Latest / Crooked Tree: A West Memphis 3 Podcast / Episode 3: Searching Robin Hood

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Episode 3: Searching Robin Hood · Crooked Tree: A West Memphis 3 Podcast

• Paul: Welcome to Crooked Tree, a West Memphis 3 podcast. On today's episode, we'll be talking about several locations in the West Memphis area. We've created a couple of maps that we have posted to our ex account and in our Facebook discussion group if you'd like to use those to follow along. About the time I got back to my house, that's when I met Terry's, it would have been Stevie Branch's grandfather. pulled up in Dana Moore's yard in his truck and he walked over. We were kind of like all standing out under the street light. Then it was me and my wife, Dana Moore, Todd was still at work and then Terry Hobbs, a friend of his with a beard that lived, I think he said on 17th Street and then Stevie Branch's grandpa. And we were just kind of talking about where all we had been looking and... kind of debating on if they had fell in the bough and drowned, where would the bikes be? And we couldn't see how both bicycles could have run off in the bough. I knew my son was a real strong swimmer and the only way he could have drowned would have been maybe trying to help one of the other kids that fell in. And we just kind of felt helpless then. Hey, everybody. Welcome back. My name is Paul Day. I'm a geologist and victim advocate for two of the victims in this case. I'm here with my colleague, Kristin Rich, who's a criminologist and also victim advocate in this case. Kristin, how are doing? I'm good. I'm glad to be back and continue discussing this case. So we've been talking a lot about the timeline of what's happened with the boys over the last couple of episodes, that timeline beginning with when they got off school at three o'clock. The last time Pam Hobbs saw her son at 3.30, the last time Melissa Byer saw her son at 5.45, and the last time the three of them were seen by Dana Moore, that'd be Michael Moore's mom at 6.30. And then we got into what happened over the next three hours as they're frantically looking around between 6.30 and 9.30. There were three missing persons reports that were filed with the police. The police are searching. And one of the things that they discovered during the search is that the place to look was this area up to the North, this natural area called Devil's Den, which was the entrance to a larger park called Robin Hood. And most people focus on the searches that happened up until about 9.30 when officer Regina Meek, who took two and a half of the missing persons reports, I guess is how we can put it, right? Because officer John Moore took half. And we're going to come back to John Moore here at the beginning of this. We finished with her searching by a mysterious location called the pipe bridge and at the pipe bridge she gets attacked by mosquitoes and we call that the mosquito incident right at 930. So it's a very important timeline anchor for us to recognize and most people don't go beyond this. They'll talk about what happened that night up until 930 and then they kind of let it go until the events of the next day. But we think that what happened that evening is absolutely critical for understanding the timeline of this case and for understanding. the dynamics of the investigation and how it played out. So the evening started when the sun went down at 749 and the moon had come up a few minutes prior to that at 742. The moon was a large waxing gibbous, 99 % waxing gibbous that turned into a full moon at about 1030 that evening. Now, if you know about how the moon orbits around the earth, one of the more interesting things about it is sometimes it orbits very close and sometimes it orbits very far. And this particular night, it was actually relatively close to the earth. And as a consequence, it was fairly large. was a little more than 10 % larger than a normal moon, which meant that it was very large and very bright. By about 930 at night, when the mosquito incident is playing out, the moon is starting to rise above the tree line. And so for the very first time, the moon is really starting to play a role in providing some assistance to the people that are searching Robin Hood, which is located to the north of the neighborhood. the end of our last episode, we discussed Officer John Moore. taking the missing persons report for Steve branch at Catfish Island, which is where Pam Hobbs was working as a waitress and in training to become a manager. When Terry and Amanda arrived, Pam had no idea what was going on. In 2008, she described that moment and said, I went to the car and found out from Amanda that Stevie did not come home. When I asked her where Bubba was, she said, mama, we can't find him. I almost fell to the ground from hearing those words but remained strong in front of Amanda, but returned inside, hitting the ice machine, crying, saying, God, please, no. I called my father from work also before leaving to go to the woods. Pam has been at work from 5 p.m. until 9.19 when her husband showed up to pick her up from work. She has absolutely no idea that her son is still missing. He wasn't at home right before they left to go to work. She knew that, but she assumed he showed up after that because she hasn't been told anything else. So this is a complete shock to her. She is immediately devastated, upset, believes something has to be terribly wrong that Stevie has not come home in the time that she has been at work. So she's worked this long shift. She's learned new things in her training to become a manager. And now Her husband shows up and he goes into Catfish Island and calls the police. And that's when John Moore is dispatched to take the missing persons report. During that time, she learns that while she's been at work and knows absolutely nothing about what's going on, the other families have been out searching. The police are now involved and have also been searching. All of this is going on very