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Episode 10: Champagne, Cotten, and the Man on the Train · Crooked Tree: A West Memphis 3 Podcast

• Paul: Welcome to Crooked Tree, a West Memphis 3 podcast. When something is brought to your attention that may or may not have some relevance to the case, isn't it your duty to as a police officer to investigate and run down every possible lead? Yes sure it is. And that's you run that down whether ⁓ no matter what your personal feelings are about it. Right. Did you in this case run down every possible lead? Yes, sir. Mr. Fogman, you say. As far as it's aware to us. Thank you. ⁓ Hi everyone. I am Kristen. I'm here with my co-host Paul. And we are ready to dive into the beginning of the investigation that was done by the West Memphis PD alongside their first weekend of the door-to-door campus. So we're gonna go through ⁓ some of these early suspects. Most of them were cleared pretty easily, but some of their stories are really interesting, and we're gonna go through those so that you can see where the police were going, the tips that they followed up on. And we're gonna go through those with you. So where shall we start, Paul? Well, according to the door to door notes, there was a whole bunch of transients, there were truckers in the area, there were some mental patients being described, some troublemakers, some people just passing through the neighborhood, ⁓ the occasional bicyclists, things like this. I think that we need to start near the crime scene right there on May the fifth and ⁓ let's look at what was going on at the Blue Beacon at the time that the kids disappeared. I think that's the best place to start. And certainly the West Memphis PD gathered the information they needed to ascertain what was happening there as well. Yeah, they obtained receipts from trucks that had been there on the fifth, as well as the truck wash log, where they logged in time in, time out, duration there, where the truck was from, that kind of thing. They have all these logs that they keep. So the West Memphis PD got a hold of those. They also spoke with Scott Kellen, who was the manager at the Blue Beacon, and what'd they find out? Well, the logs show that there were two bays in operation. So the way that this works is the trucks would pull up into the blue beacon truck wash, they would enter into a large structure. There was two doors, one to the left, one to the right, one was called Bay One, the other one was called Bay Two. And during the duration that the boys went missing from about five thirty up until approximately seven thirty or so, there was eight different trucks that came in for washing at that time and had service. And Bay One was the one that was overwhelmingly being used. And what happens is the vehicles pull in, two employees will come out, they'll spend time washing the trucks. Some of them were for a little over thirty minutes, some of them were ten, fifteen minutes, depending on the nature of what they were doing. And so it was a pretty active truck wash continuously, especially in bay one. At about six twenty-three, bay number two was shut down, and we would find out from court testimony that that was because there was some type of mechanical failure that Scott Kellen himself would have to go and repair. So there's a lot of activity that was going on there. But there's something that's really interesting is the trucking companies that were coming in. The most common one coming through was Schneider trucking, who we've mentioned before when we were talking about the door-to-door notes. We were noticed that there was a tip coming in from a gentleman by the name of Bill Heck. And Bill Heck had described hearing about a bleeding trucker from Schneider trucking. So do you think there's any merit to their being a bleeding trucker coming from the blue beacon committing this crime, according to what you see, Kristen, on these notes? Probably not. And the Big reason is because if you'll take a look at the logs there on Callahan, which we reference all the time. If you go under Blue Beacon on Callahan there and look at their documents, you can look at the logs yourself. And they keep pretty good logs. They have who was there, we know which bay that they're in, in and out times, duration there. But if you go down through and look at the amount of time that each truck is there, there are a few that are there for longer than average, but we're talking Thirty-one minutes, eighteen minutes, twenty-two minutes. Here's one for sixty-two minutes, twelve minutes, nineteen, twelve, thirty, eighteen. These truckers don't have time to exit their trucks, go behind the blue beacon, wander into the woods, happen to find three eight-year-old boys who are playing in Robin Hood, commit these murders and the cover up, and then return to their truck when it's finished being washed in anywhere from twelve to thirty-two minutes for most of them. It's just It's really not possible. Yeah, they would have to walk right past Scott Kellen, who's doing repair work at the back of the Blue Beacon at that time, ⁓ and then getting back into their truck