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Episode 13: A Shot by the Hydrant · 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. Was there some time when when Michael was supposed to be home? yes, sir. I he he needed to be home around supper. All right. And in fact when you saw him, what were the circumstances under when you which you last saw him? It was supper time. All right. And what happened when you with the time you last saw him? I sent my daughter after him to bring him home. Okay. And did she return? Yes, sir. Okay. And I take it Michael did not return. No, sir. Okay. Hey everybody, welcome back. My name is Paul Day, West Memphis 3 researcher, forensic geologist, and victim advocate for Christopher Byers. And I'm here with Kristen Rich, criminologist, victim advocate, and West Memphis 3 researcher. How are you doing, Kristen? I am doing very well. And I am really excited about this episode. And the reason is because we get to dive back into the timeline. And I love a timeline. We have a really massive timeline for this case. And I enjoy any time that we get to add some more data points to the timeline and connect some dots and make everything make a little bit more sense. Yeah. Anytime you have some facts and evidence that you could use to tie things together, you try to capitalize on that every chance you get. And in this episode, we're going to be putting some more dots on the map and more timestamps to those dots. And it's going to be pretty fun. In the timeline, we have a big gap for Stevie from four to five o'clock. We don't really know where Stevie is. But there's another gap that we need to fill in, and that is from 5 15 to 5 45. Now we know where Christopher is. Christopher is at home. Yeah, he's in trouble because he was riding south on 14th Street on his stomach on a skateboard. His dad found him out there and pulled up behind him in the car, scooped him up, threw him in the backseat, threw the skateboarded the back seat, took him home, spanked him, made him clean up the carport, and then he drove off, leaving him there. So that's all happening between about five thirty to five forty five. Right. But we have a clue about where Stevie and Michael are, and that is also from the door to door notes with Christy Blanchard. Yeah. Christy Blanchard lives over at 824 Holiday Drive, which is right on the intersection between Wilson And holiday. Now Wilson is parallel to 14th. It's right behind Christopher Byers' house and up the block. So you can have an address on holiday, but this house actually faces Wilson. So it functions as a house where the front door and the carport and all this stuff goes towards Wilson, but the mailbox is on holiday. But it functions as if it's on Wilson. So you have a perfect view of this. Christy Blanchard sees them out there at this intersection, riding their bikes. And in fact, she says, sees two boys, one wearing it. scout shirt and the other one a white shirt riding bikes. So whenever you hear of a white shirt and a scout shirt riding bikes in that neighborhood at that time, you immediately know that you're talking about Michael and Stevie. And that's where we've got them at five fifteen is at that intersection. We don't pick them up again with anybody's sightings until five forty five when Alan Bailey Jr., who lives over at twelve ⁓ two WE Cat, or we cat, as the locals call it, he speaks to Michael Moore and Stevie Branch and notes that They are in a hurry and say they're going to pick Christopher Byers up. Also reports that Stevie Branch, quote, wouldn't talk. So we have a gap between five fifteen all the way to five forty-five where we have no accounting, no observations of these kids, but they're in a very crowded neighborhood where they're commonly observed. So we're hoping to be able to fill in that gap today. To start to fill that gap, we are going to return to the door-to-door notes on page eight. The Police department is canvassing the neighborhood and they go to 707 Wilson, which is the home of the Craftons. Fifteen year old Ben Crafton lived there and he reported that he saw Branch and Moore kids on bikes Wednesday, 6 p.m. going toward Goodwin. Kim Williams was with them. So we know from the notes that he knows them by sight. He knows their names. He specifically says Branch and Moore. We know they were both on bikes. Six P. ⁓ toward Goodwin, and we've talked about this when we cited this before. Six PM is not probably accurate. So the problem with Ben Crafton's sighting is is that he has two of the boys at six o'clock, the two boys being Stevie Branch and Michael Moore. We know that at six o'clock, Christopher Byers is with those boys. So there should have been three. We also know that the boys were observed a little before six o'clock over at Deborah O'Tiner's home over in front of Devil's Den, which is not exactly close to where Ben Crafton lives. So the sighting is probably accurate. He knows who these boys