close. to where she works and she was not informed. Now, how far is it, Paul, between Catfish Island and Robin Hood? So Catfish Island is located on the 10-mile biodiversion channel to the west, and it's only about 1,400 feet, roughly, from the Pipe Bridge that Regina Meek and the Fourteens had been exploring and we described in our last episode. So this is all happening very nearby. And in fact, as we talked about in that same episode, Terry had told people that he had searched the Mayfair apartments area, which is even closer than where the Pike bridge is. And he had not checked in with his wife. All he had to do is really pull into the driveway over there at catfish Island, come in and just say, I just want to let you know streetlights have come on. Stevie has not made his way home. There are families out there looking. I just want to let you know what's going on. I just want to check in with you and let you know that this is going on. ⁓ he didn't do this. So this is going to be a point of pain for many, many years after this evening. She also mentioned her father, and I don't want to just skip over this before we leave Catfish Island. Let's talk about who her father is and what he's bringing to the table and why she would have reached out to him. Her father's name is Jackie Hicks, senior. She has a brother who is Jackie Hicks, Jr. He and his wife, Marie live in Blythell, which is about an hour north of West Memphis. Jackie and Marie are extremely close to Stevie. When I was talking to Sheila, Pam's younger sister, she explained that most weekends, Stevie went up to his grandparents' house for the weekend and stayed with them. Sometimes he got to stay with Sheila. They were all very close and spent a lot of time with Stevie. And Jackie was Stevie's grandfather, but also a main father figure to Stevie. And they were very, very invested in him and spent a lot of time with him. So this news is also devastating to Jackie and Marie. They received this phone call from Pam. They get this news. Of course, they immediately jump in Jackie's truck and head to West Memphis. In fact, they say they left so fast that Jackie left without even putting socks on. He threw his shoes on and ran out the door and got in the truck and flew as fast as he could to West Memphis. Jackie Hicks Sr. is extremely close with his grandson. Stevie, in fact, the red bicycle that Stevie was riding that day was a gift from his grandfather just a couple of weeks earlier. And he's going to get news and he's going to drive like a bat out of hell to get from Blytheville down to West Memphis. And of all the people in the world for Pam to reach out to, to track down where her son is, there's nobody better because her father is an expert hunter and tracker. He's an army veteran. And she knows that if she calls her dad, she's going to get results. He's going to show up and handle his business. So she makes that phone call. And of course, the next thing she wants to do is go and start looking for her kid. She's not waiting another minute. And so she and Terry and Amanda, they follow officer John Moore. They go across the 10 mile biodiversity channel on the seventh street bridge. So if you're looking at a map, you'll see where that bridge is and where catfish Island would have been located right adjacent to it. And right back over into the holiday garden subdivision up along either W E cat or Goodwin. And as they're going by there, Terry does let Pam know, Hey, I've already searched over here. Same thing that he had told Mark Byers in the last episode that we discussed. And so they decided they're going to go search in the area where Terry said that he hadn't searched yet, which is over in Devil's Den, which is the Goodwin entrance over off to the East. And so they followed officer John Moore over to there. So officer John Moore shows up at 9 42 and lo and behold, the first person that he runs into is a very desperate. Mark Byers, who has spent much of the evening searching for his kid out in Devil's Den without a flashlight. He's been desperately trying to get one from neighbors. He's had no luck. And sure enough, John Moore comes up and of course a police officer is going to carry a large mag light. so John Moore and Mark Byers. instantly run into the forest there at Devil's Den on the Eastern part of Robin Hood and start searching the trails that are over there and the ditches and they're flashing their lights around looking for footprints and looking for bicycle tracks. And that search continues all the way around to the back to the bayou. And then it loops back around behind some houses over at WE Cat. And sure enough, they wind up at the same place where the Fourteens were at about an hour prior. where the 14s had detected bicycle tracks, two sets of bicycle tracks going from the Devil's Den entrance off to the west. And then they just immediately stop. At that point, John Moore decided to go ahead and pack it in. He's outside of his ward, his normal service area at this point. And so he decides that by 10, 10, he needs to get back over there. Officer Moore and Mark Byers are searching in Devil's Den, the Hobbs arrive and Pam decides she wants to go and look. Pam has just gotten off work. She is confronted with the fact that her son has been missing for five hours now without her knowledge. She is in her waitress uniform. She is tired. She has on her work shoes and she decides to get out at the Devil's Den entrance and enter the woods. She goes a little way in and she is hearing Mark Byers yelling for Christopher. And she follows Sue and starts yelling for Steve. She's yelling Stevie over and over again. And she's saying, son, if you're in there, come out, you're not in trouble. We just want you to come home. Pretty quickly, she realizes that she is not dressed appropriately to be searching in the woods. She's in there for maybe five to 10 minutes. And she decides she's going to come back out and needs to head home to change clothes. Terry and Amanda are waiting there in