completely clean and in a nonsuspicious way. I mean, it have been obvious that it was one of them. So wherever the attack came from, we do know that we could say probably with surety it did not come from any of the truckers that were going through the Blue Beacon that night. But there's another truck stop nearby. Yeah, right next door is the Union seventy six truck stop. It's also where the loves is. And so far as we could tell, looking through the records, there was no investigation as to who was parked over there, who was renting utilities over there, who was using the showers over there, whatever it was that they were using at the truck stop, there's no record of any of the people that were there at that time. We don't know who the manager is, we don't know who the employees were, we don't know how many people were working at that time. We don't know anything. And of course, if you remember the layout of the crime scene, when you're up at the top of Turtle Hill, you come across the pipe, you climb Turtle Hill. And there were three trails. One went due north straight to the Blue Beacon. Well, we could rule out the Blue Beacon. But there was another trail off to the west. And that went straight to the Union Seventy Six area. So you could walk right over there very quickly. And anybody who would have attacked from Union seventy six would just have to take that trail up over Turtle Hill and then right down into the crime scene. And they would return on that same trail back to the Union seventy six station and they would be gone. And I don't want to just unilaterally rule everything out. Obviously there's always a possibility. Could a trucker that went to the Blue Beacon truck wash have gotten out, seen Robin Hood, wondered what's in those woods, left Blue Beacon, parked his truck somewhere else and entered the woods? Sure, that could have happened. What we're saying is it wasn't someone who was using the truck wash at that time that committed these murders. There just wasn't time for them to do so. And Scott Kellen himself is on record as saying that there was no observance of any kids on bicycles at all that day. They never saw the kids. So the crime occurred without their knowledge right behind their facility. Now we're going to move on to some of the tips that the West Memphis PD got. And we're gonna do those in chronological order. So we're gonna go day by day. We're even gonna do them in order of the time that either the tip was called in or that the police spoke to the person in question. So the first one's gonna be on May the sixth with this first tip about Carol Coleman. Remember this is Thursday. This is the day after our boys went missing. This is the day of the discovery of them in Robin Hood Hills. This is comes in at eight forty eight PM. This is the same time approximately that detectives Ridge and Allen are at Bojangles talking to Marty King. There's a lot going on. All of this is fresh. It's just happened and they're already getting tips called in to West Memphis PD about possible suspects. So this call comes in. It is answered by Inspector Gitchell. It comes from a Cheryl Avant. She said she lives in Memphis, but she visits her mom who lives in Mayfair apartments. And that she's suspicious of a white male who lives there and that he acts strange. She said that he might be a suspect and that she is driving to West Memphis police department right then, right now. Like she felt that urgent about it. She's hopped in her car. She's coming to talk to them. At nine thirty, Cheryl arrives at West Memphis Police Department and she is interviewed by Detective Durham. She explains that the male in question is approximately twenty five to thirty five years old, stocky builds, collar length, brown hair, and that he rides a bicycle. She also said that he worked at the dog track. So they're taking this seriously. So Detective Durham and Detective Birch put her in a car and take her to Mayfair so that she can point out what apartment he lives in, which is interesting. They did a little research, they look at the utility records, they find out who's paying the bills there, what the name is, and then on May seventh, Friday the next day, they follow up. They go back to Mayfair and they speak with the manager who is at Mayfair and her name is Miss Lillian Frazier. And she says that the apartment belongs to Carol Coleman. He works at the dog track parking cars. He drives a small gray car and rides a bicycle. She described him as being a little slow. Then we don't know what happens until July the fifth. So two months after this tip, they hear about this guy. He acts strange. He rides a bicycle. He's little slow. And they catch up with him at his home on July the fifth. Detective Durham speaks with him and he finds out. The Carol Coleman says he works at the dog track. Previously to this date, we don't know what date they followed up on this tip, but previously they had called the dog track and spoken with the parking lot manager who told the police that he was at work from 11 a.m. to six p.m. on May the fifth. So he has a solid alibi for that time. When Detective Durham was