told him.

1991, in May 1st, of my dad's birthday,

the murder of Michael Francke,

I was forced out of Oregon...

or my dad would be killed, I was told.

I think, I think maybe he convinced himself

that he was involved,

that he had actually seen the assassination.

He was collecting newspaper articles,

police reports, and marking them up.

The whole page would be coloured.

He always had his binders and his shit.

I don't know what was in it, but he had 'em.

He always had 'em.

It's just documentation, that's all I can say.

It's not my place to go into those kinds of things,

you know.

Right now, as we speak, I'm writing an autobiography

with one of the best writers in the world.

It's something in there, when people read,

you'll see it's documented.

And, it may or may not get me killed, I don't know.

He had quite a bit of stuff in there, yeah.

At that point, it was sort of hands off for me.

You know, I just sort of back away from the case, and say,

I don't know what parts of this are true

and what parts aren't.

The beating was certainly for real, the...

involvement in the coke business was

almost certainly quite real.

The rest I, I don't know.

He talked like he believed it.

Even as nutty as Billy Jack Haynes was,

did I think that, you know,

he would be 70 years old and the Swat team

would be outside of Billy Jack Haynes' house?

There's a reason you're in trouble. Why?

'Cause you just gravitate towards trouble.

This matter is going to be page 22,

line three, Mr. Haynes.

By 2019, Billy Jack Haynes is living a nomadic lifestyle,

making rare interview appearances.

I wore Oregon here.

There, take that, Oregon.

Stick it up your ass.

He'd been a non-entity in the wrestling world

for 25 years.

♪

By the time he started...

just being the weird person that we've seen

in modern times, I think you'd almost have to say

he was on some kind of substance.

I heard that he was having financial difficulties.

You think you're on top of the world,

the next day you turn around,

you ain't got two nickels to rub together.

He was homeless, yeah.

Homeless. Yeah, that's right.

In my van, sleeping.

Rip Oliver opened his house

for Billy Jack to live there.

So, Rip...

I found out that he was dying.

2019, in December.

So, I left Portland and flew down to Florida

and spent the last three months with him.

Not looking for a little pat on the back.

Nothing like that. He was a great guy.

He never came here for my dad.

He came here to have a free place to live, and, ah...

And if he wasn't on pills before he got there,

he damn sure was before he left.

Yeah.

My dad was, I don't know, months away from dying.

My dad was on the real shit.

The highest they go.

That stuff can put people in comas.

He started taking Rip's Percocets or Vicodin,

which Rip really needed 'cause he was very sick.

I think he was more taking advantage of Rip,

and Rip was paying for everything.

♪

Billy got this scheme, and called Brian Blair up.

Brian Blair ran Cauliflower Alley.

You know, they help wrestlers with problems.

I don't know what happened, but Billy called Brian.

"Oh, Rip's dying. He needs help.

He's gonna lose his property."

This is what my dad told me.

Cauliflower Alley Club paid for

his back taxes on his house.

They paid for his rent.

They paid everything for him.

Well, my dad didn't owe taxes.

When he died, he didn't owe taxes.

And my dad told me that Billy took half

and he gave him half.

My dad was a junkie.

I don't mean to say that bad, but he was hooked.

He was done. You know?

He wanted me to be there, and I was there

all the way to hospice until he finally died.

I didn't want him to be alone.

I know he stole all my dad's shit when- before he died.

Everybody's got stories. Yeah, I seen it.

They finally came out...

after, you know, 30 something years.

He took advantage of everybody.

♪

♪

♪

Back in Portland,

Billy Jack begins a relationship with

Jan Becraft, the mother of his friend, Todd.

The Becraft family disapproves of the relationship,

but when Todd unexpectedly dies in 2021,

Billy Jack and Jan get married.

She was like 85 and he's like 70.

And so, when I saw the age of the woman...

You know, you hear stuff from people.

Was he like using her for money or

a place to live or whatever?

This way.

This part, this is actually the main house.

Ah, this is the main bedroom on this side.

And then the living room.

You can kind of see through to the kitchen.

My name is Tom Matthew.

I was actually living here before Billy,

Billy Jack moved in.

You talked to the neighbour?

They all loved him, man, he just would-

he would walk around, talk to everybody, and...

He really loved Jan a lot.

And he was quite devoted to her.

