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Cold Case Files

The Sting Operation

Cold Case Files

A&E / PodcastOne

True Crime, Society & Culture

4.18.2K Ratings

🗓️ 24 March 2021

⏱️ 23 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

In the spring of 1977, a small town convenience store in Arkansas becomes the site of a robbery and a murder. What makes this case unique, is that the victim was seventy-one years old - and a cop. Solving his case would take a chat with a serial killer, an undercover sting operation, and twenty-five years.

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Transcript

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0:00.0

Thank you for listening to this podcast one production.

0:02.9

Available on Apple Podcasts and Podcasts and Podcasts.

0:07.9

Thank you for listening to this podcast one production.

0:10.9

Available on Apple Podcasts and Podcasts and Podcasts.

0:15.8

An A&E original podcast.

0:26.6

Beebe is a small city in Arkansas with some big mysteries. One such mystery occurred in 2011 and 2012.

0:31.6

When on New Year's Eve for two years in a row,

0:34.6

thousands of red-wing blackbirds and European starlings drop dead out of the sky.

0:40.1

Some have blamed fireworks. Others say it's a sign of the end of the world.

0:44.9

But that's actually not the mystery we're talking about today. Our mystery goes back to 1977.

0:51.7

Early in the morning, on April 5th, the body of Abe Pipkin was found near a convenience store.

0:57.0

He'd been beaten to death, and the convenience store had been robbed.

1:02.0

This kind of thing didn't typically happen in a place like Beebe.

1:06.0

But there were two facts that made this murder stand out even more.

1:10.0

One, Abe Pipkin was 71 years old.

1:14.1

And two, he was a cop.

1:18.4

From A&E, this is Cold Case Files, the podcast.

1:22.5

I'm Brooke, and this story adapted from a classic episode of Cold Case Files, is told by the eminent Bill Curtis.

1:37.8

It's early morning when Arkansas State Police Investigator J.R. Howard is called Downtown Beebe, where 71-year-old officer Abe

1:46.3

Pipkin has been found beaten to death.

1:52.9

There was blood on the sidewalks, just completely encompassing this area where he had wandered around after he'd been beaten.

2:03.2

The blood trail leads investigators to a local pharmacy that had been burglarized earlier that same morning.

...

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