Former WWE Star Billy Jack Haynes Arrested, Charged With Second Degree Murder

Earlier this month, news broke that former pro wrestler Billy Jack Haynes was arrested in Oregon in connection to the murder of his wife, but authorities were waiting to charge the former WWE star until he was released from the hospital for an unrelated matter.

According to CBS affiliate "KOIN," Haynes has been released from the hospital and officially charged with second-degree murder. Haynes's wife was murdered in a shooting on February 8 which led to a standoff between Haynes and authorities. Haynes was soon taken into custody and then hospitalized for an unrelated matter. Upon Haynes's release, he was booked into Multnomah County Detention Center for charges of second-degree murder and unlawful use of a weapon.

Haynes's contemporary WWE Hall of Fame Jake "The Snake" Roberts recently said that he wasn't surprised by the arrest, as he always felt that Haynes was an unbalanced individual. Haynes retired from professional wrestling in 1996 and was one of the many wrestlers named in the massive class action lawsuit that was leveled against WWE in the 2000s regarding issues of the company's negligence regarding the brain health of the wrestlers. The case was dismissed in 2016.

In 2018, Haynes admitted to witnessing the murders of three boys in rural Arkansas, an infamous case that has not been solved, which occurred in 1987, not long after Haynes had wrestled for WWE at WrestleMania III. Haynes said that he had been involved in drug trafficking at the time, which is why he was hesitant to come forward.