Latest / Crooked Tree: A West Memphis 3 Podcast / Episode 11: The Devil Thumbs a Ride

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Episode 11: The Devil Thumbs a Ride · Crooked Tree: A West Memphis 3 Podcast

• Paul: Welcome to Crooked Tree, a West Memphis 3 podcast. On today's episode, we will be talking about several locations in the West Memphis area. We've created a couple of maps that we have posted to our X account and in our Facebook discussion group if you'd like to use those to follow along. I'm at the Little Rock Police Department with ⁓ Ken Gobar, white male, lives at sixty six ⁓ eight Carolina, ⁓ Little Rock. Hey, Mr. Goldart, the reason we're here this afternoon is to take a tape statement in reference to a possible murder suspect, homicide that occurred in West Memphis a couple of days ago, where I believe three eight-year-old boys were found murdered. And I believe ⁓ you may have picked up the hitchhiker that fits that possible description. Welcome back, everyone. My name is Kristen Rich, and I am here with my co-host Paul Day. We are West Memphis 3 researchers and victim advocates. And on this episode, we're going to talk about a really interesting, so far anonymous guy that could possibly be the perpetrator of this crime. Right alongside Bojanglesman, the person we're going to be talking about, frequently referred to as Tattooed Man, is regarded as one of the legends of this case. Yet he's probably one of the most famous leads that many, even very seasoned researchers have very little experience with. And he's one of my favorite guys to talk about. So the story of the tattooed man and how he enters the case begins with a gentleman by the name of Ken Govar. Ken is one of those guys that travels long distances and he has a knack for picking up hitchhikers. I think he enjoys the company. I think he enjoys just doing nice things for people. And on this particular day, May the fifth, he did pick up a hitchhiker. when he was traveling from Little Rock out to the east. So let's start by listening to a clip from Ken Govar's police interview that he gave to Little Rock Police Department on May the eighth about this hitchhiker. I left Little Rock about one thirty Wednesday afternoon. And ⁓ I picked this hitchhiker up. I was in a ⁓ Blue Dodge ram charger pickup and I picked him up on the freeway somewhere in the Carlisle Hazen area. But he was not at an exit. He was out in the middle of nowhere on the freeway. That was on I forty now. On the I forty. He made a statement to go ask him what he was doing out there and he said that he had ⁓ he was riding with some other people and he got out of made him get let him out of the car because they had stole some gas at the last exit and he was afraid they were gonna all get busted 'cause these guys were infesting with drugs and they were gone off too. And ⁓ said he said he'd had enough and he wanted out of the car and He was extremely angry when he got in the carbon day and ⁓ told me that I asked him where he was from, where was he going. He said he had was from Knoxville, Tennessee and ⁓ that he was attempting to get back to Knoxville, he'd gone broke in Little Rock trying to get tree trimming work. He said where he'd worked here in Little Rock. ⁓ he said he couldn't find any work. But he had ⁓ tried I asked him, did you try West Tree Service and some of those? 'Cause they're always hiring tree trimmers and He said that he'd he'd called but he couldn't didn't get a job. And so he'd gone broke and he was gonna he attack back to ⁓ Knoxville. And ⁓ I mentioned to him that I had worked at Knoxville not long ago and I had worked at the Toyota plant. And he Yeah, I'm sharing Knoxville, but it's not in Knoxington. The Camry plant's in Lexington, Kentucky. So I didn't think at that time he really was from Knoxville, you know, was my impression. ⁓ he told me though he was a tree trimmer. ⁓ he didn't give him the appearance of being an outdoor worker, though you know he wasn't real darkly tan or anything. He was light complexed. This story is wild from the beginning. So this guy is getting a ride with these other guys who are drinking, doing drugs, and stealing gas, and he wants out. He wants nothing to do with that, so he demands to be let out like just in the middle of the freeway. Nowhere in particular, not at an exit, not at a gas station, just let me out of this car right now. So that that's crazy to start with. And then, you know, Ken being a nice guy picks him up and I love Ken's mind. Saying that he did work in Knoxville at the Camry plant, knowing that the Camry plant is not in Knoxville, is really thinking on your feet, trying to catch this guy in a lie. Like he already had some sense that this hitchhiker is not telling him the truth about really anything. I think that's what Ken was thinking. This guy's just feeding me hogwash. And so he tricks him and says something about work in Knoxville that could not have possibly been true because the Camry plant is in Lexington, Kentucky. So that's pretty wild. And he makes the observation that he doesn't look like he works outside. He's not tan. He's fair skinned, fair hair, has freckles. I am Exactly the same. And when I go outside, my freckles multiply. They are everywhere. So if you have freckles, they will multiply if you're working outside. It doesn't take very long. So really interesting observations by Ken Govar here. Yeah, his obvious sense is