their vehicle. And they head back home so that Pam can change clothes. And she's also awaiting the arrival of her parents, who she called from Catfish Island. Just wanted to say they all miss each other. Pam misses Mark Byers, but here's him in the woods. But Dana and Dawn actually show up at the entrance to Devil's Den while Mark Byers and John Moore are in the woods, as well as when Pam is in the woods. Dana sees Terry and Amanda and speaks with them and she says, can remember Amanda, Terry, Ryan, Dawn, and myself on the concrete pad where Robin Hood is and Pam wasn't there. So she talks with them a little bit about their search and what they've been doing that evening. And by the time Pam comes back out, which we said was five to 10 minutes, Dana and Dawn have already left to go back to their home. Yeah. So that's the first time and only time that we can document that Dana was able to get away from her home because he was out in the front yard waiting for Michael to come home. They showed up at the entrance. did not enter Devil's Den. They got a little update because they were probably desperate trying to get news. And then they got back into the car and they returned back to the house. And again, they're waiting for Michael to come home. Melissa Byers has been at Devil's Den prior to that with Mark and Ryan. She's at home watching to see if the boys come home. She lives across the street. She can see Dana's house in case the boys come back, in case they show up at Dana's house or her house. And that gives Dana and Dawn the freedom to go to Devil's Den. where the others have been searching. So she now has the opportunity to go there and look and see what it's like for herself. The, the Byers family have an established relationship with law enforcement and Melissa has got an active phone. So she's monitoring the front yard. She's monitoring the phone. She's looking for any law enforcement or to be able to take a phone call because if law enforcement is going to call any of the three families are going to call Mark Byers first. So she's there and she's monitoring that situation and as far as we could tell, she's gonna stay there until roughly midnight, or that'll be the first time that she leaves. But we'll come back to Melissa here in a little bit. Let's go back to the Hobbs family and their search. They leave the Devil's Den area, probably a few minutes after 10 o'clock, right around in there, and head back to their home on South Macaulay. When they arrive home, Pam immediately goes to change out of her work uniform, put on something that... makes more sense to search in. She puts on sweatpants and a t-shirt and a pair of tennis shoes. And she's also waiting for her parents to arrive. While she's at home, she notices that the three plates that she had left out for her family to eat while she was at work are sitting there. Two of them have been eaten and one of them has not been eaten. And it just reminds her that Stevie is not there, that he has not come home. and had his dinner like he was supposed to. And the three things that she left out included one of Stevie's favorite things, which is green beans. Let's recall she was serving green beans, Salisbury steak, and mashed potatoes. And Stevie doesn't miss green bean night. That's one of his favorite things. Yeah. She made that especially for him. So I'm sure that that struck her when she saw that plate that was still full and had not been touched by Stevie. While all this is going on, she's changing clothes, she's noticing the dinner that has been left behind, she realizes that Terry is no longer at home. He's not there. He's not, you know, talking to her. He's not answering. She looks outside. Their vehicle is gone. Terry has left without telling her that he was leaving or where he was going or what he was doing. So now she's at home with her four-year-old daughter, frantic, waiting for her parents. and doesn't know where Terry is. So one of the things we have to remember is that she doesn't have a phone or at least she reports that she doesn't have a working phone on her missing persons report to the police department. So she doesn't have a phone. She's there with her daughter. She doesn't have a driver's license, so she can't drive. She doesn't know where her kid is and her husband has just left the house. She's in a panic. And she's going to need some help and she's going to go to the first person that comes to her mind that's going to be able to help her out. And that is one of her close family friends who lives right around the corner. We've mentioned David Jacoby before he was with Terry out searching earlier. David's wife's name is Bobby Jacoby. And Bobby is a long, long time friend of Pam's when they were growing up. Bobby's sister was actually Pam's best friend. So she has known Bobby for years and years. So she is going to take Amanda and walk to the Jacoby home to use their phone. Her plan was to call the West Memphis Police Department to see if there was any update on the search. Obviously without having a working home phone, they can't call her and tell her if they found anything or what's going on. So she wants to get an update on that. She ends up calling area hospitals to see if Stevie or either of the other two boys have been brought in. She gets negative answers for all those phone calls. No one has seen the boys and the police don't have any update either. also want to add that David Jacoby has given interviews, not too many of them, but he's given interviews. He's talked about where Pam showed up at his front doorstep and he describes her as being completely hysterical, absolutely hysterical. And he couldn't get her calmed down. and she wanted to use the phone and he couldn't leave her like that and he knew that she was desperate. And that's exactly why David doesn't even want her walking back home. So he offers to give Pam and Amanda a ride back to their house. So that's what they do. Pam and Amanda get in David's car and he drives them back to her home. When