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Episode 14: The Broken Knife · Crooked Tree: A West Memphis 3 Podcast

• Paul: Welcome to Crooked Tree, a West Memphis 3 podcast. A broken knife was found in the woods near the area where the above noted victims were located. The area where the knife was found was south of the bayou and about seventy-five yards away from where the bodies were located. Hello and welcome back, everyone. I am Kristen Rich and I'm here with my co-host Paul Day. We are West Memphis Three Researchers and Victim Advocates. And today we are going to pick up where we left off in the last episode. When that episode ended, we had gone over the interviews with Don Moore and Kim Williams by the West Memphis Police Department. And They give us a clue as to where we should go next. As you'll recall, they were interviewed on May the eighth and they told the police that when they were at Devil's Den looking for Michael and Stevie, that they encountered three teenagers coming out of Devil's Den and that those teenagers offered Dawn a shot. She didn't know what that meant. She thought it was drugs and needles, but it scared her. They left, went back to Kim's house, and about forty five minutes later They saw a white male and one or both black males entering a home on Wilson. And that is where we're gonna start with today's episode. We're gonna see if we can figure out who those teenagers might be. Yeah, it's a pretty interesting conversation that needs to be had is who did Don and Kim seek and why weren't Michael and Stevie afraid of them? They went right into Devil's Den, walked right past these guys, left their bikes out there by the street. They didn't seem to care about these three guys. coming out of Devil's Den, but they sure scared Kim and Don to the point where they went back home and were obviously looking out the windows or hanging out in the front yard in a area of safety and see them come in. And then of course shortly after that Dawn goes back home where her mom finally says, Hey, go get Stevie. I saw him going up the road and that was at six thirty. And we put together that whole timeline last time. It's a big question then, is who are these guys? Are they witnesses? Are these people of interest? We need to dig into Yeah, and it's we threw a lot of information at you during the last episode, and this episode's gonna have a lot of information in it as well. So if you're taking notes, hang on. We've got we got a lot of information to throw at you. And in this case, especially the first half of the episode, we have the normal episode title going for this, but it could have very easily have been entitled How to Quickly Talk Yourself into Being a Suspect. And the police are gonna hone in on Who these guys are. And at first everything looks like it's going rosy and then it kind of goes sideways. And we're going to get into the anatomy of how that could happen. So we got the clue coming from Don and from Kim saying the fourth house on the left. We know that that's approximately 808 Wilson, which is up the street behind Christopher Byers' house. And we know from another note that we have in the door-to-door notes that this is the house of Carlos Seals. Carlos Seals is a Personal friend of Ryan Clark. He also knows Christopher Byers very well. And in fact, you've heard his name before because he also is brought up by his good friend Bobby Posey in the door-to-door notes. On page 144 in the door-to-door notes, Bobby Posey said that Chris said Daddy whipped him and he was going to run away. Then he has the name Carlos Seals 808 Wilson and said Chris left and dad came to the door and asked Carlos, Where's Chris? On Goodwin and dad stated going to have to whip him again. Bobby went to Carlos's house and stayed until 8 PM. Now we've discussed this note before. We had a question about whether or not it was authentic. Not that the note isn't authentic, but whether or not that story is authentic. Was Bobby Posey there? It sounds like this happened at Carlos's house. Was Bobby Posey at Carlos's house and he heard this? Did he hear this from Carlos and he's repeating the story? We have some questions about the authenticity of this note. One of the things that we have suggested is that this is probably a hearsay discussion that Bobby Posey had with Carlos Seals. Fortunately, we have information from Carlos Seals about where he was at the time and we could put together the likelihood of this being an accurate statement from Bobby Posey, first hand knowledge of this information, or if this is coming from Carlos as a secondhand conversation that he heard and this is hearsay to the police. So that's where we're going with this. It's gonna be a great little conversation as we unpackage what happened with Carlos Seals on May the fifth, nineteen ninety three. So what we do know is that the police do go to Carlos to interview him about what he knows about what happened on May the fifth, but how they got there is the question. So there's a few possible scenarios here. One, as we said, Kim and Don are interviewed on May the eighth. It is possible that from their description, just like Paul and I have reasoned it out, that they also followed their direction as to where these boys entered this home after the shot comment, and they realize that this is the home of Carlos Seals, and that's what directed them to him. But there's a couple other possibilities. Also in the door to door notes from that first weekend that we have already gone over, there is a note from eight ⁓ eight Wilson, which is Carlos's home, and it lists two kids, Sam Martin, Billy Sanderson. They don't live there, so we're guessing that maybe he was