William Randall, more often known as Billy, was born in the early 80's in the tiny town of Camden, Alabama. His mother Helen was a secretary at the local sawmill, and his father Reuben was a long-haul trucker. The youngest of four children, Billy was often to be seen in the hand-me-downs from his three older brothers. Reuben's work left him absent from the house all but a few weeks each year, and Helen had tendency to drown her loneliness in Schlitz. It was a home where the bills ran long and the money ran short.

By Billy's tenth birthday, the government had been forced to step in, and the four brothers were sent to separate foster homes. Adoption records show that his brothers were all adopted shortly thereafter, but poor Billy, ever the unlucky lot, was left to the mercy of the foster care system. By all accounts, it seemed Billy's life was to be a benighted one.

Billy occupied his small amounts of free time by learning magic tricks. He earned a small bit of recognition for his talents of prestidigitation, winning the high school talent show and performing street shows for what crowds he could attract. The shows ended poorly, however, when in his senior year, he was arrested for pick-pocketing one of the passers-by that stopped for his act.

Nothing of public record exists for Billy until another arrest, five years later, this time in Las Vegas, under fraud charges. Though the official police report does not verify it, I believe Billy tried to turn his skill of quick fingers into some quick, easy cash by cheating the casinos. Fifty years ago, that would have probably meant the end of Billy Randall at the hands of some mafia fixer. But in the twenty-teens it meant several years probation and an insistence he leave Nevada.

Billy returned to Camden in late 2015, immediately after his release from jail. Two months later he had a courthouse marriage to Mackenzie Daughtry, and seven months after that, their daughter Delilah Rose was born.

Several more years pass with nothing of interest occurring on the public records. Tax records show that for several years he worked in the sawmill his mother had once been an employee of. But just like his mother before him, Billy found that the work was hard, the pay was lacking, and the alcohol took the edge off.

In November of 2018, the week of Thanksgiving, Billy was in an accident at the sawmill. ER reports showed that his blood alcohol level at the time of the accident was .280. As you can probably guess, both insurance and the sawmill refused to pay the bills for his drunken accident. He was fired, and that same week, divorce was filed by Mackenzie at the Camden courthouse. Billy Randall was left with a mangled leg and an empty single wide.

But sadly this is not the end of Billy's cursed bad luck. Over the next few months, Billy was back in the ER several times with bodily injuries. I suspect (though I admit this may be artistic license on my part) that poor Billy had become addicted to pain killers to self-medicate the pain in his injured leg. Less than a year after the sawmill accident, Billy's old single wide burned to the ground while Billy was at a local bar. Billy had insurance on the trailer, but the insurance adjustors withheld payment pending a legal investigation. Who can blame them? This man had no life, auto, or medical insurance, a previous arrest for fraud, and a burnt out trailer with maximum coverage.

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The Fire Marshall's report cited the incident as 'suspicious' and once again, fraud charges were brought against Billy. While he stewed in jail, awaiting his trial for insurance fraud, Billy received a visit from his ex-wife Mackenzie. During that visit, she delivered possibly the worst news any parent can hear. His now 5 year old daughter, Delilah had been diagnosed with leukemia. It was well advanced, and terminal.

But all Billy's bad luck was about to change.

June 6th, 2020, one week after the visit from his ex-wife, Billy was released from jail. As it transpired, an intern at the local courthouse was purging records, and accidentally destroyed all of the evidence for Billy's case. The judge was forced to dismiss the criminal case, and the insurance company was ordered to pay the full coverage amount for the trailer fire.

Billy immediately went to see his daughter, and that same day, along with his ex-wife they took young Delilah to get a second opinion, at the larger, more advanced hospitals in nearby Montgomery. A specialist at the Grant Pediatric Hospital confirmed that the leukemia diagnosis was in error, Delilah was fit and healthy in every respect.

Billy must have sensed he was on a lucky streak, because on the way out of Montgomery, while filling his ex-wife's old beater at a gas station on the edge of the city, he bought a single lottery ticket.

I'm sure you know what happened next, of course. Billy, the small time criminal with a lifetime of poor choices and circumstances won the lottery. 36 million dollars.

Mackenzie and Billy were re-married later that month, at the same courthouse where they'd first tied the knot. Their ecstatic daughter acted as their witness. The next week, a specialist surgeon in Montgomery was able to fully repair the damage to Billy's leg. All the bad luck was erased. Billy's life had somehow pulled itself out of a nosedive and back on to the path of the American dream.

Nothing lasts forever, though. For months the family lived in blissful happiness as the world turned about them. But then June 6th, 2021, One year to the day from Billy's release from jail, the day his daughter was declared cancer free, the day he bought his winning lottery ticket; Billy disappeared.

Not a living soul has seen or heard from William Reuben Randall since. His wife organized search parties to no avail. The police were brought in, but they could make no more sense of it than she. It appeared for all the world, that Billy had just walked away from the life he had longed for.

Did someone from Billy's past finally catch up with him? Or could something even more sinister be responsible?

If you have any information about the disappearance of Billy Randall, contact his wife Mackenzie, or the Camden city police department.