that this hitchhiker is trying to conceal his origins, where he's coming from, what he's really doing out there. It's kind of bizarre he's out there in the middle of this afternoon in an area between Carlisle and Hazen, Arkansas, which is just east of Little Rock. It's not that far. If I can remember, it's about forty minutes east of there. And it's on I forty, which goes right up into West Memphis. So this is a bizarre pickup already on its own where this guy's out there and he's gonna have a very different demeanor than what you would expect from a normal hitchhiker who just kinda plows into the car and says, Thank you, let's turn on this air conditioning. Hey, can I have a little bit of food? You know, that kind of thing. This guy is yeah, in a nap. And this guy is very different. Let's continue with Ken Govar's description of this mysterious Hitchhiker. He was thin, ⁓ about six eight to six ten, ⁓ five eight to five ten, excuse me. He wasn't quite six foot. ⁓ he was very thin. He had reddish blond hair. More red. ⁓ I'd say probably I couldn't guess weight, but he was very thin, let's put it that way. He w he was really thin and wiry. ⁓ cheekbones protruding and chin bones, you know. He was on the thin side of thin. No, well ⁓ I'd say twenty six to twenty eight years old, ⁓ white male, light complexed, ⁓ some freckles. ⁓ he had long hair in the back that came down about halfway down his neck and he had bushy eyebro bushy ⁓ sidebirds that came down well below his ears. And ⁓ you know, I noticed a lot about the link sidebird. Hit they were real bushy and they were being ⁓ What this but his hair was blonde. His hair was a blondish red. It wasn't a dark red, kind of a carrot red. and his eyebrows were red too. And he had a stubble beard growth, ⁓ of a couple of days maybe. ⁓ he was carrying a ⁓ vi ⁓ a pillowcase stuffed about three quarters full, and it just had to wound up like a knapsack and he was ⁓ It's obviously a pillowcase, it had it was white, it had the pattern, you know, little colored flowers and two bands on it. ⁓ if the pillowcase you said was white, ⁓ Yeah. What color were the ⁓ designs? If the designs were ⁓ green and yellow and red, you know, they had little flowers in two rows, like a like a cheap color case look. ⁓ tell what he had in it? I couldn't tell what he had in it. No, he had some stuff that was pretty heavy in it, but I couldn't tell what it was. Let me ask get back to his hair. Was his ⁓ Hair is lighter or darker than his sideburns? The hair was a little bit darker than the sideburns. Sideburns were a little darker, I mean, than the hair. ⁓ but he but cap on. What color was it based on? I think it was blue. Blue. I think it was a a Cubs cap. I think it had a sea on it, but I couldn't swear to that. I didn't I didn't notice the cap. I noticed these damn tattoos that he had. Well, on the right inside form, he had a two inch by two inch tattoo of a bone, just a bone. And it was flesh colored and it had red blood on the in the background, like splattered blood in a and it was a square tattoo like but this was not ⁓ black and white ⁓ or gray like you see a tattoo. This this was red. The red stood out bright red. It wasn't a blood red, it was a bright red And the phone was flesh colored, just a single bone at an angle. And that was on the right and side. Now ain't that a weird tattoo? What I thought. Yeah. And then on the other arm, on the forearm of his left arm, he got a six to eight inch tattoo of a ⁓ devil sitting on his haunches with three hand three claws up on his hands and the face looked like kind of dinosaur sitting there on his haunches with his three claws up like this. But he had the face of a traditional devil. Like you would draw a devil with a pointed chin and yellow horns and thing. That's what the face of the thing. But it was a terribly terrifying tattoo. I mean when you looked at it, you were terrified. Describe that to the sketch starters for it. Yeah. We didn't quite get it in the sketch, the horrifying ⁓ attitude of the tattoo. But it it terrified you just to see the tattoo. And that was on the left. On the left forearm. Yeah. It figured. So a quick sum-up of what we're getting is that he's five foot eight to five foot ten, twenty-six to twenty-eight years old, blondish, red hair. ⁓ goes to his shoulders and the back. What we would probably describe, at least in my mind, as kind of a mullet. He's wearing a blue cap that Ken Govar believed was a cubs cap. So that's kind of an interesting identifier right there, is the blue cap. He's got sideburns that go down below his ears. What is not mentioned in this clip, just because it's at another part of the interview and we just didn't want to clip it just for that. He's not wearing glasses, he doesn't have earrings, he's doesn't have any jewelry. But we also know that he's wearing black tennis shoes. And this is something that actually catches the attention of West Memphis PD is the black tennis shoes. It's highlighted in Mike Allen's notes when he reviewed this very same audio that you're listening to. But I think the key part of this is the tattoos. What do you think of those things? Well they do sound terrifying and Ken Govar's a smart guy and I think he picks up hitchhikers fairly regularly. And between this guy's attitude of being angry when he gets in the car and then these tattoos and his story about running away from these thugs, he sounds a little scary. Yeah, he's