with them that day. That's what whoever is at the house is telling them. There's another note in the door to door notes from seven nineteen Wilson. This is the home of the Martins. And Sam Martin and Billy Sanderson are there. And underneath that note it says Carlos Seals, Billy Sanderson, Kent No last name, and Jason White. So there's a few hints in these notes that were presumably taken on the seventh all about Carlos Seals and who he was with that day. And maybe these pointed the police as well as Kim and Don's interviews to Carlos's house so that they could find out what Carlos knew about what happened on May the fifth. We know that these were all friends of Ryan Clark, of course, the older brother of Christopher Byers. So They were all familiar with Ryan. They were familiar with the Byers family. And this is a social circle that is kind of interesting. The police are going to dig into this a couple of times, and that's what we're gonna do. And so they're gonna go and interview Carlos Seals on Saturday, May the eighth. And the interviewer in this case is Officer James Sudbury. He goes in there and he meets with him and he's asking him about the circumstances, what happened that day. So this is what the note says. Interview of Carlos Seals, male black, thirteen years old, eight ⁓ eight Wilson. Carlos advised that he, Billy Sanderson, and Billy Sanderson is described as a male white fourteen years old, living at seven hundred ten north eighteenth street. Kent, last name unknown, L and U is what it's says in the report, but it means last name unknown. And we know that this is actually Kent Lynn, but it's okay. L N U for now. He's a white male, age fifteen. He lives at eight hundred North Eighteenth Street. And Jason White, male black, fourteen years old, and cousin of Carlos Seals. He lives at apartment three twenty six at Winbury. Now today Winbury Apartments is no longer there. Instead it goes by the name Steeplechase and it's at twenty four hundred Tallonwood Drive. So they were all on Goodwin in the Robin Hood area when one of the victims' brother asked them to help look for his brother. Now we know from conversations that Mark Byers has had with interviewers over the years that the brother they're talking about here is Ryan Clark, Christopher Byers' brother. There's a parenthetical statement that says this was Wednesday afternoon. five five ninety three after school. It says the four boys were talking decided not to go into the woods. Carlos, Billy, and Kent stayed on Goodwin for a few minutes as Jason left the area to go home. Jason living the farthest one away, he probably had the farthest walk and so he left a little bit earlier than the others. After a few minutes, Carlos, Billy, and Kent split up and all went home. At this report, Billy and Kent have not been talked to as they were not at home. Carlos was very helpful and appeared to be truthful. Kent Just moved to town approximately two weeks ago. This report rings very accurate to me because I know that Mark Byers has confirmed in interviews since nineteen ninety-three that one of the first places he searched for Christopher when he came home from court with Ryan was he went up to Carlos Seals' house. And so we know that that search started at six twenty. That puts Mark Byers meeting with Carlos and his friends at about six twenty up on Goodwin Street. This fits exactly with what we've heard from both sides. We know that Carlos knew Christopher Byers. But this is what's really interesting. Carlos says he doesn't see them. He also says, I didn't go into Robin Hood to look for them. None of my friends did. We stayed outside of Robin Hood. So we now know the boys were not in Devil's Den or Robin Hood at exactly six twenty. At least they weren't visibly there. We also know that the boys were seen going into Robin Hood at six thirty. So they just barely missed seeing the three boys entering the woods at six thirty by less than ten minutes. And there's some other things that are interesting. Carlos and Jason do not mention any of the following. They do not admit to seeing any of the three boys that day in Robin Hood. They do not admit that they were in Robin Hood earlier that day. They do not admit that they saw the two younger girls that day, that being Kim and Dawn. And they don't talk about offering anybody a shot, let alone by the hydrant. The other thing that they don't admit is Bobby Posey being with them at any point that day. No, they don't mention Bobby at all. And as For the other things, they're not going to mention those things unless they're asked about them and even then they ⁓ may or may not be truthful. This crime has already happened. They know that the police are interviewing people about the triple homicide. They're not gonna say anything that would implicate them in this crime. So no, they don't say that they're in Robin Hood. They're certainly not going to admit if it was them that they offered Dawn a shot. Those are just not things they're going to do because they don't want to be seen as suspects. So at this point they appear to be very interesting witnesses. They're out there, they confirm that Mark Byers is looking for his son at about six twenty, out there by Devil's Den, not too far away from there, because Christopher frequently plays with Carlos. Ryan is a good friend with Carlos. They know that he's a good source of information. The other thing that is interesting is you have to remember Christopher did not tell the truth about where he was that day. Remember he said Stevie Branch lived in the neighborhood of Somewhere to the southeast of Goodwin, that intersection of where Carlos Seals lives, by a family called the Garners, who