questioning Mr. Coleman, Mr. Coleman said that after work he went to Memphis to a place called Comic Connection. It's a comic book store in Memphis and that he bought two comic books. Detective Durham did follow up on that. He called the comic book store, found out that they closed at 7 PM on Wednesdays. Mr. Coleman had told him that it was dark when he left the comic book store. And that's all they know. They did note that he was taking medication for his high blood pressure and that he is a diabetic and appears to be in poor health. They did a background check on him and he appeared to have no arrest record. So this is one of those interesting situations that came up very early on where there's a person calling in, they're saying, There's somebody we really think you should look at. Here we are on five six. You know, they're scraping the blood at the Bojangles restaurant, and this lady at the same time is over talking to the West Memphis PD about somebody over at Mayfair apartments, right across from the pipe. maybe a hundred yards away from where the actual crime occurred is where this person lives. And and then we don't see another report, another note, another anything until July 5th. It's almost like this file needed to be closed at some point. Somebody was going through it and said, hey, here's a lead that we didn't finish following up on and getting this all figured out. And then they're closing it two months after the fact. On this one, my guess is that either Detective Durham or Detective Birch followed up on his work at the dog track. We don't know when they spoke with the parking lot manager at the dog track and found out that he was at work from eleven to six. But if they found that out on the seventh, say they, you know, followed up right then or on the eighth, once they find out that he's at work from eleven to six, then he goes to Memphis to a comic book store that closes at seven, he's kind of ruled out based on the time. Our boys go missing at six thirty. We know there are people in Robin Hood at eight forty five ish looking, so the time of death is probably in that window somewhere. He would have had to drive straight from the comic book store, which doesn't make any sense, from Memphis, back to West Memphis, go straight to Robin Hood, encounter our three boys, commit the murders and the cover up and be out of there by eight forty five. My gut is that they figured out that. Based on time, he wasn't a viable suspect, and that's why they didn't interview him until the fifth of July. Yeah, despite the fact that he lives in close proximity to the crime scene, it's a lot like the blue beacon receipts that we just described earlier, the Schneider trucking people that were coming through there. It just doesn't make sense that they had the opportunity to do this. Let's move on to another tip from May the sixth, this one at ten forty-four p.m. So the next person that really caught the attention of the police was a gentleman by the name of Gary Chadwick. He was observed by Brian Ridge going west on Route seventy, which is Broadway Boulevard, right through downtown West Memphis. And he was observed at about five thirty to six thirty PM on May the fifth. The very next day when the search is happening, Brian Ridge sees him again. This is at about ten to ten thirty. And he's on that same route, which is Route seventy, and he's in an area called Lehigh, L E H I. And he he recognizes this same guy. both times. A crime stopper tip came in at 1044 PM on 5 6. And that Crime Stopper tip says just before dark, west on 70, bicycle, white male, mid thirties, red, large sleeping bag, bushy hair, beard observed. So we've got a Crime Stoppers tip. We have Brian Ridge who's saying to his colleagues at West Memphis PD, hey, I saw that same guy that was on that crime stoppers tip at these two times. And so very rapidly they're going to dispatch a radio room transmission on May the seventh at ten fifty AM where they say there is a white male in late thirties or early forties riding a bicycle. He has been seen earlier and probably has had time to get to Forest City by now. Forest City is well to the west of West Memphis. If I can recall it's about thirty six miles to the west of there. He needs to be identified and photographed if you can locate him. He is a transient, he has a heavy beard. A little over an hour later at eleven fifty three AM, there was an update on that message and it actually says update on the message that was sent earlier, referring to the homicides of the three young boys here. The white male on a bicycle that we are looking for was seen in our town on five five ninety three and observed leaving our town on five six ninety three around noon. If he is located, we will ten nineteen to your department to talk with him. All help will be appreciated. In ten nineteen, by the way, means en route to we'll come to you to come and talk to this guy. And at some point in that afternoon, they did find this person. We don't have the exact timing for this, but we know that he was picked up near the town of Brinkley, which is not where Forest City is. It's past Four