not somebody you put in the car and you just ignore. You know, when you're driving in the car, it's on your mind that he's sitting right there. Right. This isn't a situation where you let the passenger drive for a while while you sleep. That's not happening. Yeah. Ken Govar seems to be having second thoughts about picking this guy up. What's also really interesting is when Ken Govar went into the Little Rock Police Department to give this recorded statement that we're listening to, before he did that, he actually gave descriptions of these tattoos and executed a composite sketch. So we actually have a drawing of what Ken Govar felt that this man looked like, but not just of the man, but also of his tattoos. that caught his attention. These are some of the best recognized images of the case. And certainly whenever you look at it, you immediately go, ⁓ we're looking at Tattooed Man. And so we're gonna go ahead and place those sketches on our X account as well as in our Facebook account for people to discuss. I will say that Ken Govar seems to be like a very detailed man. So he paid attention t obviously to these tattoos, to the guy's hair, to his sideburns. Do we know what color eyes Tattooed Man has? I have no record of what his eye color was. Right. And in this interview they asked him about what he was wearing and he said he was wearing a short sleeve shirt, I know, because I could see his tattoos, but that was the extent of him knowing. He didn't know what kind of pants he had on, but he knew he had on black tennis shoes. So he pays attention to some things and not other things. So I don't know how accurate this description is that he gives to a sketch artist in order to make a composite drawing. Same with the tattoos. I would say maybe those are probably more accurate because they really stood out in his mind. He seemed to study them because they scared him. And he paid a lot of attention to those two specific tattoos, the bone with the blood behind it and the devil on its haunches. So those might be more accurate than the composite sketch that the Little Rock PD produced. So in addition to him getting in and seeming Lee having a nonsensical background story, you know, where he was from and what he was doing and where he was going. It just nothing really felt solid with this guy and having these terrible tattoos. What really caught his attention was where he was asked to drop the tattooed man off. ⁓ He didn't really have a dirty, stringy, ⁓ sleeping on the road all the time appearance. He told me that he had spent the night out Slept in a field on the freeway the other side of I thirty tr ⁓ I forty dirt track there at Benton. And ⁓ he said he got well freeway so nobody to see him and he's ⁓ spent the night out there, but ⁓ he didn't ask for money or food or anything. You know, normally a good chikker that needs money gonna say, Hey, how about buying me lunch or something? But and I offered to take him, you know, across the freeway there, but he didn't ⁓ he didn't want to go over there. He wanted to go specifically to the south side of the freeway. And he wanted off riding this at this one place. Where where did you land off at? He ⁓ there's a truck stop as you come into West Memphis or it's a convenience store gas station is what it is. Okay. And that convenience store has got new gas pumps instead of being parallel to the freeway, you know how you would drive off the freeway and drive into a pump parallel? Uhhuh. These are different, they're perpendicular and there must be seven or eight of ⁓ in a line there, perpendicular right up next to the edge of the freeway. So when you come up you barely got room to make the turn and you're pointing at the convenience store when you pull in these pumps. ⁓ I see. ⁓ that's right as you go in the West Memphis. Yes. And I don't remember if it was after the Y or before the Y, but I could show you the place if I was over it. But do you you can tell where it is by those gas pumps? The gas pumps were perpendicular to the freeway rather than being parallel. It's right on the right side of the freeway. Is there anything else around there? Around the Yeah, the dog tracks on the other side. It's right there in front of the dog track. Right. Right in that area. About what time was that when you see there? I let I must have let him off about well, it takes about two hours and fifteen minutes to get to Memphis. And I know I left about one or one thirty. So ⁓ I'd say about three thirty. Somewhere right in there. Yeah, so this is a really interesting hitchhiker. He wants to be dropped off in a very, very specific Place. He doesn't want food. He doesn't want money. He's not asking for any additional help. He just wants to be dropped off in this very specific spot. Yeah, and the spot is actually easily identifiable. There's a note from Mike Allen who was listening to this same interview, and his conjecture was that this was the new flash market located on the South Service Road near Ingram, between 18th Street and Ingram. And that would be the address of 1903 South Service Road. And he also said it. might be describing the blue beacon, but you could tell he's leaning towards it being the flash market. And sure enough, when you look at that location, even today, as well as the historical photographs, it is exactly as Ken Govar had described. The pumps are perpendicular to the service road rather than parallel to it, and