live at seven ten Macaulay Circle. We'll be bringing them up a little bit later on in the episode, so I feel comfortable dropping that that address right now. So it's a logical place for Mark to go to look for Christopher. It seems to be that they have a very good set of witnesses and everything is good at this point. And I think that the comment that Mr. Sudbury leaves is that Carlos was very helpful and appeared to be truthful. He had no reason to not believe that. And I think they were ready to move on. But at some point somebody's going to raise an alarm and these guys are gonna be f finding themselves back in the police station on May the ninth. Even though Lieutenant Sudberry believes this report from Carlos, something happens. We don't know exactly what. There may have been a phone call to tip off the police, but something happened that made them revisit this group of boys the very next day. So on May the ninth, they're going to conduct a few interviews. One of those is of course of Carlos Seals. On May the ninth, he is interviewed and his statement is that last weekend it was raining, don't remember which day, first or second, Saturday or pretty sure Sunday, me and Jason, Kent, Billy, Samantha went to Robinhood Hills. We left from all of us left from Billy's home. We went in on East End. This would be at Devil's Dead. Made way to Pipeline. At Pipeline, me and Jason left and went to Sam Martin's. Saw no one else at Hills. Left Billy, Kent, and Samantha. That was the last time I went to Hills. So he's saying that he was in Robin Hood on May the second. He's pretty sure it was that Sunday. And that he has not been in there since. This is probably not true. Yeah, it's almost certainly not true. We know that Don and Kim saw people of their exact description coming out of Robin Hood Hills at Devil's Den on May the fifth, about an hour before the boys disappeared. And then they identified the address of where they are. So this is almost certainly not a truthful statement. Then the police move on logically and they interview Jason White. As you'll recall, that is Carlos's cousin. He says last Sunday, five two ninety three afternoon, which is five to seven PM, we went to Robin Hood Hills. Carlos, me, Billy, Kent, and Samantha went in on the east side, which is also the devil's end entrance, and followed trail around to where Kent broke knife, went to pipe. Me and Carlos left, went out by Mayfair. This is, as you know, that dead end entrance on Macaulay next to the White House. Kent, Billy, and Samantha stayed, didn't see anyone else. First time in Robin Hood and last. So Jason is claiming that's the first time he's ever been there and it's the last time. He also says that he saw a transient named James, something with a B, walking from the hills. This is a very hard note to read if you if you look it up on Callahan and you can decipher it. Please let us know what you think it says. But the information here that is the real eye catcher is that they followed the trail around to where Kent broke the knife. Wha what knife? Have we haven't heard anything about a knife so far. Yeah. So Carlos Seals gave an interview, he didn't say anything about a knife. Jason White comes in undoubtedly doesn't know what Carlos has said and what hasn't said and coughs up this information about a knife that is broken. And where is this knife? You guys didn't tell us you were playing with a knife. That's something that they would want to know. Why didn't Carlos tell us about this knife? Sure. At this time the police don't have any kind of information from the medical examiner's office. They don't know if there was a knife involved in the murders. of our three boys. And so this is alarming to them that they're playing with a knife in the area where the boys are found. And so they want to know more about this knife. So at this point Sudbury now knows that they went in on that Sunday, or they're claiming to have been there on that Sunday. They went in at Devil's Den, they walked across the area, they broke a knife somewhere, and then Jason and Carlos walked out by the White House and went home at that point. And what about their friends? Well They say that Billy, Kent, and Samantha, they stayed. So now you gotta go and you have to ask them, what do you guys know about this stuff? You gotta pull them in. They probably weren't part of the original discussion. Well, they are now. So they're gonna go and interview Billy Sanderson and Kent Lynn. So next is Billy Sanderson also interviewed on that Sunday on May the 9th by Lieutenant Sudberry. And this is his statement. On five two ninety three Sunday, we, Carlos, Jason, and Kent were at my house. Walked to Samantha's house, then went to Robin Hood. Went in at East End, went to Devil's Fork, then to where we were playing with the knife, then to the pipe. At the pipe, Jason and Carlos left. It was then me, Billy, Kent, and Samantha. Sam and Kent crossed pipe up the hill. This is Turtle Hill. This is when I saw two white males who went east on the south side of the ditch, didn't see again that day. So Billy doesn't talk about the knife being broken, but he talks about playing with a knife in Robin Hood. Yeah, so where's this knife? Right. So that means it should be available. There's a knife, it's being played with. Now we're also got two people walking along the bayou. It's the first time we're hearing about this. Samantha and Kent, they go up to the top of Turtle Hill, which is less than fifty yards away from the murder scene. And Billy says, Then I saw two white males who went east on the south side of the ditch. So where's Billy? Right? We actually don't have a really good idea other than to say he's