She was sick, you know. She was ill with...

Dementia. Some days she'd have good days,

and some days- most of the days were bad.

And, that wore on Billy pretty hard.

♪

She had some good days, but they were getting worse,

and her family definitely did not like them being together.

And, I don't think they were gonna separate.

In my opinion,

he took very good care of her and wanted

to protect her and keep her from any kind of harm.

The last time I spoke to him was two days before...

the incident, and...

I told Billy, I said, "Billy, you look terrible."

He hadn't slept.

He hadn't hardly eaten anything.

People with, um, dementia, they become combative.

It's tough to watch a loved one, you know,

go through that kind of mental decline.

♪

And I seen the cop cars and stuff on my security camera.

So, I, I went outside to see what was going on,

and I looked down the street, and I saw 'em all down

in front of Billy's place, and I thought, oh, shit.

Detectives have been at the scene all day,

and police say the investigation

is just getting started.

I hear a banging on the window, at the back window,

like, and I looked out and there was Swat.

It was freaking overkill.

I mean, they had this place locked down.

Tactical teams, including the Special Emergency

Reaction Team and the Crisis Negotiation Team,

were called to the scene.

Around two hours later, a man was detained.

[Off-screen] So what happened?

Well, I mean, he...

he took her life, and I mean...

and it took them like maybe an hour to be in and out

when they actually took her body out.

♪

When Billy was arrested, the whole neighbourhood

basically was in shock.

And, you know, just like me, I didn't,

I didn't believe it either at first.

He's just a big, gentle giant, you know?

And when you see it, firsthand, it's...

you know, it tears your heart out.

Billy Jack was kind of a, a nut.

You know, and people thought at this point, he's that old.

He's a harmless nut.

Nobody thought he was gonna go off and...

murder anybody.

But then the question becomes...

why in the world

would you ever do something like that?

Billy Jack Haynes is facing unlawful use of a weapon and

murder charges today after the alleged shooting

earlier this month.

Although questions linger around Billy Jack's

numerous claims and criminal activity,

one fact remains undeniable.

On February 8th, 2024,

Billy Jack Haynes took the life of Janette Becraft.

♪

Now, as he faces trial for second degree murder,

Billy Jack has a new story to tell.

Billy claims that she had dementia so bad

that it was unbearable.

He couldn't live with it anymore.

He called it a mercy killing...

because she didn't know who she was anymore.

He supposedly shot his wife in the head.

And that's a mercy killing?

I don't know, brother.

Maybe he thought that was justifiable to do that.

It's a very sad situation.

And, I don't know what they're gonna do justice-wise.

But, that's up to...

I guess, a court to decide.

I don't care for him.

It ain't 'cause he killed his wife.

I'll let that play out in court.

If I were his lawyer, I'd certainly make

a diminished capacity case for him.

I mean, he's obviously been taking beatings

throughout his career.

And, and if nothing else...

ah, dating from the beating he got

at the Longorias' car lot.

You ask anybody and they'll tell ya,

he loved Jan unconditionally.

She was his world.

Whatever happened, as unfortunate as it is,

I think was a big mistake.

That's what makes it all that much more

difficult to deal with.

Damn it, God bless her.

And it hurts my heart.

Mercy killing is the phrase that they used.

Who's ever gonna know?

The only person that's alive that was

in the room with 'em is Billy Jack,

and you can't believe a thing he says.

If I come across crazy, I must be

the smartest craziest guy there ever is.

I'll never, ever forget the state of Oregon,

and the beautiful fans that supported me

through pro wrestling.

The fans in Oregon old enough to remember,

probably still have a fond spot for him, but now,

more people in and out of wrestling are going to

remember the crazy stories he told and the things that

he invented that he was involved in, and finally,

the murder of his wife.

They're gonna remember that more than

anything he did in wrestling.

Let me have your attention.

I don't want any fan to ever come up to me

and ask for an autograph again.

He was a guy that had a couple good years at a time

when wrestling was pretty big,

made something of a name, and had a very,

very troubled existence...

after that fame ended.

It's not a happy ending. There's, there's no

silver lining in this story, unfortunately.

Boy, that's a million dollar question.

♪

♪

When that door shuts, it gets to reality real quick,

that there's no getting out of here.

You know? No.

Not 'til trial.

♪

♪

I do...

I do.

♪