they arrive or just after they arrive, Terry pulls up. He's back from wherever he had gone and David and Terry then leave together. we have the ability to bracket the approximate time when this occurs because there is in the dispatch log, somebody that calls from the address of 505 North 17th Street, which is the next door neighbor of David Jacoby. David Jacoby lived at 506 North 17th Street. And the report is that there is a woman screaming loudly out in the street. And this came in at 1041. And she's given an interview where she says, was left by David Jacoby and I had effectively had a panic attack and it started screaming loudly out in the street. So this is definitely Pam screaming at that location. This is right next to her house. So we know at 1041, she's having this panic attack. And when the police finally do respond at 1057 to come and investigate this report of a screaming woman out in the middle of the street over on South Macaulay, the police can't find her. And of course she says in police interviews, this is about the time my dad showed up. So he's fresh from Blytheville that hour long drive, which he probably did in 35 minutes. So we know that between 1041 and 1058, Jackie Hicks senior and his wife, Marie Hicks show up in their truck and they're going to discover Pam and Amanda on the side of the road with Pam in complete distress. He's going to pull his daughter and his granddaughter, get them up into the truck. The first information he's going to get from Pam is everybody's looking up there at this place called Devil's Den. And he's going to say, show me the way. so they start driving up to Devil's Den and Jackie being a hunter. One of the things that he believes very strongly is, that scaring the kids won't be the headlights on his truck that they might recognize his truck coming down the road. And if they're hiding from their parents, that might terrify them even further. So he actually drove all the way to Devil's Den with the lights off, hoping to see the kids moving around the silhouettes or something like this to see if he could track them. Again, this is kind of something that hunters like to do because obviously lights scare animals off. And so he was kind of following that same idea. So once they pull up to Devil's Den, he parks his truck. He leaves his daughter, his wife and his granddaughter at the entrance. He gets out and he starts searching. Now at this point, it's almost 11 o'clock and he's got a full bright moon over his head. Presumably he has a flashlight with him. He is searching the area of Devil's Den. And just like the previous searchers, the four teens, John Moore and Mark Byers, he comes across those two bicycle tracks. Now, I want to say this really quickly, recall that it had been raining for weeks off and on. So any bicycle tracks out there that would have been visible would have almost certainly been left by those boys because any previous tracks would have been wiped out by the storms. So he finds these two tracks and he starts following them and he successfully tracks them. beyond where the other people were not able to track them. And he recognized that not only did they go to the West, he could follow them all the way across Robin Hood, all the way to the Macaulay entrance. And that the tracks diverted down to the pipe bridge while he's crawling around over there, looking and tracking this over. It's taking a large amount of time to do this. Jackie Hicks is scurrying down the slope that takes him down to this pipe bridge. The slope is pretty slick. It's slightly muddy, but if you've been out there, you realize that mud cakes, it's easy to fall. And unfortunately, when he got down to the pipe bridge, he fell at the edge of the pipe bridge and hurt himself. And so he had to crawl back out of there with a lot of pain, climbed up, and then he had to walk all the way from the Western entrance across the 13 and a half acres, which is about a quarter mile all the way back from the Western entrance of Robin Hood, all the way to the Eastern entrance of Robin Hood, Devil's Den, back to his truck. And this is going to take some time. Pam's gonna get nervous when this happens. Pam is starting to get concerned about her dad being in the woods for so long. She decides to get out of the truck and go into the woods. And this is what she says about that scene. And I thought daddy was in there a little bit too long. And so I was gonna go in and find him. And there was a full moon out that night. So I could see as I walked in there without a flashlight. And there was a certain point that I... got to that a fear had come over me like I ain't never felt. It's like the hair is standing up on my arms and I turned around and walked back to the truck. I wanted to run. She is terrified that there is something in those woods, that there is something that has gotten her son. There is something who got Christopher. There is something who got Michael and there is something in there that might have gotten her father. She says she felt like whatever it was, was watching her. After Pam had this bad feeling, made the hair on her arms stand up, she decided to turn around and leave the woods. She was going to head back to the vehicle. And as she's leaving the woods, her dad shows up. So she intercepted him and they walked back to the truck together. Pam and Jackie make their way back to the truck. They load themselves back up into the truck. And one of the things that's very noteworthy is while they're there at Devil's Den, The area is completely abandoned of searchers. There's no searchers out there at that point at all that they can observe. They back out of Devil's Den. They go back to their house at 1601 South Macaulay in the southern part of the neighborhood. And Jackie pulls up and starts getting everybody out and up pulls Terry and David Jacoby. And this is at 1130 at night. At that point, Jackie pulls Terry and David into his truck and he says, you guys are coming with me. We're going to find this kid. I've tracked