at the pipe in that area somewhere and he's looking at his two friends over on the other side. There's a knife involved. We now have two people walking around over here. What in the world is going on here? It seems like each time they interview somebody new, a new bit of information pops out. So if you just listen to Carlos, there's no knife, there's no people, there's nobody going over to Turtle Hill. By the time you get to Billy Sanderson, they're right next to the crime scene and there's a knife involved. So this is escalating pretty quickly. Presumably, we don't know for sure, but presumably they're following a lead from Kim and Don. about teenagers coming out of Devil's Den and offering Dawn a shot. This has not come up anywhere in any of these interviews so far because now they know there's a knife involved that somewhere in Robin Hood that these boys were playing with it and now their attention has been diverted and they're not pursuing this idea of Dawn being offered a shot. The last person that they need to interview is going to be Kent Lynn. Unfortunately Samantha Gardner, who they also should have interviewed, they didn't because she was out of town at this time. And they never followed up with her. But Kent Lynn is interviewed. His notes aren't there, but we could actually see the imprint of the information that he's giving to the police in the final report. And we should go ahead and read that final report because when you actually see the final report and compared to what Carlos actually said, it doesn't make Carlos look good. It makes Carlos look like he's hiding information. And this is not really where you want to be on this weekend right after these murders, especially if you're very close with the families and you have information about possibly what happened. So this is a report for the interview of Kent Lynde, Jason White, Carlos Seals, and Billy Sanderson. The above persons were interviewed on Sunday, May ninth at the West Memphis PD CID offices by Lieutenant James Sudbury. The above four and a Samantha Gardner, who is a cousin of Billy Sanderson and was out of town at the time of the interviews, went to Robinhood Hills on Sunday the second of May in the afternoon around five PM or seven PM. During their trip in the woods, Kent had broken a knife he was using to cut vines, etc with and left same in the woods. In other words, he was cutting stuff and he left it out there in Robin Hood. All entered in the woods by the east entrance, that would be Devil's Den, and all left by the west entrance by Mayfair, which is also the Macaulay entrance, or where the White House was. When they reached the pipeline, Jason and Carlos left the others and went home. Kent and Billy and Samantha stayed at the pipeline. At one point, Kent and Samantha crossed the pipeline and went to the top of the hill with Billy staying at the pipeline. At this time, two older boys walked up the path and spoke to Billy, who was sitting on the pipeline, then went east into the woods. Billy advised that he did not know them. At this point, Kent and Samantha returned and all three left the woods. Kent and Billy took the undersigned to the woods and showed where they had left the broken knife. Which was recovered and released to Captain Miller. All four have advised that they have not been back in the woods since last Sunday. Signed Lieutenant James Sudbury. So the additional details are that not only did they see two people, but Billy Sanderson, who was on the pipe, while the other two were up on Turtle Hill, actually had a conversation with these two people before they went into Robin Hood. There's no follow up on this. Do you know who these guys were? Did you talk to them? What did they have to say? Any of this stuff. This is just a big open question. And why was that left as it was? ⁓ who knows? But we do know something kind of interesting. Kent and Billy are gonna take the police out to the knife, which they left in Robin Hood, and they're gonna recover that knife and it's gonna be taken into evidence. This is one of the very first weapons in this case taken into evidence in this crime. And another thing is that it's pretty obvious that Carlos has some explaining to do. The final report on this incident is undated, sometime in May. There is an investigative report by Detective Ridge, and it states on five hundred nine ninety three a broken knife was found in the woods near the area where the above noted victims were located. The area where the knife was found was south of the bayou and about seventy five yards away from where the bodies were located. It was not believed that the knife was involved in the homicide. A Carlos Seals was contacted and the knife was found to belong to him. He stated that on Sunday before the homicides that he was in the area of Robin Hood when he broke the knife and left it there. No information has been developed that could connect the knife or the owner to the homicide. At this time, Carlos Seals has been cleared pending any further information being developed that could link him to the crime scene or the victims. So unbeknownst to Carlos, that was escalating very quickly on him. And fortunately for him. The story seems to be checking out, at least as far as the West Memphis PD is concerned. This is a little bit different than some of the other people that we have covered so far in the case. They immediately acted on whether it was Kim and Dawn's interviews or a tip that came in, however it was that they got to Carlos Seals and his friends, they acted immediately. They pull him in on the eighth, then he and all of his friends that they could interview at that time on the ninth, and they get This story, they