are, but it's not consistent with the six o'clock sighting. It must be sooner than five forty five. And in fact at five forty five if they're over on WeCat, that being the two boys on bikes, then Ben Crafton isn't seeing them until sometime considerably prior to that. So sometime probably between the five fifteen period of time where Christy Blanchard says that she sees the kids and By the time Alan Bailey sees them at five forty five. In fact, Christy Blanchard lives about eight hundred feet away from Ben Crafton. So not far. The end of his statement said that he saw the boys with Kim Williams, and Kim Williams was his neighbor. So he would have been familiar with her and obviously was able to name her. And her family appeared in the door to door notes as well. On page twenty nine of the door to door notes, which were taken on May the seventh. Her house was canvassed. She lived at 720 Wilson and they spoke with her father, Bruce Williams. He reported that his daughter Kimberly has been interviewed by Inspector Gitchell. That's interesting that on May the seventh, she's already been interviewed by Inspector Gitchell, and it's doubly interesting because there are zero notes in the files about this interview. Yeah, we've looked and looked and seen if they were misfiled somewhere else. We can't find them. There's no indication that Gitchell has written down anything about his conversation with Kim Williams. So it's a little frustrating that there's this hole in the record. Kim Williams was interviewed on May the eighth by Detective Ridge at two PM. And Kim was in the fourth grade. It does not have her age on her description, but she was nine, ten, somewhere around in there. And This is what his report says. On this date, I interviewed Kim Williams at the West Memphis Police Department. She stated that at between five thirty and six PM on five five ninety three, she saw Steve and Michael going into Robin Hood into the ditch that goes to Devil's Den area. She stated that she saw their bicycles parked by the road near Goodwin. She stated that she saw three boys coming out of Robin Hood area near the dead end road off of Goodwin. She stated that there was one white male and two black males. She stated that Don, that's Don Moore, had told her that one of the three older boys asked her if she wanted a shot, and that she thought that they were talking about needles and drugs. Kim stated that she never saw Christopher that day. Kim stated that she saw the white male and one or both of the black males going into one of four houses south of Goodwin. on the west side of the street. So she gives a lot of information here. She's placing two boys over at Devil's Den in the five thirty to six o'clock time period. And there's this interesting interaction with three boys coming out. So two are going in, three are coming out. One is a white male, two are black males. She has an additional set of details that are in the notes that didn't wind up in the reports. And probably the most critical of them is that the three older boys were, quote, junior high age. So that means we're talking about Seventh through ninth grade, something twelve to fourteen, maybe fifteen years old, because junior high age in West Memphis is from seventh through ninth grade. She also gives a description of the white male. She said that he was wearing a brown or black and yellow striped outfit and that he had long dark hair. She was observant about the white male, but she did not have any additional details about the two black males. On Kim Williams description written by Detective Ridge, the very top where her name is says Kim Williams slash with Don Moore on five five ninety-three. So this is very important for them to note that they were together on this day. And so naturally the next thing they're going to do is interview Dawn Moore. So Dawn Moore comes in at 3 PM according to the subject form. She's identified as Don Marie Moore, sister of Victim Moore. The report reads on this date. I interviewed Dawn Moore, who stated that she was out looking for her brother. She stated that she saw three boys, one white male and two black males, coming out of Robin Hood near the ditch that goes to Devil's Den. She stated that they were near the hydrant across the street as she drove by one of them and asked if she wanted a shot. She felt that they were talking about drugs. She stated that she didn't see the little boys that evening. And this is a report put together by Brian Rich. Now in terms of the location, We know exactly where this is because there is a map in the file that shows us exactly where the hydrant is, where Devil's Den is, and where the boys were that were going in, this being Michael and Stevie, and where the other three unknown boys, the white male and the two black males, were coming out, and where the shot was being offered by the hydrant. In fact the hydrant is still there and is located in the backyard of Sir Michael