it stands out. And so this is almost certainly the place. The Blue Beacon didn't have gas pumps, right? The Blue Beacon didn't have gas pumps. The Union seventy six station next to it did, but This is clearly not where he got dropped off. It's not a truck stop. He would have called it a truck stop if that was the case. And it's also right across from the dog track. Dog track. Which is right on the other side of the freeway. What's really interesting about this is that the drop off point is coming in at about three thirty in the afternoon. At this time, just kind of give you a reference for where the boys are. Michael and Stevie are already out riding bikes at this time, going back and forth past Michael and Chris Byers' house. Now, Chris Byers, of course, is not home. Christopher's watching Muppet Babies at three thirty. So just to kind of give you an idea in the timeline of where our boys are relative to this person being dropped off over at the New Flash Market at nineteen ⁓ three South Service Road in West Memphis. There's another coincidence because there's no evidence that they know each other, but this is three hundred feet away from Paul Champagne's hotel room. Paul Champagne was staying just three hundred feet to the east of there. At the Hampton Inn. At the Hampton Inn in room number one hundred thirty. We have this hitchhiker who is upset. He's on the side of the road, he's come a long distance, he's specifically picking this location very close to where the boys neighborhood is. He's bringing a bit of an attitude with him, and we're gonna go ahead and let Ken Govar describe that attitude in vivid detail. But the tone of this conversation from the time we got in the truck, this guy was wired. I mean he was angry. He was he was angry. I mean you ought to get angry at him. It was just angry. You know, some people are just have they're just anger is flowing out of ⁓ This guy was angry. He's fully capable of doing something like that. Did you ever notice nah on him or any I didn't see any weapons? I didn't see any weapons, but he couldn't sit still in the chair. Yeah, in the truck. He was just ⁓ I guess a good way to describe him was Hell he just I was angry. I mean, and I don't he was that way when he got in the truck. He was on the side of the road in the middle of nowhere. And I mean when he got in the truck, he would just I said, Well, you know, how'd you get Weddell out here? You know, and he said you know, he was just cussing these people that he was with. Okay. And ⁓ he was just angry. ⁓ he didn't give you the normal hitchhiker or destitute. He didn't appear to be a trampler or somebody didn't see it to be out. ⁓ he did have this pillow this pillowcase full of stuff that ⁓ he did not either smell or act like a transient, you know. I mean he had a little bit of odor from being on his own, but not like he would ⁓ if you know some transients you gotta roll the window down if they've been sleeping out two or three nights. He say he's actually lived in Knoxville. Yeah. Where he was from. But that's not where his a he wanted to go. I mean if he had a He would have wanted to go on around Memphis and get on a truck stop on the other side of town where he had a straight shot in. That would've been the logical thing to use that. That's where that's where he said he was trying to get back to was not. Yeah. Did you say had family there or said he had family there. Yeah. Sure did. ⁓ he's and he said what ⁓ work he did there, I guess straight straight term or there. The only reason that I thought he was suspicious was these hideous tattoos of this devil worshiping crap that he had on his arms and his attitude of anger and this ⁓ I mean he didn't say anything that would lead me to believe he was gonna commit some sort of crime like that. But this anger was there. So yeah, I mean, so he's really upset. Ken Govar is willing to drive him even further Towards a destination where you can get an easier ride into Knoxville. He says, No, drop me off in West Memphis at this specific flash market, located right near the neighborhood where the boys live. In fact it's only sixteen hundred feet away from Devil's Den. You can stand at the Flash Market, look straight over your shoulder, and you're looking right at the Devil's Den entrance. So it's not that far away. And there's a lot of reasons to be kind of concerned about this person. As you can hear Ken Govar said he is fully capable of doing something like this. So that's how upset this man was that was dropped off at three thirty right near the crime scene. But that's just Ken Govar's observation. I mean, he said explicitly the guy didn't say anything threatening, he didn't say he was gonna commit a crime, he didn't say that he'd been doing anything nefarious. He's in fact upset that these other guys he was with did something illegal and he wanted to get out of there. So he's basing this on the fact that he's angry, he's upset at whatever's happened. He couldn't find work in Little Rock. He's trying to allegedly get back to Knoxville, although Ken Govar doesn't believe that. And he's got these ugly tattoos. So it sounds like Ken's making this assumption just based on his demeanor at that time, but it sounds like he got him on a really bad day. Yeah, that's entirely possible. I mean, the tattooed man doesn't want to give his name. For example, hasn't even surrendered anything that is identifying about himself