check it out on the ninth. They found the knife on the ninth, according to this report. So they're getting this information. They're going out to Devil's Den and retrieving this knife. And they've already cleared them as of the ninth. There's no polygraphs. There's no biological samples collected of any of these guys at this time. Based on the information that they received, they told the same story once Carlos came clean. They've Corroborated this information with the people that are there. We don't know exactly what Kent said because as we said, his notes are not included and Samantha was not interviewed. But they feel that this had nothing to do with the crime and it was two days of sweating for Carlos Seals and then he's cleared. There's some interesting things about this knife, which was collected according to the West Memphis PD, about seventy-five yards to the east of the crime scene that occurred on May the fifth. We've looked at the images. From there, and it looks like it's probably a little bit more than that, more like a hundred, hundred and fifty yards to the east of there, but it is definitely in the vicinity of the crime scene. And so these guys had this knife out there and they were clearly not eager to tell the police about this originally on that day. Now the knife itself is a large knife. The blade is approximately five and a half to six inches. It's a very broad blade. It's straight edged, there's no serrations on it at all. And it is one of the very first weapons entered into evidence. With the West Memphis PD, or at least collected into evidence. It actually didn't get an evidence number until much later. It's E one seventy six and wouldn't be submitted to the lab for any type of analysis until December twenty second of that year. These teenagers had been cleared according to the report that we just read to you from Detective Ridge on May the ninth. So why is this being sent to be tested by the lab for serology and trace evidence on December twenty second? Well, it tells you right there on the evidence submission form. At the top it says trial on January eighteenth, nineteen ninety four. They are prepping for Jesse Miss Kelly's trial and they need to get all of their evidence in order. And this is a knife found at the crime scene or near the crime scene that was never tested. And this is gonna be a problem if the defense brings this up at trial and so they are sending it to the lab and it says rush at the top. It's to be rushed through evidence so that they can find out if there's anything on that knife that is linked to the murders of Christopher, Stevie, and Michael. Yeah, the last thing that the prosecutor wants going into trial is to their horror, this knife actually having some evidence connected to the crime, but yet the knife is not connected to your defendants. So this would be evidence of you going after the wrong people. So the question for us, what we were looking at this is, are they telling the truth? Was the knife actually broken on May the second, or is it possible that they broke it on May the fifth and moved the date to be able to cover their rear ends on this? I'm not saying that they are guilty of the crime or that they're even suspects. All I'm saying is is are they being honest about when this happened or are they being dishonest? It doesn't match what Don and Kim said. Don and Kim said they came out on May the fifth, so they were back there. Unfortunately, the best person to ask to get clarification on some of the stuff, the one who gave the most information was Kent Lynn. But it appears that Kent Lynn is no longer with us anymore. based upon reports that we're seeing online, looks like he passed away sometime around the age of twenty-three. So we have to look to an alternative place. And fortunately for us, we know exactly where to go because we've already read something that corroborates the story way back in episode six when we talked about the case number six six six. Remember Diane Hester had just left the crime scene and her hunch was to go over to Devil's Den and start asking people questions. And the first person she went to was a person named Thelma Turner. We've mentioned her several times In the episodes, the last five to six episodes. Thelma Turner was interviewed at about 719 on May the sixth. In other words, just a few hours after the boys were pulled out of the water and taken away from the crime scene. So she went to Thelma Turner's house at 1400 Goodwin. Thelma Turner lives right next to Devil's Den. And this is the report. This past Sunday, this would be May the second, observed two white males and two black males behind her residence in the field. Person one was a white male. Tall, stocky build, dark hair, medium length hair, wearing a ball cap, approximate late teens, was carrying a large knife. This is an almost exact description of Kent Lynn, with the exception of the age, which she's of course guessing at. Kent Lynn was fifteen, she's saying that late teens. Male number two is a white male, approximately ten years old, brown hair, not seen in the neighborhood before. This is a description of Billy Sanderson who had an uncanny, youthful look. Despite his age, even when he was interviewed at this time, I think he was fourteen when all this happened, he does look like a younger kid, for sure, than the others. And then the two black males were both described as approximately fifteen or sixteen years old, both tall, all were together, and then observed the older white male place the knife to the chest of one of the black males. This is a description of Carlos and Jason for sure. Last scene walking east on Goodwin. So from Thelma Turner's house to get