and King David, where they were staying at that time. And there's a couple of things left out of her official report by Detective Bridge as well. She also describes the clothing of the white male. It must have really stood out to both Dawn and Kim. She says, and this is a little bit different, or maybe it's written just differently. I'm not sure. But hers says one white male and she thinks their ages are around seventeen, not in junior high, like Kim had stated. But she said that the white male is wearing a yellow And black shorts and top striped and then it says shoes. So I don't know if they're saying the top is striped or the shoes are striped, but that's what the notes say. She also notes that the sun is still out and it is light outside. Yeah, and unlike Kim Williams on this particular report, she doesn't give the exact time. Kim Williams is the one that's telling us it's between five thirty and six. We don't see that in this report here for Don Moore. Is it in the notes? The time? Yes. Five thirty to six o'clock. Yeah, so that's gonna be in the notes as opposed to in the report. So this kind of shows the difference between these two reports. Kim Williams gives the main facts and Dawn is operating almost like she's supplementing what Kim was adding before, and that's what winds up in this report. There's another important detail that she includes in the notes that is not in the report, which is that about forty five minutes later, after this event happens, where they go by and the shot is offered by the hydrant, they see the white male and at least one black male going into a house north of Kim's house, close to Goodwin, and she estimates about the fourth house off of Goodwin on the west side. So the numbering system there is that if you start counting south from Goodwin, down Wilson, you go to 802, which is the first house, 804, 806, and then 808. So that lands you on 808 Wilson if you're looking at the fourth house specifically. So that's an interesting detail that she includes. In addition to Don Moore being in the police station giving this information. She's also there with Todd Moore. And this is a very interesting interaction they're gonna have. Not necessarily from the content. There's some interesting content that comes from it, but there's some other interesting circumstances that are gonna play out that I think demand some explanation. So let's dig into this one. So Todd Moore gives a brief statement. The report by Detective Ridge says talked with the father of Moore and his daughter at police department, five eight ninety three. He stated that his son had a blue Boy Scout type wallet and believed that he was wearing a small star shaped badge with the name Mike on it when he disappeared. The badge was bought a few days before and victim kept it on his Cub Scout shirt he was wearing at the time of his disappearance. All good information. The really interesting thing on this report is the case number. Yeah, there's a very bizarre case number on here. It says case number nine three-zero five-year-old. five five five. Which is not the case number for this case. Yeah, it's the only document in the case file with this number anywhere. It's routinely nine three dash zero five dash zero six six six everywhere else, including documents from May sixth, May seventh, and the entire day of May eighth, and continuing on all the way to the end of the trials. It's always six six six. This is the one single exception. And there might be a pretty good explanation for that. Yeah, in fact, ⁓ I was looking at documents just to see how many there were, and there's quite a few, but just on May eighth alone, there are s at least seven documents that come from the West Memphis Police Department with the case number on it. And the case number is nine three dash zero five dash zero six six six. This is the only one. And that includes the reports for Kim Williams and Don Moore that we just spoke about. Those have the correct case number on it. Todd Moores is the exception. And looking at the document, I was studying it, Paul, as well, and we both notice that there's kind of a defect. There's two different spaces that have the case number written on it. In the first one, it's 93 05 0. That zero is thicker than all the other numbers. And it is very clear to me that he has. rested his pen at the top of that zero as he's closing that number. His pen lingered there a little bit longer and the ink from his pen has made a thick dot at the top of this zero. You're welcome to go and look at it on Callahan for the investigative report for Todd Moore. And look at this zero. I'm not a handwriting expert. I've had a little bit of instruction on it when I was in grad school, but I can tell you that this is a hesitation mark. That's what this is called. And it's because someone is either thinking, they don't know what to do next, they don't know what they're going to write next. They've left their pen there