down a bicycle track. want to see where it goes. Pam Marie and Amanda go into the house and Marie says, Hey, I'm going to watch Amanda. And Pam said, I'm going to go search for my son. License or no license. She goes out and she gets in the car and she starts driving the neighborhood, whether it was lawful or not. Jackie, Terry, and David Jacoby are now moving to search the area. And the first place they go to is Mark Byers' house because it's on the way to Devil's Den. And Mark Byers. and his neighbors and his wife and his son are actually out at the intersection of 14th and Barton. And this is when Jackie Hicks, senior meets Mark Byers for the very first time. Now we need to loop back to what has been going on with Mark Byers because at 10 10 he's with John Moore, but here he is at 11 30 out in his front yard talking to Jackie Hicks, senior. So we got to talk a little bit about his timeline because he has some interesting observations as well. a little bit after Officer Moore leaves Devil's Den. Mark Byers decides he's going to go home and make a phone call and check in with the West Memphis Police Department to see if they have any updates for him on the search. This is around 1030. When he called the West Memphis Police Department, he was hoping to speak to Regina Meek because he had talked to her earlier. She's not there yet. She is still out searching for the boys. And so she has not made it back to the West Memphis Police Department. He talks to someone there. They have no update for him. He makes a second phone call and that phone call is to search and rescue. He wants them to come out and help search for the three missing boys. so we're fortunate in that we have audio of Mark describing this very phone call and we're going to play that right here. Before I left the house, I picked up the phone and I called the sheriff's department to subject time. I said, look. I've had one police officer out here helping me look for these boys. I said, now I called once, y'all told me what to do. And I did that. I said, now I'm calling now and I want to know why the search and rescue squad won't come out here and help me look for my boy. And he said, well, they're probably at somebody's house and they just forgot what time it is. He said, don't worry about it. I said, I'm damn worried about it. I said, my kid don't stay out. I said, it's 11 o'clock at night. They're not at somebody's house. Now, shortly after Mark has placed this call, lo and behold, Regina Meek, who is the person that took the missing persons reports, shows up in front of his house right at 11 o'clock. And she's there to report her findings, which is that she hasn't found the kids. And she wanted to let them know that she's coming up on a shift change. This is 11 o'clock. Routinely, these officers will head back to the office at 11 o'clock. and then be off duty at 11 15. So right at 11 o'clock, she's telling them, Hey, I'm fixing to get out of here. However, the next shift is going to come on and they should be out here helping you. as soon as Regina Meek leaves, Mark says, Hey, I know not to search over there at the McCauley entrance, but I heard that there's this pipe bridge that goes across from several people. Ryan said, Hey, I've been across it. And Mark said, you know what, let's go over to the blue beacon and see what's over there. And so the blue beacon truck wash is located not that far actually from catfish Island. It's just to the east there on the northern side of the pipe. so they get into the Silver Isuzu that is owned by the Byers family and they drive around across the 7th Street bridge over to the Blue Beacon. They pull up and they talk to whoever's in charge and they said, Hey, We're not trying to alarm anybody, but we're here to search for some missing kids. My son's been missing and his two friends. Have you happened to see anybody on bikes? Any, any kids out here at all plan? And they said, no, we haven't seen anybody at all. And he said, well, you guys don't mind if I go back here behind your area. You have a natural area. There's a forest out here and I'd like to go out here and check some of these trails that come off the pipe bridge for my son. said, yeah, we don't have a problem with it. So Mark then drives the vehicle back to the back of the truck wash compound. And back there is a pond and he gets out and Mark being a tall, large man can really bellow out Christopher's name. And he is screaming his name at 11 o'clock to 1130, looking into these woods and into this trail. He has no luck at all getting any kids to respond to him. He doesn't hear anybody else out there. We've got Ryan. He's 13 or 14 years old. He's sitting in silver Suzu. He's flashing the headlights and he's honking the horn. trying to get anything that might be in that forest to respond to them. And they had no luck. Ryan and Mark have finished searching behind the blue beacon, they head back home. get there. Melissa and Dana are at home. They let them know that they did not find anything. Of course, Regina Meek is gone. She's now off duty. They haven't talked to any of the police officers who have now come on shift for the 11 to 7 shift. And while they're out talking, Jackie Hicks. pulls up, he has Terry and David with him. So they all get out and they're all standing under the streetlights talking about the search for their boys. What they've done that day, the places that they have been, trying to figure out what might have happened to these three eight-year-old little boys. Were they taken? Did they fall in the bayou and possibly drown? They're going over all these scenarios of what might have happened and trying to figure out where they should look. Next, what we know is that they keep going back to Robin Hood, to Devil's Den, to the Pipe Bridge, because that is where the boys were last seen. So they just keep going back to the same place because they have this feeling. They know the boys are in there somewhere and they just haven't found them yet. they know that the last place