over to Carlos Seals's house, you have to go east on Goodwin. So it's a description of them. So this seems to corroborate their story that this happened on May the second. Based on the information that the police gathered and this connection we've made to Thelma Turner, it seems that the boys are telling the truth. That they were in Devil's Den, Robin Hood on that Sunday prior to the murders. Probably the knife has nothing to do with the murders. They came clean about that after some interviews were done and the police collected that knife. Unfortunately, whatever led them to Carlos and his friends, and we think that that is very likely the interviews from Don Moore and Kim Williams, they are distracted by this knife during the interviews and they fail to talk to the teenagers about this story that comes from Kim and Dawn about the shot, whatever that means, whether it's drugs or something else, they don't ask about that, at least as far as we can tell from the notes and the reports. They don't talk about that at all. And this was a big deal to Kim and Dawn. This scared them. This is why they left and went back to Kim's house. They didn't know what it meant. They were afraid. And so this is a scary interaction for them. And that's why they told the police about it. And the police don't follow up. on this line of questioning at all that we can see. So from the descriptions of the boys, from where we see them go into this house on Wilson, which turns out to be Carlos Seal's house, it is extremely likely that it's this same group of teenagers. Three of the four of these boys are who Kim and Dawn saw exiting Devil's Den and offered Dawn a shot. But the police dropped the ball. And so we don't get any kind of confirmation as to whether or not these are the boys. That's where the evidence points. That's what it looks like to us. But the police don't give us anything in regards to whether or not it's the same boys that Kim and Don are talking about. Yeah, I would say that a preponderance of the evidence is it's them, but there's a glorious lack of confirmation. And that happens a lot in this case. What was going on there? Why didn't you see Christopher in Devil's Den? Why didn't you see Michael in Devil's Den, we know that they know these guys. We've got these two girls that are saying you guys were there. You're saying that you weren't out there in Devil's Den or in Robin Hood, you know, since May the second. Two girls are contradicting you. It would have been nice to get that confirmation locked in. Now, is there a slight chance that it's three other kids? Of course. But right now, there's not really a stronger candidate. Mark Byers went out there, he found Carlos and his friends over there. They started searching. So that's all corroborated. The question is, is who were these kids and why was this followed up on was Something that is a big miss in my opinion in this case. Yeah, and I think based on what we see in the interviews and the reports, Carlos didn't seem to want to be forthcoming at first until his friends are interviewed and they seem to be truthful. They come right out and say we are playing with the knife, there's a broken knife, we left it in the woods. And then when they confirm that with Carlos, he comes clean. I think that if the police had asked Jason or Billy about this incident with the shot, they would have said, you know, yeah, we were just goofing around, or it's not what she thought we meant, or I think they would have come clean about it had they been asked, but they weren't asked. Aaron Yeah. If we weren't lying to you about being in Robin Hood, we were just right there by the entrance. You know, they would have at least had some explanation. But right now it just looks like somebody is not telling the total truth. That's unfortunate. And unfortunately Cant Lynn is not alive for us to interview to ask questions of either. So that would have been nice to have talked to him. And there is something Very glaring in all of this that is missing. Once again, that is Bobby Posey. He is not mentioned by any of those boys as being with them on May the 5th. Carlos does not mention Christopher coming to his house and saying, My daddy whipped me and I'm running away. None of that. None of the stuff that Bobby Posey reports in the door-to-door notes is repeated by anyone, and certainly not Carlos Seals. We don't even have any. Authentication that Carlos Seals heard it from Chris himself. He might have heard it from somebody else who then told it to other people, including Bobby Posey. He could have heard it from Ryan when Ryan came up and said, Hey, can you help me find my brother? My dad spanked him earlier and he might be a little upset. That could have been the origin of it. But now we're talking about double possible triple hearsay. Yeah, it's a problem. And here we've got Bobby Posey putting this information out. There are people who believe Bobby Posey's statement. And we just want to show you there is nothing to back up what Bobby Posey says. I don't think that you can take anything that he says as truth. Yeah, he's recycling a rumor. So turns out Chris and Michael and Stevie have some other friends that live in the neighborhood, especially Chris, that have some leads that they gave to the police also. So we're not talking about just the broken knife anymore. Now we're going into the neighborhood. We want to talk about Jeff Holliday and Clint Garner. Yeah, on May the seventh, the West Memphis Police Department interviews both ⁓ Jeff Holiday and Clint Garner with their mothers present. Jeff is a white male thirteen years old, lives at seven forty-six holiday as a sixth grade student at Weaver. And Clint