City, about sixty miles west of West Memphis, and he was brought in to the West Memphis Police Department for questioning. Yes. He spent the night in the Lehigh area. He was at an Exxon station on a bench and an officer chased him off from there and told him to go sleep under the overpass. And so he is located and The police speak with him on the seventh. He is processed at three ⁓ nine. They take a subject description and he lists his residence as being in Gulf Breeze, Florida. So he is not anywhere close to home. Yeah, he just has that red sleeping bag and his bicycle. Yep. He lists his vehicle as a bicycle. At three twenty seven, he signed a Miranda waiver for Detective Ridge and he conducts a brief interview with Ridge at that time. At three forty, he does a second Miranda waiver, this time for Bill Durham. And this is the first time we're gonna mention this happening, but he takes a polygraph exam and passes. They have a series of questions that they ask. Some of them are key questions that they look at to see whether or not the person is telling the truth. Let's read the remarks from the polygraph examination. It says in the pretest interview, the subject denied any involvement in the deaths of the three victims. A ten question polygraph test was formulated and three polygraph charts were conducted. The test contained the following relevant questions. So these are just the ones that they're looking at specifically for his answers to determine whether or not he indicates deception. The first question is When you first came to town, did you spend the night behind the fireworks stand? Answer Yes. Did you spend Wednesday night in Lehigh like you said you did? Yes. Were you present when those young boys were killed? No. Did you kill those young boys? No. Do you know who killed those young boys? No. It is the opinion of this polygraph examiner that the subject recorded no significant responses which would be indicative of deception when he answered the above listed relevant questions in the manner noted. Conclusion No deception indicated. In addition to the polygraph, he also did a statement and also provided a consent for samples. His statement is pretty straightforward. He writes I Gary Ray Chadwick. was released from the West Memphis jail at about seven thirty AM on five five ninety three and went north on Missouri Street to the liquor store on the north side of the expressway. I then went to a liquor store that is down from the ramp that goes over the expressway and has a store. I asked that attendant in the store how to get to Arizona and not have to get onto the expressway. I think it was about noon on that day, Wednesday after I left the store, I went to Little's trailer park to meet a friend of mine that I'd met while I was in jail. I left West Memphis and got to the area west of West Memphis where three stores, truck stops, are near and underpass. This is a description of Lehigh, by the way. I was sleeping on a concrete bench outside one of the stores when a police officer came to me and told me I couldn't stay and told me to go under the overpass to spend the night. I left the next day about ten thirty AM and made it to near Forest City. So he's making pretty good distance. The Forest City's about thirty six miles west of Lehigh. I was picked up near Brinkley, Arkansas on this date. which is May the seventh, and returned to the West Memphis Police Department for questioning about my whereabouts during this period of time. I have freely and voluntarily given my consent to giving hair samples and any other samples of clothing that may be required for the investigation being conducted by the West Memphis Police Department. So as part of that consent, he wound up surrendering an envelope full of hair, as well as a pullover shirt and one pair of blue jeans. Those items were sent to the state crime laboratory on May the tenth, and just to kind of show you the duration of how this stuff works out. It wasn't until June twenty ninth that they got a response back indicating that there was no match to the crime scene and anything that Gary Chadwick had. Interesting that that was June twenty ninth because on June twenty fourth, Detective Stan Birch reviewed the file and concluded that he was polygraphed and interviewed by CID, and I do not feel there is a connection between this subject and the homicide. So he was actually cleared on June twenty fourth before his items came back from the lab. So we took our time going through this situation with Mr. Chadwick because he's pretty typical of people that were investigated by the West Memphis PD. This is the process. A lot of people were polygraphed, they were brought in, samples were collected, the samples would be sent off, and it would take some time for the state lab to get those results back showing whether or not they could be included or excluded as being contributors to material found at the crime scene. But the story starts a couple weeks Prior to that, there is a woman named Nancy Rafflin, who is accompanied by a man named David Sledge. And they are driving south through Arkansas. Around Blytheville, they encounter