because they've stopped to think about what they're going to do next. This is my personal opinion. I think that maybe Detective Ridge caught Todd Moore watching him write this report as they're sitting down and was like, Am I gonna really write the number six six six in front of this father who just lost his son? Am I gonna do that? Because it was bizarre that this was the case number that came up for this triple homicide, especially given what's going to happen in the future. ⁓ and I think he was embarrassed. I think he didn't want to write that number in front of this father. And so he wrote five five five instead. Yeah, that's my interpretation of it as well. You know, Todd Moore is coming in for his very first interview. He's got Don there. For Don's it writes six six six, but they're not being interviewed together, most likely. So Todd is sitting there and he's filling out this form in front of Todd and he's gonna hesitate on this and he's gonna write six, six, six forty-eight hours after they find his son dead. No way. You're gonna write down five five five and keep a mental note that this is Todd Moore here that you're sitting in front of. It's the only time this ever happens in the case. And many of these other documents with six six six on them were all written by Ridge. So he's being mindful about who he's sitting in front of when he's filling this thing out. He doesn't want Todd Moore to Be upset. Yeah, I think either Detective Ridge is embarrassed that that's what the case number is, or it's just simply out of respect for Todd Moore. He's suffering an immeasurable tragedy and he doesn't want to add to that by writing this ridiculous number in front of Todd Moore. Now, all of this is extremely ironic given the report that he's gonna generate from these discussions that he has with Kim and with Don. And it says Kim stated she saw Steve and Michael between five thirty and six PM. Going into Robin Hood into the ditch that goes to the Devil's Den area. She saw their bikes parked by the road near Goodwin. Kim also saw three older boys coming out of Robin Hood near the dead end road off of Goodwin. One white male and two black males. She never saw Christopher that day. What's really interesting is the following additional comment. Do you want to read that for us? Yes. It says additional comments. Unknown who Kim saw. Has been mentioned that during cult activity, some members blackened their faces. Also note victims had black boys that they also played with. So so Detective Ridge has gone from either being embarrassed or showing respect to Toddmore by writing the case number as five five five instead of six six six. And then he proceeds to write this report about a lead to follow based on the information he received from Kim and Dawn, and adds that he's talking about cult activity and people, you know, who belong to that cult might blacken their faces. So he goes from one extreme to the other. Yeah, it's pretty clear that Colts is on his mind one way or the other, right? Yeah, absolutely. He's you know, he he's not gonna he's not gonna talk about that with Todd Moore, but he's still thinking about it. Yeah, it's on his mind. Now, one of the things we've attempted to do in this podcast is keep in place the fog of war or the fog of the investigation so that you as the listener are learning the information right alongside the West Memphis PD in approximately the same order that they are. We're gonna pierce that. at this point, largely because there's two important data points that come in here that are really helpful for you, the listener. And that is is that they go back and they revisit Ben Crafton. And Ben Crafton gives the following statement on September seventh of nineteen ninety three. He says, I saw Stephen Branch, Michael Moore, and Kim Williams, so it's the same three people, riding their bicycles in front of my house on Wednesday, May fifth, nineteen ninety three, completely consistent. For some reason, I believe her father called her, but I'm not sure. But Kim went home. Stephen and Michael continued to ride their bikes for about fifteen more minutes before heading towards Goodwin. The two boys had a newer red bike and an older green bike that looked like it had been painted several times. The last time I saw the boys was between six fifteen and six thirty. The interviewer for this one was Bill Durham, so he's a different person than Ridge that's following up on this Ben Crafton sighting. And his description of the bikes is accurate. Steve Branch is in fact riding a black and red bicycle and Michael is riding an older green bike. The one problem with Ben Crafton is the time, six fifteen to six thirty. We know that it has to be at least probably an hour earlier when Christy Blanchard saw them at five fifteen. So five fifteen is probably the more accurate time. In neither of his statements does he give any kind of a time anchor. You know, like I saw them as I was going in