Garner is a white male ten years old, lives at seven ten Macaulay Circle, and he is a fourth grade student at Weaver. And they are at the police department. in relation to an incident that they thought might be related to the triple homicide. So on May the seventh, they were brought in for interviews and a report was produced by Bill Durham. Now Bill Durham is the guy that does all the polygraph stuff for the West Memphis PD. So that's a name you should definitely put into your back pocket is one that you know you should know Alan, Ridge, Sudbury, and Bill Durham. And after interviewing these two kids who are both friends of the Byers family, he produces the following report. About three weeks ago, unknown which day of the week, at approximately seven thirty PM, Jeff Holliday was riding his bicycle south on holiday. Now, this is interesting. The word holiday and holiday, one is a last name and the other one is the name of the street. Okay? So Jeff Holiday does live on holiday. So Jeff Holiday was riding his bicycle south on holiday and had a rope, pulling Clint Garner, who was on roller skates. They saw a white van moving slowly and it passed them, going in the opposite direction. The van went about four houses past them and turned around in a driveway. The van then started following them until they got to Clint Garner's house at seven ten McCauley Circle. Now this is interesting because seven hundred ten McCauley Circle, right in that area, is where Christopher Byers had told Mark Byers that Steve Branch lived. So this is gonna be hot on everybody's radar. The van then started following them until they got to Clint Garner's house at seven ten McAuley Circle. The boys stopped in the driveway at seven hundred ten Macaulay Circle and then the van stopped a few houses away. The van stopped in the middle of the street. The van was stopped for approximately twenty seconds, and the driver was looking directly at the boys. The van then sped off. Van is believed to be an older Chevrolet, white, with two windows in the back, no side windows except on the doors. The motor was loud, no writing on van, and the van was dirty in appearance. The van had black wall tires, no dents or rust spots were noticed. The van had chrome front and rear bumpers, the van had chrome, dirty hubcaps. A day or two later, they saw a van at Flash Market on Ingram, that they think is the same van. They then provide an Arkansas license plate number. Drivers described as being a white male about forty five years old, gray hair, hair length below his ear, no glasses, clean shaven, dirty in appearance, had a blue cast on his left arm which extended from his wrist to his elbow, no hat or cap, no clothing description. Was alone in the van, fair complexion, approximately six feet tall, thin built, then they saw him get out of the van at Flash Market, they can identify him. Signed Bill Durham. This report ⁓ connects to what was going on at the time the boys were missing because when we look at what was happening at seven ten, the college circle on may the sixth, it turns out that a call came in at twelve thirty six and it was responded to by the West Memphis PD and it just says refers to missing children. And so we don't know exactly what it is that they're looking for or looking at at this call at twelve thirty-six while the boys are still missing and not yet found. But this is the same family that is reporting this van, the stalker van that I'm gonna call it, this white van. Another call came in, this is another strange one at seven ten Macaulay Circle. This is the same house, and it just says harassment complaint. And this was from three thirty-one to three forty-five that afternoon on May the sixth. So this is at the time that the boys' bodies have just been freshly removed from the water. And so this is a very active part of the investigation is this van that the garners are calling in. The creepy white van is basically an icon in any kind of true crime cases. There's always one or more. And there's more in this case. Yeah, they're gonna take this one very seriously. The license plate number that they pulled and they gave to the police department does lead to somebody that lives there in the community. The license plate led them to a person by the name of William LeProd. The West Memphis PD did a background check on May the seventh, and it connects that van to the address of sixteen ⁓ eight East Barton, which is where William LeProd has family members. Now this location at sixteen ⁓ eight East Barton is seven doors east of Christopher's and Michael's houses. So it's very close by. The people connected to that is a William LeProd. There's a Bobby LeProd and there's a Tony LeProd. Nothing connecting them to the murders was ever found by the West Memphis PD, but they did not investigate these people by bringing them in and interviewing them like they did with Carlos Seals and his friends. The only thing that we have in the file on these guys is that William LeProd had a failure to yield in January of nineteen ninety three. We know that Bobby LeProd had ransacked a vehicle in June of nineteen eighty nine, and that Tony LeProd was caught owning a radar detector in March of nineteen eighty nine. So I remember those days when radar detectors were illegal to own and the police would ticket you for it. But none of these things rise to any kind of violence that the police would look to to say these guys are capable of committing these murders. And they didn't even take this lead very seriously at this point. That incident was corroborated on May the eighth in the Arkansas Democrat Gazette. And the quote from the Gazette says one lead reportedly being pursued by