two men who need a ride. One of those men is Larry Story, who is actually a resident of West Memphis. And the other man is Paul Champagne, who has no residence. As the police will put on his description, he is at large. He has no permanent home. So they pick these two guys up. And they go to Memphis. They drop Larry Story off in West Memphis and the other three proceed Memphis and they end up at a hotel. The Admiral Benbows Hotel in Memphis. All three of them staying there. This is a crazy convoluted story, so bear with us as we tell it. These guys get onto the West Memphis PD's radar because Paul Champagne allegedly went into a post office. and attempted to rent a post office box and a post office worker named Barbara found him to be suspicious and called the police. And that is how he becomes a person of interest in this case. So according to Larry's story, Nancy Rafflin went into a century twenty one On Tuesday, May the fourth, claiming that she wanted to buy property and gave a bad check for a thousand dollars. So it sounds like it's earnest money to put down on a property, wrote a check for a thousand dollars, it bounced. She told them that she was staying at the Hampton Inn and that they have her name, her address, and a copy of her driver's license. So they know it's Nancy Rafflin who passed this bad check. Larry's story says that the white male with her, Paul Champagne, was trying to get out of town and asked for his assistance. He said that they were driving in a rented car from national rental car ⁓ in Memphis. There is another note in different handwriting, and it does not say who it comes from. It has a tip on it from Barbara at the post office, but then below that it says Nancy Isling. Don't know if that's the same Nancy. Nancy Rafflin using a different last name. We're not sure. So she's staying at the Hampton Inn. Says a thousand dollars works for Nancy, was going to buy a vehicle. So the way I read that is that Paul Champagne is doing some work for Nancy to earn money to buy a vehicle. This is what's in the notes, folks. This is what the information that they gathered. I'm not sure how it's all connected when West Memphis PD tracked down Paul Champagne and I guess this is because of the tip from the post office worker. They don't go after Nancy Rafflin or David Sledge. They're looking for Paul. So they find Paul. He is interviewed. They take his description. He's a white male. He's about thirty-six years old, five ten, two hundred and ten pounds, brown hair, blue eyes. He has a tattoo of a heart on his left hand. His occupation is listed as a laborer. He has family that lives in Florida. He voluntarily agreed to give his fingerprints. He also agrees to let them search his room. He is staying at the Hampton Inn, right there near the crime scene. So they come and they search his hotel room, which is located at two thousand three South Service Road in West Memphis, which is about thirty five hundred feet east of the crime scene. And when they come in, they do the search, they locate ⁓ some pants size thirty-four. This definitely catches their attention. The other thing that catches their attention is that they didn't find sneakers. They were looking for them. And usually when somebody is a transient, you would expect to find some sneakers around that they'd be wearing and those weren't located. And of course, this is important to them because sneaker tracks were found at the crime scene there on the slicked bank. And so it looks like somebody has ditched their sneakers. So it gets their attention. They discovered they was driving a gray rental car. They took a picture of that. And at that point, they didn't find anything. They close out his report with an interesting comment, which is kind of fascinating. On June 24th, 1993, they deduce an investigative report on Paul Champagne. It says a review of the file indicates that the subject, a Paul Patrick Champagne, was interviewed by CID, fingerprinted, and a criminal history ran on the subject. There are still some questions on why he was in town, but I do not feel there is a connection between this subject and the homicides, Detective Stan Birch. So this is a guy that is coming onto the radar because he's just doing suspicious stuff, but there's nothing you can really point at saying he's done something wrong. We've looked and from our end and we haven't noticed that there's anything to point at that would suggest that he was doing anything criminal at that point or any time since. But he's just a guy that comes up there and then kind of disappears right out of the case. Yeah, in trying to piece together all the notes in his file, I feel like they should have brought Nancy in for questioning, but I can't see that Paul did anything wrong. Yeah, either Nancy or David Sludge would have been the persons I would have taken a look at. You know, why is Paul Champagne in Memphis and then Certainly he's next to the crime scene by the Tuesday before the murders. I would have been looking at that. I would have also been trying to figure out what the difference is between the two Nancy's. Is this a Nancy who's trying