other than he's in the car. And that of course this could be because he doesn't want to get in trouble for the stolen gas. Might not have anything to do with the murders that happened in West Memphis. It might not have anything to do with any plans that he has. But that doesn't mean that they're not gonna ask him about this and to see what Ken's thoughts are. And Ken is you could tell very opinionated and he's going to volunteer his thoughts on what this guy was capable of. It is very odd. I agree with Ken in his summary of the the drop off location because Ken was headed to Mississippi and he offers to take this guy around to the other side to the east side of Memphis and drop him off there at a truck stop so that he can easily get a ride east toward Knoxville on I-40. And the guy says, no, I want to get dropped off here. So that is really interesting. You would think that someone that's trying to get to Knoxville that needs a ride has found someone who's willing to give him a ride And to take him as far as he can take him before he has to go south. And so it's kind of bizarre that this guy wants to stop and get out. Yeah. It's a very bizarre, almost random thing. The guy shouldn't be even expected to be on the side of the road, but now he wants to be dropped off here. There's no Western Union, so he can't get cash wired to him to get himself out of a situation. This is a really bizarre request on his behalf. If I was left out in the middle of Arkansas and wanted to get home to Knoxville, I'm going to Memphis. Where I have options. I'm not going to West Memphis where maybe a trucker will pick me up or maybe I get lucky and another Ken Gobar picks me up. This is a pretty strange place to be you know, a brand new flash market, sixteen hundred feet away from where three boys would be seen for the very last time, three hours before that happened. We talked about this in the our very first episode about the fact that I forty and I fifty five cross right there at West Memphis. It's a major trucking hub and This guy's wherever he came from, he may have gone through West Memphis on his way to Little Rock. So he may have already stopped in West Memphis once before. Maybe it's a familiarity thing. Maybe he stopped at that flash market on his way to Little Rock and he met someone or he knows someone or who who knows? There may be a a legitimate reason for why he wanted to stop there, but he certainly doesn't tell that reason to Ken. Yeah, and it's all the more reason to try to find this guy and ask him the questions. You know, you're gonna bring him in and say, Hey Well why that flash market? Right. Are you really from Knoxville? Those types of questions. So let's ⁓ play a clip where Govar is providing his concluding thoughts and observations on the situation to the Little Rock Police Department. The only things that that I think were significant about it was his conversation didn't lead me to believe that he lived in w in ⁓ Knoxville, Tennessee. He didn't need to believe 'cause he said he'd drive through it the speed old that he lives in southwest Fulwa. That's was the conversation I got. ⁓ I don't think he was a tree tripper. I've been around tree trimmers. I know tree trimmers. They don't ⁓ these guys are you know IQ of twenty and they they you know, they have cauliflower hands and their hand might feel like a foot when you shake hands with ⁓ And he does he did he was not ⁓ that kind of tree trimmer. You know, he's ⁓ he was real knowledgeable about cars. ⁓ he I don't know what this problem with his personality was, but this anger was obvious as soon as he got in the vehicle. He was angry, you know, that's why I kept looking at him just to just to keep now you know these these tattoos really catch your attention. But that's all I can really tell you about him. If he's the one that did it, you ought to be able to figure it out real quick. ⁓ if there's any hair samples. If he's got red or blonde hair, I mean, that's a scene. That's your boy. Is he's if he did go back to the park over there somewhere to to clean up or these kids went to the convenience store, you know he followed ⁓ over there. ⁓ Enough he could he could have got it just because of this anger that he had. But he's ⁓ He was definitely, you know, hitchhiking. He was on the road. Yeah, I'd hate to think that they would plan to do something like this, but everybody. You know, a bunch of devil lushers but But it is unusual. The tattoos that he had are not normal. They're not something you see on people. Even people that wear tattoos. Those kind of blood and bones. I've never seen a blood and bones tattoo that I remember. I've seen some crossbones and skulls and things like that, you know. Motorcycle riders, I've never seen anything like that. A single bone with blood in the background. I've never seen a tattoo like that. And I've seen devil tattoos, but never one as hideous as the one D had with the the devil left in his claws, his haunches. I've never seen one like that on anybody. That's what caught my attention. ⁓ but other than that he you know he he was not drunk. He had not been drinking, you know, like most transits you pick up, they smell like one or they've been drinking for three days or something. He did no smelled alcohol at all. He was so good. ⁓ it's all I guess I can tell you about it. Ken Govar missed his calling as a detective. He's closed the case. He is looking for DNA and hair already