the boys were seen was going in there. And so if they went in there, they're there. if they're coming out the other side over at the Pipe Bridge, then they need to be tracked past that. So during this meeting under the streetlights, there is a new introduction because Jackie is on scene now for a little bit, but he's only been with Terry and David. So he's going to meet Mark, Melissa and Dana for the first time and get to know them and hear about their boys that are also missing. a conversation I had with Mark, he recalls Jackie, Terry and David pulling up and he remembers the seriousness with which Jackie was handling his business. He wanted to know where his grandson was. He now knew that he was tracking three boys and two bikes. And he had told Mark, found some bike tracks and I'm going to follow this exact. Mark said, yeah, I just came out from that area over at the blue beacon. And Jackie was like, well, I'm going over there and I've got Terry and David with me and we're going to scour that area. We're going to find them. The way I think about it when I've heard this story is Jackie's, it's a mission, right? He has a singular focus and he's thinking about how he's going to go about accomplishing that and he's putting all the clues together. You know, he's found these bike tracks and they go to the pipe bridge. So that's what I know. That's the information I have right now. And I know that there's three kids and two bikes missing. every little piece of information he gets, he's formulating a plan for where to look for them because he's getting more and more information as he goes. He's locked in. Yeah. So at this time, when the parents disband this kind of informal meeting there in the street, Ryan is going to go to bed. So he won't be searching. anymore for that evening. for the Byers family, Ryan's going to cover the house. He's going to go to bed for the night. think despite the distress, I think that there was a prayer and a hope on behalf of the Byers family, Melissa and Mark, that Christopher was going to come home that night. Ryan would be there and that tomorrow was just going to be a normal day. It might be a stressful day. There might be some punishment being meted out, but it was going to be a normal day. So Jackie, Terry and David then immediately leave the area a few minutes after 1130 and they are going to go and try and pick up those bicycle tracks at the back of the blue beacon. And instead of going to the blue beacon office and talking to the employees, they actually park out on the service road right along the I-40, I-55 interchange. They park right there in front of the blue beacon and they hike in and they are searching the woods. They are looking everywhere they can and they wound up in the same place out back behind the pond. between the pond and the pipe bridge. And when they get up there, they get up to the top of Turtle Hill. Now, Mark never made it to the top of Turtle Hill. In fact, Mark was very open, not only to me, but he told the police I didn't see the pipe bridge that evening. And the reason why was because Turtle Hill was blocking his view of it. He knew of it, he'd heard rumor of it, but he didn't actually see the pipe until the next day. Now, Terry, David and Jackie, they are looking for that pipe bridge because Jackie has tracked those bicycle tracks. to the pipe bridge and he wants to pick it up on the other side. But remember he fell and hurt his back. So now he's going to the other side of the pipe. He and David go down to the pipe bridge and they're inspecting it. And unfortunately, Jackie is not able to locate the bike tracks on the Northern side of the pipe. He has it coming in from the Southern side from Robin Hood, but he doesn't have it coming into the blue beacon area and up Turtle Hill. Terry and David and Jackie are spreading out all over the trail system there. And Terry heads over into the area that the 14s had searched a little bit. Earlier that evening, well, the infamous gunshot occurred right before nine o'clock. So he went down there. He was only down there for a few moments and he actually told people what he experienced. an interview, Terry said, at one point me, David and Pam's dad, my father-in-law, hooked up and we came into the woods from the service roadside and walking straight back to the pipe, there's a trail. There was a trail that cut off to the left and David and her dad kept walking back that way. And I took off down that trail. And it seemed like the further I went down that trail, the scarier, the more scared I got. And I ain't scared of nobody. I got so scared I couldn't walk. It was like an evil presence. There's a fear out there like you've never run across. And I didn't want, I told her dad and David about it. They didn't know what to think and we didn't go back. So Terry is out there in the same place that the teenagers heard the gunshots. They were scared. They decided there was somebody out there in those woods that might've gotten the boys and they had to get out of there. Later, when Pam goes into Devil's Den after her dad has been in there for a little bit too long, she gets this awful feeling that something's in there and something is watching her. And now Terry has had this scary feeling that there's some evil presence out there in the woods. there's this general consensus by many of the searchers, Terry, Pam, the Four Teens, that it's almost like Robin Hood is experiencing some type of supernatural event. And it's frightening. a lot of people, and this became one of the legends of the case very quickly. It's one of the legends of Robin Hood. So sometime between midnight and 1 a.m., they conclude their search over at the Blue Beacon and they start to search the city more broadly. So they're not focused any longer, specifically in Devil's Den or the Western entrance or Robin Hood or the Blue Beacon. Now they're just searching anywhere they can, looking for three boys on two bikes. I mean, one of the big terrors of the bikes coming into the blue beacon