to get away from a domestic violence situation? Is it a new Nancy? Does he have a girlfriend who happens to be called Nancy that's staying with him? We have no idea. We don't know. But Paul was cleared. Paul was cleared. All right. We're still on May the seventh and we're going to move on to John Connolly. So on the evening of May the seventh, in The city of Memphis, a very interesting event occurred that caught the attention of police when a John Connolly was arrested by transit police officers because he had jumped on a train. And when I say jumped on a train, he literally jumped on a train. He was hanging on the outside of it as the Amtrak train was making its way along the riverfront. There's several reports in there, but probably the one that really gets to the details of what happened with John Connolly was written by Lieutenant Washington on May the eighth. And this is the narrative that he gives. On may the seventh, at twenty three thirty hours, so this is eleven thirty at night, the writer was contacted by Lieutenant Crawford regarding a possible suspect connected with the West Memphis murder of three juvenile victims. Information from Lieutenant Crawford was that the suspect, John Connolly, was under arrest for criminal trespass by the IC Railroad Police. IC standing for Illinois Central Railroad. Lieutenant Crawford advised the writer that the suspect stated that he hitchhiked or caught a ride from Little Rock, Arkansas to West Memphis Monday, which was the third of May, and stayed in West Memphis until Thursday, the sixth of May. B advised that the suspect is a transient and was hanging off of the side of Amtrak boxcar when apprehended by the IC police. The suspect told officers that he was from Santa Barbara, California and was on his way to Florida. However, the suspect had boarded a northbound Amtrak train. The writer contacted West Memphis PD and talked with Captain Ball and Detective Bill Durham, who was apprised of the situation, who advised the writer that they would be to the CJC, CJC is the central jail, after eight hundred hours on the eighth, that's eight o'clock in the morning on the eighth, and that they were interested in talking to the suspect after learning that That he was in West Memphis from Monday through Thursday. Lieutenant Crawford advised the writer that the suspect appeared slightly high on something and was giving conflicting information and appearing somewhat confused when talking to officers on the scene. The writer, after learning that West Memphis wanted to talk with the suspect, placed a hold on the suspect for homicide. John Connolly is in a little bit of trouble. So West Memphis police do a little digging and they contact John Connolly's parents. They speak with his father in San Diego, and his father gives them some interesting information. John Connolly is not John Connolly's name. His name is actually James Thomas Barry. He's twenty nine years old, born in nineteen sixty three, and he had been discharged from the Western State Mental Hospital in Bolivar, Tennessee, and he had been a patient there for three months. So in the investigative report written by Bill Durham, he said this subject was interviewed at the Memphis Police Department on May eighth, nineteen ninety-three, at eleven forty five A. ⁓ The subject is a recently released mental patient. The subject appears to be in poor health and has difficulty in walking. It is believed that the subject is not physically capable of committing this crime. So he is basically cleared on May eighth. So one night holding overnight after the incident and he is Released. I do find it interesting that there's this paradox that he can hold on to the side of a train, but he can't. But can't walk. Yeah. Yeah. But if you can't walk, might as well ride. I guess. Yeah. It's kind of interesting. Yeah. So yeah, that's ⁓ John Connolly, aka James Barry. Right. That's our our first alias unless unless Nancy was an alias. I don't know. So next person that is very interesting that came to the attention of the West Memphis PD was via a tip. This occurred on May the seventh at ten thirty PM. And the tip reads the following John Jarvis from Memphis owns a construction company. A white male, six foot, one hundred and ninety pounds, drove up at a job site in Shelby Forest and asked for work. Mr. Jarvis hired him. This was on five six. The man only worked from ten AM until one PM and never came back. mister Jarvis stated that the subject was very nervous and hyperacting. His name is Stephen Harry Myers. His address was 1102 North Broadway, Mount Pleasant, Iowa. He was very dirty and had a bad odor. Myers told another employee he was from California. He was driving a dark brown, cream colored top nova. He has gray bushy hair and talked nonstop. Mr. Jarvis thought it very odd that Myers came to the job site. The vehicle had Iowa plates. Mr. Jarvis was unable to get plate number. Myers did not return for his check. And that is the end of the tip. And there's no follow up from West Memphis PD on this tip anywhere that we can see. All right. Our next tip comes in on May the 7th. This is from Rodney