at the crime scene that matches the tattooed man, and if you find it, this guy did it. So he's as sure about the tattooed man being involved as many people are that Bo Jengles was involved. He feels this strongly about this guy that he let off, you know, fifteen hundred feet from the crime scene. Yeah, this is exactly how a lot of people feel. They feel like Tattooed Man is the guy. You know, he got dropped off, he was angry, he went back into those woods, was probably cleaning up or whatever he was. Boys happened on him and he killed him. And then he then went back onto the interstate, grabbed a ride and got back out of there as a hitchhiker. And this is definitely one of the theories that the West Memphis PD had to confront and work their way through. So remember, Ken Govar's interviewed on five eight and the West Memphis PD is notified of this on five eight. So on five nine, Mike Allen is now looking at this information from Ken Govar's statement. He's clearly listening to it and and making notes about it. And he decides that it's very important for them to reach out to the Benton Speedway, which is where the tattooed man would have spent the night previously, the night of five four into five five. before Ken Govard picked him up to reach over to the security people over there to see if they can identify him. Was he in fact over there? If he was over there, do you know who he was? There's no follow-up notes that indicate any results, and this usually indicates that nothing was there to report at all. So it's entirely possible the man wasn't at the I 30 Benton Speedway. By the way, the Benton Speedway is not in Benton. It's actually in Little Rock. So if you're looking for it, the exact address of where the Benton Speedway it's One two two nine seven, Interstate thirty, Little Rock, Arkansas. So that gives you an idea that he's actually coming from Little Rock, not as far west as Benton. Talking about the speedway reminded me of something else that this hitchhiker says to Ken Govar. Apparently they were doing some car talk. And Ken Govar knows a little bit about cars. He's talking about cars he's fixing up, cars he's had in the past. And This hitchhiker apparently really knows his cars and he's talking about details and working on cars that the average person wouldn't know, which Ken finds bizarre. And this guy also says that he has raced cars at some point. None of this fits. Guys who race cars aren't typically broke tree trimmers. ⁓ and that is another clue for Ken that this guy is not giving him the full story. He's not being truthful. So the guy doesn't know that the Camry plant's not in Knoxville. He doesn't look like a tree trimmer. He doesn't have a tan. He doesn't look like he's working outside. His hands don't have that appearance. He knows a lot about cars and says he was a race driver, but he says he was broke looking for tree trimming work. So none of this adds up to Ken. It can't be verified anywhere that this guy was there. Everywhere he says he is, and we're gonna see that here in a minute because Mike Allen's gonna call the Knoxville CID main number and he's gonna talk to them and he wants to see if any of their officers recognize the description. He gets no notes back saying that they did, so they don't know who he is. They also contacted tree trimming companies in the area. This was specifically done on May the tenth. So that Monday, done by Stan Birch. Again, no notes indicate that he was reaching out to people, that he was working for anybody, that he had experience with them. So there was no useful information that was gained. Now that doesn't mean they got all the tree trimming companies in the regions that they were curious about, you know, Knoxville, Little Rock, West Memphis, wherever it was they were looking. Maybe they just missed it. But aside from Ken Govar picking this guy up and dropping him off, he's kind of a ghost. He kind of shows up and then gets dropped off sixteen hundred feet away from Devil's Den and disappears. And to that end, on May the eleventh, just to show you how the investigation goes in West Memphis, where everything is kept perfectly secret, and the investigation never leaks to the public. In the article entitled Police Still Confident They'll Solve Murders, Donations Push Reward Fund near twenty five thousand dollar mark, there's a little excerpt I want to read. It says leads are being followed outside the community, but Gitchell said that the effort is centered locally. Quote, we're not assuming it was a local person, he said. He said several hitchhikers and transients have been questioned, but dispelled rumors that a quote, tattooed man is being sought or that a threatening letter was received at Weaver Elementary School where the boys were students. This investigation is leaking information like a sieve, and Gitchell has got to go before the newspapers and deny what is actually happening in his department. It's mind blowing to me. So perhaps we're done with the tattooed man at this point, or perhaps we're not. The Day after Ken Govar reports this interaction with a tattooed man, there is another tip that came in on five nine. A white male called and stated that he had Metro Cab pick him up and take him to the airport where he was going to California on business. He stated he got in a conversation with the cab driver, a black male who Who told him that he had picked up a white male at sixty-four