across that pipe bridge is now they have access to the highway. And if they have access to the highway, they could be anywhere. They could have been abducted. They could be hours away at this point. So they're going to search all over the city, the best they can. And that occurs until about two or three o'clock. And Pam, by that point has come back from her car search and she actually reports that she ran into a West Memphis PD officer at one point and they told her while she was searching. Hey, the boys are out there. We'll find them. You know, don't worry about it. That was about the limit of the police interactions that she and Jackie, Terry and David had that night. David has to go to work the next day. He works at Memphis Ice Cream with Terry Hobbs and he has to be at work early for 5 a.m. something like that. So sometime between 2 and 3 a.m. David Jacoby goes home and gets ready to go to work. So back to the Byers family and what they were doing during that time that Terry and Jackie and David were out searching. They are out searching by car. They're just driving around all over town, trying to figure out where Chris might've gone, abandoned houses, that kind of a thing. At one point, they pull up to a red light. This is around 1.30, 1.45 in the morning. They pull up to a red light and look over and they're next to a police car. And the driver of that police car is Captain Ball, who is the commanding officer for that 11 to 7 a.m. shift. So they rolled down their windows and talked to Captain Ball and explained that Christopher's missing along with two of his friends. And that's about all we know. There was no call out to other police officers or back to dispatch saying, there are still three eight year old boys missing. That's all we know is what. Mark has reported that they ran into Captain Ball and said, Hey, our kids are still missing and we're out here looking for them. was the top guy. Presumably if there was a search happening with the West Memphis PD or any coordination with Crittenden County search and rescue, Crittenden County being the county that West Memphis is in, that that would have been coordinated through him and he's not doing it. Since Regina Meek, there's no evidence of any interactions between the families and any law enforcement up until this interaction with Captain Ball. So Mark lets them know and then they separate. Mark keeps looking with Melissa until about two o'clock, right? Yeah. They return home around two and there's a knock on their door and Mark's friend, Tony Hudson is at the door and he has heard that the boys are missing and he has come to help them search. So Mark and Melissa get into Tony's car and they're talking about places to look. Mark and Melissa had just been looking at some abandoned houses thinking that the boys might have taken shelter in there. And that gives them an idea that maybe they are in the Mid-Continent building that is on the service road. So the Mid-Continent building in 1993 was the tallest building in West Memphis. And it had been hit by a major tornado in December of 1987. In fact, there was a fatality in that building from that tornado. So it was being fixed and being brought back up to spec so that offices could be rented out and things like this. So Tony Hudson, Mark Byers, they pull up to the mid continent building, which is not located near Robin Hood. It's off to the Northwest, probably a little over a mile off to the Northwest there. And Tony Hudson grabs a ladder. He realizes the building is being renovated and he says, I'm going to go and check and see if the kids are hanging out inside this thing. It's an abandoned building and they might be hanging out and sleeping in here or getting shelter in here. So he used a ladder to gain access to the building and he started searching the building and he said, no, they're not in here. They then looked around and there was a black van parked right next to the mid continent building. And so they looked inside the black van because I mean, they're getting desperate. They're looking for places and vans are certainly suspicious of they're just kind of parked out next to a construction site overnight like that. They looked inside of the black van. It turned out it was filled with construction equipment. There was no evidence of any children, no bikes, anything like that in the area. And so at that point, Mark and Tony went back home. Mark went back into his house with his wife and Tony continued to search alone, probably for another hour by himself. about 3 a.m., Mark and Melissa are back home. They would stay there until around sunrise. Dana Moore has gone to bed at 2 a.m. The Hobbs are back at their house after their search by car. There's really not much happening at this time. Around 5 a.m. a little bit after that on May the 6th, Lieutenant Boski, who was on that 11 to 7 a.m. shift, he radios Officer Slater and a couple of other officers and asks them to meet him over on McCauley near the Pipe Ridge. So they all converge there and they don't know what's going on until they get out of their cars. And Lieutenant Boski explains, hey, by the way, there's some sort of miscommunication. We did not know that there are three eight-year-old boys missing since around 6.30 last night. There have been reports that they were seen going into Robin Hood at the Devil's Den entrance, and we need to look for them. this is one of the most astonishing moments in this entire evening, right? Regina Meek goes off. She says, the new shift is about to come on and they're going to pick up where I'm leaving off. They're going to continue to help you find your children. She goes home. Well, who's replacing her? It's officer John Slater. Officer John Slater, his very first call is, remember this? The screaming lady out on the street. That was Pam. So he's been out there since Pam was screaming out on the street. And he has no idea that there's three missing kids, even though he's covering that ward. This is a colossal dropping of the ball. Remember, Mark