police involves an incident in the neighborhood where the dead boys lived. Two friends of the dead boys were interviewed by police Friday morning. It was a problem that we had that I didn't think anything of Rosita Garner, the mother of one of the boys interviewed, said outside the police station. Maybe if I'd called the police this wouldn't have happened. So she's thinking it might have something to do with the crime and is feeling guilty that she didn't report it sooner. Yeah, and Rosita Garner is, of course, Clint Garner's mother and friend of the buyers family. The next white van lead that came in comes in from a Debbie Hanks, and this came in on May the eighth, so that's Saturday. So the report says the following May the eighth, eleven thirty AM received a call from Debbie Hanks. She lives in BB. Her address is provided as at seventeen ⁓ one Cedar Wood Drive. She lives in a residential subdivision off of highway sixty seven dash one hundred and sixty seven, twenty minutes from I forty. She stated that around six PM to six thirty PM. She, Debbie Hanks, observed a white van with one white male, twenties age, thin, straggly blonde hair, not shoulder length but long, was watching her thirteen year old son. She stated the van slowed down, stopped, then saw Debbie Hanks, the mother, and drove off. Debbie Hanks stated a dark headed, round faced female with glasses was a passenger. Debbie Hanks stated the BB police drove through the subdivision shortly after the van came through. Debbie Hanks stated she would call the BB police department. and the White County Sheriff's Department and have them make a general information report to have on file. So this came to the attention of Mike Allen on May the eighth. The incident had occurred on May the seventh between six and six thirty PM in the evening, the night before. So if you want to know where BB is, BB is actually located to the west of West Memphis, quite a ways. You gotta go all the way to Little Rock and then as you're headed to Jonesboro, it's about a third of the way up to Jonesboro from Little Rock on that drive. So suspicious white van. Doesn't end there. There's another report by Mary Williams on May the thirteenth. She reported that she and her ex-husband saw a light colored van at the dead end, presumably Macaulay, with a white male about six feet tall with a thin build and light brown hair. That sounds suspiciously like our male from the Garner Holiday incident. You might remember we mentioned this when we were going through the door to door notes. But Barbara McCafferty lived at nine fourteen East Barton and she reported that there was a white van that she saw yesterday. There's not a date on these notes, but this is from the first weekend of door to door canvas with a white male in it. And the last report we're gonna have of a white van in this episode is coming from Steve Hacker. Steve Hacker reported on May the seventh at eleven AM. He called Detective Mike Allen and informed him That a person in a white van was watching his seven and a half year old twins last Sunday. So the West Memphis PD did take the search for white vans very seriously, and they compiled a list of white vans that frequented the area or were in that area, or of vans that were associated with people they might have had an interest in in this case. And so here's a quick rundown of those vans. There were five vans owned by American Cable Vision of West Memphis. There was a van owned by Bobby Birch. Who is the father of Robert Birch, who we haven't talked about yet, but we will be getting to him later on. Freddie Harrison, ⁓ he lives in the neighborhood there. The Jesus Center Church, this is where King David, Sir Michael, and Reverend Holder held Revival. They owned that van. Juanita Mosier, she lives at seven sixteen Holiday Drive. She lives very close to where the Garners live. LD Welsh from Marion. He owns a van and he happens to be the father of somebody they took a very close look at in this case. Randall and Tina McConnell, they lived in the neighborhood over on Wilson Street. Rex Hester was listed as the owner of a van at twelve ⁓ two W.E. Cat. And this one's very interesting because that's where Mike and Stevie were at five forty five, right before they picked up Christopher Byers for the last forty five minutes of their afternoon till six thirty. Next one is Roger and Richard Clark. Also on Wilson Road, they lived in the neighborhood. Rodney Thweet, I believe is how it's pronounced. He lived over on Barton, very close to where Christopher Byers lived, also a neighbor. William and Vicky Leprod, of course, we talked about them earlier. This is the van that was identified by the Garner and Holiday kids as stopping in the middle of the road in front of them. And then the last one they have listed here is a Willie Bolton. This is a neighbor. He lives at seventeen ⁓ four Scotswood. So needless to say, there are plenty of white vans that The West Memphis Police Department decides are on the radar and they need to check them out, rule them in, rule them out, see if they have anything to do with any of these reports of suspicious white vans, or if they're in any way connected to this case. Next time on Crooked Tree. This was not the crime of a mad genius, doctor LD Hutt said. This is a much, much lower level kind of person. I would expect he has a marginal job, and I would expect when he is apprehended, nobody will be surprised it was him. Basically, it's a young white male, in all probability in his late teens or early twenties, Hut said. This is a person whose mental abilities are not all that great, Hutt said, adding that the killer probably has a history of mental problems or a low IQ.