to have dinner. So the fact that he has the time off isn't really a surprise. And we get additional details that come a lot later on. Dawn Moore gives an interview in two thousand and eighteen and she gives what I consider to be four additional critical details that really help us cement what happened that day. So she explained that she was at Kim's house after school, ⁓ that she and Michael both went home after school. Don had a key. She let them both in, they put their school stuff down and went out to play. She was going to Kim Williams' house to hang out with her, and Michael said he wanted to go to Stevie's house, and Don said that's fine, go to Stevie's house. So they part ways at that point. After Michael hooks up with Stevie and they're out riding their bikes, they go to Kim Williams' house. He knows that's where his sister is, and he asks Don for permission for he and Stevie to go to Devil's Den. And that's not something they're normally allowed to do. They're told to stay out of there, but Don gives him permission to go to Devil's Den. With the caveat that don't tell our parents that I'm letting you do this. Yeah. After they had left, Kim talks to Dawn about the things she's heard about what goes on in Devil's Den. So she says, you know, I hear there are drugs back there and people have sex back there and whatever kinds of things go on back there, but not appropriate for eight year old boys. So Dawn's not gonna waste any time. She's gotta get up there and get her brother back out of there. One, because she's gonna get in trouble if she gives that permission and he gets into any trouble. And two, because she's worried about her little brother not coming home safe. So they go up there and that's when they run into these teens. After they've run into these teenagers who offer Dawn a shot and she doesn't know what that means, they get out of there. So they return to Kim's house at that point. So Stevie and Michael are still in the ditch in the woods. They're somewhere in there. And the two girls return back to Kim's house. Yeah, they are not hanging out there with those teenagers there. They go back to Kim's house, and we know from the notes that they're there for at least forty five minutes. Because about forty five minutes after they return to Kim's house, they look up the street and two, possibly three of those boys go into one of the four houses at the end. But according to Don It's the fourth house, which would have been eight ⁓ eight Wilson. Right. So there's a period of time there she doesn't know exactly where Stevie and Michael are. She knows that they went into Devil's Den, but she didn't see them come out, but she's seen these three boys come out and go to this house on Wilson. ⁓ the other thing that she clarifies is that she then goes home and all this happens before she sees her mom. And this is a very big deal because for a very, very long time people didn't understand that an instruction that is going to be given by her mom Is different than what she just experienced. A lot of people thought it was the same instruction. And that instruction is is her mom sees Stevie, Michael, and Christopher on their bicycles going north on Fourteenth Street, and she sends her daughter after them to go and pick them up. So we know that this happens after. And we're gonna play the clip for that right here. On ⁓ want to direct your attention to May the fifth of nineteen ninety three. After school When did you ⁓ see Michael? About ten after three. Okay. And ⁓ what time does school let out? Three o'clock. And where is the school in relation to your home? Right next door. And in the afternoon, did you see Michael ⁓ occasionally in and out? Yes, sir. All right, was he with anybody? He was with Steve Branch. Approximately what time did you last see ⁓ Michael? At six o'clock that evening. And where did you last see him? ⁓ going down Fourteenth Street. And who was he with? Steve and Christopher. And how were they w going? ⁓ they were on bikes. Chris was riding with Steve and Michael was riding his bike. Was there some time when when Michael was supposed to be home? yes, sir. He he needed to be home around supper. All right. And in fact when you saw him, what were the circumstances under when you which you last saw him? It was supper time. All right. And what happened when you with the time you last saw him? I sent my daughter after him to bring him home. Okay. And did she return? Yes, sir. Okay. And I take it Michael did not return. No, sir. So armed with all this new data that we put together, this conversation about Kim, about Don, about Ben Crafton, and w all the things that they saw between five fifteen and five forty five, we could put together a very good timeline for the boys from then all the way till six thirty. At five fifteen, we know that Christy Blanchard sees them at eight twenty four holiday. Between five fifteen to five thirty, this is that fifteen minutes That Ben Crafton