Byers and his wife talked to Captain Ball that night at 1 30 and they still didn't get the communication out to the West Memphis police department. So from 11 o'clock. PM on May the 5th until 526 AM. The West Memphis PD is not searching for three missing children, despite the fact that Pam has been talking to them. Mark and Melissa have been talking to them. And we know that Jackie and the family members are scouring this entire neighborhood looking for these three kids. This is a complete catastrophe. is. And when you think about it, it was a near miss. And what I mean by that is that Officer Slater responded to the screaming woman in the street at 17th and McCauley, which is Pam. When he arrives, she's not there. Most of these call times are answered in a very short amount of time, a couple of minutes, two or three minutes. There is a longer period of time between the time that Slater is dispatched to his arrival at that location. That is because it is shift change. That call comes in at 1041. He doesn't get there till 1056. And that is because he is just coming onto his shift, which starts about 15 minutes before 11. So Regina Meek is leaving her shift. He's taking over in her ward. He's just coming on. She's reporting back to the police station. That's his first call. It takes him a few minutes longer to get there. And if he had been there a couple of minutes earlier, he might've run into Jackie. He might've found Pam and then he would know what was going on. But that didn't happen. And that's not his fault. He was dispatched and he responded the only way he could. But it just seems like that was such a close call. If it had been just a few minutes earlier, he might've found Pam and Pam would have told him what was going on. And I believe that he would have gotten the word out to his fellow officers that there were three eight-year-old boys missing, but it didn't happen that way. It's just one of those missed opportunities, unfortunately. Again, it's part of the legend of this case. That happens an awful lot in this case. or just moments make a huge difference in the reaction. In this case, the West Memphis PD and notice search and rescue is not responding either. So we got a double problem here at 5 26 in the morning when Boski and Slater get to the pipe bridge, start looking around. They're actually in the pre dawn light. Sunrise is going to be at 6 0 3 a.m. So it's not quite up where they could see anything, but there's two blue hours, just as we described blue hour last episode. happening from sundown at 7 49 until 8 16. In this case, blue hours already started in the morning. So now we're seeing a brightening of the sky and the purples and the blues are transitioning very quickly towards a brilliant sunrise. When you get the gold colors that move across the sky and begin the day. So they're in the pre-dawn light. They've got their flashlights, they go across the pipe bridge and they're searching the area over by the woods. And when they go down there, they discovered the same three trails that everybody else has been discovering. The trail that goes off to the East where the gunshot came from, where Terry had the bad feeling. They have the trail that goes to the North of the blue beacon and the one that goes off to the West that goes to the Union 76 station. And they decide they're going to search these woods. And when they go down that trail, they discovered that there is a deep gully at the bottom of Turtle Hill. that extends all the way through the woods. And in the middle of these woods is a creek and the creek has got water in it and it goes right along the trail there. And they're searching this area down there. They shine their lights in there. They don't see anything. They're searching through the woods all through there. And they spend about 30 minutes searching there until 5 57 in the morning. So literally minutes before the sun rises that day. And then they retreat back to their cars, unsuccessful in locating the boys or. bicycle tracks or bicycles or anything. It just appears at this point, the boys have just completely vanished out of Robin Hood. around the time that Lieutenant Boski is radioing Officer Slater and the other two officers to meet him over at McCauley, Todd Moore arrives home between 5 a.m. and 5 15 a.m. He is a truck driver. So he's been out on the road. He does not know until he arrives home that morning on May the 6th. that his son, Michael, has been missing since 6.30 PM the night before. So Todd is going to come home tired. He's been driving all night coming back from Louisiana and he's going to be mortified and horrified to discover that his son has not come home that night and coming home to undoubtedly a hysterical wife and daughter who are absolutely scared to death about where Michael is and what might've happened. So it is our opinion. It is the opinion of many researchers. It is certainly the opinion of the families that these hours are critical for understanding this case. And so we're going to pick up next time with Todd, Terry, and Mark Byers hooking up at Mark Byers' front door at six o'clock in the morning as the sun touches the edge of the horizon and starts to rise up and we begin a new day. If you want to join the discussion, we strongly encourage you to contribute to the case by following CrookedTreePod on Facebook, on X, or to follow us on YouTube. Next time on Crooked Tree. At some point during your search, did you have an occasion to go to the area where the what's called Robin Hood area, the wooded area near Blue Beacon? Yes, sir. All right. And when you arrived at that area, ⁓ did you what if anything unusual did you say? I was directed ⁓ by an officer of the Crittenden County Search and Rescue that they had. had found a ⁓ tennis shoe floating in a ditch, which was in a patch of woods north of the Ten Mile Bile. ⁓ And I went to that location. And when you went to that location, what did you yourself see? I observed a tennis shoe ⁓ floating in the top of the water. ⁓