in summer, and that the white male paid the cab driver three hundred and ninety dollars to carry him to Centerville, Tennessee, that he had to get out of town, and that the person who he carried to Centerville, Tennessee talked about being dropped off in West Memphis. So here we have a guy who called a cab company, gets in the cab, the cab driver Tells him about a previous fair that he had where he picked up a white male who paid him three hundred and ninety dollars to drive him to Centerville, Tennessee because he had to get out of town. Three hundred and ninety dollars in nineteen ninety-three is eye popping money. That is a lot of money for a lot of people. It was not unusual for people to earn eleven or twelve hundred dollars a month. And he's dropping this on cab fare to go to Centerville of all places. This is really interesting. Based on that tip. They contact Metro Cab, find out who this cab driver is. His name is George Jones. And he gives a statement. He stated on Thursday, the 6th of May 1993, he got a call to pick up a person at the Texaco service station at 8600 Summer at 64 Highway off exit 18 at 610 PM. The person he picked up exited a black and silver tractor truck with trailer near the exit from the passenger side. and got into the cab and said he wanted to go to a hotel near the airport, then said in Nashville. They discussed the cost. During the conversation on the way, the white male said he lived about a hundred miles from Charlotte, Carolina. The cab driver said the passenger fell asleep and they really didn't talk much. George Jones said that he stopped in Centerville, Tennessee at an Amaco station, and the passenger said he would get another cab and got out. George Jones did say that during the conversation they had that he, meaning the passenger, said he rode with a truck driver and a conversation did come up about the three kids in West Memphis, Arkansas. And the passenger said to George Jones, I bet you did kill the kids. The driver said no, but I'd like to kill the SOB that did it. The passenger quit talking about it. He is described as a white male, long hair, shoulder length, short pants, jeans, cutoffs and had a tote bag. So That's interesting. Now, they don't mention the three hundred and ninety dollars here, but it's probably reliable. That's probably the amount that was paid. If you're traveling all the way from Memphis to Centerville, it's gonna be a heck of a fare. Yes. What a bizarre passenger. He's clearly not a transient. He has cash. He would have paid in cash in nineteen ninety three. You're not swiping a card or Venmoing anybody. He had a lot of cash on him. He gets in the car, he eventually sleeps, but then he decides he doesn't want to go all the way to Nashville. Near the airport, he wants to get out in Centerville and says he'll take another cab, so he's got more cash to pay for another cab. Yes, so this guy is getting rides with truckers, arguing with the trucker, saying, You killed those kids and the trucker's saying, No, I didn't, but I want to kill the guy that did. He then gets out and suddenly he generates three hundred ninety dollars in fare money to get himself to Centerville. Now he's not going to Centerville, he's supposed to be going to Nashville, and he jumps out. Who does this sound like? It sounds a lot like the guy that Ken Govar had just dropped off at West Memphis. Ken Govar had said the same thing. I'll be willing to take you all the way to the far side of Memphis so that you can get closer to your destination. In that case, he was trying to go to to Knoxville. This guy is doing the same behavior. He is. And really the only description we have he's a white male, we don't have an age. He has long hair shoulder length. That's about it. We don't have a description of him wearing a ball cap, that he has red hair, that he has freckles, he's got cut off jeans and a tote bag. Which I guess could be misconstrued as the pillowcase that the tattooed man was wearing. But we have no mention of tattoos. ⁓ we don't even know what kind of shirt this guy's wearing, if his tattoos would have been showing. And according to Ken Govar, Tattooed Man said he'd run out of money looking for work. So if this should be the same guy, which it doesn't sound like to me, but if it's the same guy, somehow either he lied and had cash and told Ken Govar he didn't, or he somehow made some money. really quickly so that he could get a cab to take him further instead of hitching a ride with a truck driver. Well or he could have gone to the one of the gas stations there in West Memphis and had some Western Union money wired to him. Yeah. That's pretty common for these hitchhikers to do this kind of thing. If you're getting free rides from truckers and, you know, nice people like Ken Govar, what's the motivation to spend almost four hundred dollars on a cab when you could spend that money on something else and get a ride for free? Yeah, it's suspicious for sure. And to that point, it was obviously suspicious, and this was something that West Memphis PD looked at because Mike Allen himself took a look at this. And Mike Allen, of course, is one of the big guns from West Memphis PD investigating this crime. And Mike Allen had included copies of the tattooed man sketches in his file. And he was clearly asking George Jones about those sketches at the time he was getting this information. So it was definitely on his mind. And to the