said that they were out there playing in front of his house, riding bikes with Kim Williams. When he talks about in front of his house, he only lives four hundred feet away from Kim Williams and eight hundred feet from Christy Blanchard. So the boys are buzzing around like bees on their bicycles along with Kim, and presumably Dawn is there. We don't hear Ben Crafton talk about Dawn, but he probably doesn't know Dawn, so he wouldn't know to even bring her up. So they're buzzing around this area from about five fifteen to about five thirty. And sometime around five thirty, Don gives permission for Michael to go up into Devil's Den. And shortly after, Kim gets into Don's ear and says, I don't think that was a good idea. I don't think you should let him do that. It's a dangerous place. So Kim and Don, they ride their bikes up to Devil's Den to try to retrieve Michael and Stevie. They run into the three teens that are exiting the woods, and one of them offered Don a shot. This is all happening between five thirty and five forty five. Remember this hydrant where the offer of the shot is occurring? Is right behind King David's house. So this is right in that area, what we've been focusing on for the last couple of episodes. Don and Kim then returned to Kim's house for at least 45 minutes. So if you take five thirty plus forty five minutes takes you to six fifteen. We know that the missing persons report shows Michael Moore missing at six o'clock, but we know that that can't be true. It must be later than that. It must be closer to six thirty, which is exactly the time that Mark Byers gives. Is it six thirty? So then the police officer, if I'm not mistaken, asked Dana, you know, how long you've been looking for your little boy? And she told her, you know, well for the last hour and a half. And ⁓ she said the branch, ⁓ Stevie branch, which is, you know, Mr Hobbs, she said Terry, which is Stevie's daddy,'s been looking for him since about five o'clock. Four thirty, five o'clock. And she said, I saw Christopher with him at six thirty. So we're thinking, well, they're around the neighborhood here, all three of ⁓ together. No, at six thirty, they were all together Dana told ⁓ Dana told yeah, it's Dana told me at six thirty, told my wife and I and Regina Meeks that at six thirty she saw. So we you know, felt like, well, they're all three together and all three of ⁓ being Cub Scouts, maybe they're you know maybe they're doing, you know, we didn't really know at the time. So Kim Williams by herself authenticates the six thirty timeline for Mark Byers saying that this is when this happened. Because Dawn has to not only leave Kim's after seeing the teens go into eight ⁓ eight Wilson, but then she has to return home so that Dana can send her up the street, which had to have been at six thirty. So at five forty five, we know that Alan Bailey, he speaks to Michael Moore and Stevie Brandt. So they're no longer in Devil's Den. They were probably only in there for a couple of minutes. And then they talk to Alan Bailey a little bit and this is where Stevie Branch wouldn't talk to anybody, he's being shy. Between five forty five and six o'clock, Deborah O'Tinger sees all three boys in her yard. So they've picked Christopher up. Yeah, they've got Christopher with them at six o'clock. And the rest of the timeline is pretty well established by the previous discussions we've had. So we know where they are between six and six thirty, with a couple of little caveats we'll add later on, but that's a ways off. And now we know where they are between five fifteen and six. And that the missing persons report is off by thirty minutes. Yeah. And let's remind people, when Dana went to Mark's house and Officer Meek was there taking the missing persons report on Christopher, Mark says she told him that she saw the three boys riding north on fourteenth Street at six thirty. Then later, when Officer Meek goes back to Dana to take the missing persons report on Michael, she writes six o'clock on the missing persons report. Then in trial When they're asking Dana what time she last saw him, she's referring to the missing person the time on the missing persons report, which says six o'clock. That's how that gets misconstrued. But we know that it couldn't have been six o'clock. And six thirty is the time that Mark Byers said Dana told him. And now when we put this timeline together, that makes perfect sense. And remember, Mark Byers is on record with that six thirty time even before the boys were found. He said it to the media, six thirty. Yep. So the question is who were the boys, the teenagers that Kim and Dawn saw exiting Devil's Den and do they have anything to do with this crime? If you want to join the discussion, we strongly encourage you to contribute to the case by following Crooked Tree Pod on Facebook, on X, or to follow us on YouTube. Next time on Crooked Tree. 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.