point that Chris is making, yeah, it's a serious problem. We have a description from Ken Govar. So what do you do? You should be asking George Jones the same questions. What's his hair color? What's his shoe color? They should be black, right? If it's the same guy. What about a shirt? Was he wearing a cap, right? That Cubs cap that Ken Govar described. Was he wearing a hat? How about the tattoos, for God's sake, right? You can't miss those. Wasn't even asked. How old is he? Did he say he was in West Memphis at all? That's what the tip said that he was picked up in West Memphis. Did that truck driver that was at that gas station that picked that guy up before they went on to Centerville, did he pick him up over In West Memphis. That's a really key part. So here's the questions we have. Was this tattooed man? Or is he just a completely different person of interest? We have no way of discerning that. No. There is a stark difference between the interview that the Little Rock PD did with Ken Govar and the West Memphis Police Department questioning of George Jones. We just don't get the details from George Jones that were elicited from Ken Govar. And I think the probably the biggest miss here is questioning about the tattoos because like I just said in nineteen ninety three someone taking a cab that's paying a fare is paying in cash. So there's nothing to track there. So if you're trying to find someone in nineteen ninety three who's hitchhiking or traveling long distances, not in their own personal vehicle and they're paying cash and you're trying to figure out if this is the same guy, a different guy, you need something that makes him stand out from everybody else that's coming through that area. And that's those tattoos, not asking, at least from what we have, the notes we have, George Jones was not asked about tattoos and gave no information about tattoos. And that's your biggest lead if you're trying to track down this tattooed man that Ken Govar talked about. So as usual, with this investigation, it was leaked to the press. Naturally. West Memphis Evening Times, May twenty first, nineteen ninety three, in the article Little New in Murder, police say. Let me read this excerpt to you. As the second week of the investigation of Michael Moore, Christopher Byers, and Stephen Branch, they call him Stephen Branch, that's not me. And Stephen Branch drew to a close. Police were following a lead that turned up nothing, Gitchell said. A call came to the department concerning a taxi driver from West Memphis, just as a side note, he's not from West Memphis, who picked up a man about the time the three boys reported missing from their neighborhood. The cab driver took the man into Tennessee and dropped him off before reaching the planned destination of Nashville. Please followed up on the information, Gitchell said. Quote, it was a lead we were following, but there was nothing to it, he said. Why is this in the newspaper? And why is he saying that we followed up on it? There's no evidence of follow up on this at all. Your guess is as good as mine. So within three days after the discovery of our victims, the West Memphis Police Department has been alerted to three different guys who could be really, you know, plausible suspects in these murders. That's the man at Bojangles, this tattooed man, and then the guy who catches the cab and pays three hundred nine dollars in cash to get out of town. And they don't know who any of these people are. The follow-up on these guys has not happened. There's no quick turnaround trying to track these guys down and figure out who they are and if they are connected to this crime. Yeah, what's really astonishing to me is just the number of people right around the time these boys disappeared at 630 and before and slightly after, kind of the bizarre circumstances and activities that are happening in the vicinity around them, right? Bojangles off to the west. We got Paul Champagne off to the east. We've of course got Tattooed Man who we've been talking about this episode, and there's more. Like this is not even close to the last one. We've got a lot more that we're gonna be talking about. These kids were surrounded by suspects. So it's not like a clear case of somebody saying, ⁓ it has to be this person because they're the only one that could have done it. That is hogwash. Absolute hogwash. The area is riddled with people that had the ability to commit this crime. See you guys are hearing this episode on July the twenty eighth. We just wanted to make a note that yesterday, July twenty seventh, would have been Michael Moore's birthday and we just wanted to remember him as we continue to talk about his case and hopefully gain some insight into what happened to him and his friends, Stevie and Christopher. If you want to join the discussion, we strongly encourage you to contribute to the case by following Crooked Tree Pot on Facebook, on X, or to follow us on YouTube. Next time on Crooked Tree On may seventh, nineteen ninety three in the afternoon, upon conducting house to house interviews, I knocked on the door of fourteen ⁓ one Goodwin. I told him who I was and that we were just checking with the neighborhood to see if anyone saw anyone or anything unusual before or since the homicide. As soon as he opened the door and saw that I was a police officer, he immediately put his right arm behind the door as if to purposely keep me from seeing it.