Dunlap. Rodney Dunlap stated that his two girls, who are ages 15 and 8, told him about this incident. They said that two white males came walking out from the bayou and made statements to them to the effect of do you want to be F word? They appeared to be intoxicated. After that, Rodney Dunlap said that he approached them at Forest Park, and one of the white males pulled out a large pocket knife. He didn't threaten Dunlap, but appeared to be handling it to let Dunlap know he had the knife. Dunlap questioned the two men as to the earlier incident on five five. The first man is Donald Linley, born in nineteen fifty six from Mark Tree, was a middle to late fifty year old, a six foot one, two hundred and twenty pounds, khaki pants, ball cap, salt and pepper hair. And suspect number two is also around fifty years old, shorter, thin, real gray hair, and we don't know the name of the second person. These are Detective Allen's notes, and they've attached records found on a parks and thrashers, believed to be The same guys since they're originally from Markt Tree. Detective Allen follows up, and on May the 10th, he went to Forest Park and spoke with Thelma Thrasher and her son Donald Lindley and asked them about the two older men that were at the apartment. They advised that the two men were Willie Thrasher and William Parks. Thrasher is Donald Lindley's uncle and that they were visiting, trying to find work, and that they had come there from Arizona. And they'd been there for about a week or so, they drink a lot and would walk on the trail near Worthington Park. They did tell Thelma and Donald that a man had approached them and h were saying something about his daughters and they said that they didn't do it. It wasn't them, that they had not made any lewd comments to these two girls. And then Donald Lindley stated that Parks and Thrasher could not have been responsible for the murders of the three boys because they were at the apartment on the evening of May the fifth. As of the date of that report on five ten, neither suspect could be found. They had left the area and could not be located. Donald Lindley said that they thought that the two men had gone back to Arizona. So the reason why this would have jumped onto the police's radar is because these apartments where this event happened, where that bayou is going by, that's the Ten mile bayou, but it's not the ten mile bayou diversion channel where the murders had happened. It's actually the southern channel, the main proper one. And it goes right through the middle of West Memphis and it goes right past this apartment complex. And so here we have an incident where it's being alleged that there's improper contact between an eight year old little girl, how old are our victims? They're eight year old little boys, and these two men near a bayou. So the biggest issue that the West Memphis PD are gonna have to deal with in identifying them. as suspects would be to say, can we put them at the crime scene? Well, we actually know that at five forty five, even from the mouths of of the victims themselves in this alleged incident, puts them all the way on the other side of town away from the crime scene. So these aren't the guys that did this. So we we're gonna move on to May the eighth, which is gonna be that Saturday. And at twelve forty five in the morning, it's brought to the attention of the West Memphis PD a person by the name of John William Moore. This is early in the morning, but his subject description comes in at twelve forty five AM. So this is right at about the same time. John Connolly over in Memphis is being arrested for writing on the outside of the train. Here we got John Moore that is being investigated by Mike Allen and Brian Ridge. So the two big investigators in the case are looking at this guy. And we don't actually know fully how he came to their attention and why this occurred. There's no note showing that there's a tip. It's possible that they heard radio traffic or something like this. But the subject description was filled out at twelve forty five A. ⁓ so we know that they're interacting with them at this point. And they produce a report and that report, which is written by Brian Ridge, says on this date, John William Moore was brought to the office to be interviewed concerning the above noted case. During the course of the investigation, it was discovered that John was present during a disturbance in Mountain View. in which a sheriff's deputy was called to the scene. I made contact through the sheriff's office who stated that on five five ninety three, he, this being the sheriff, did make the scene of the disturbance and did see John there at that time. So this John Moore, which came to their attention for some reason in the middle of the night, very early hours of five eight, is well alibied by the sheriff's department of all people. I would only like to add that if you guys look at The subject description for John William Moore. There's something here I haven't seen before, and I've looked at a lot of these. Basic stuff, white male, 170 pounds, twenty two years old. He's a odds and ends laborer and mechanic. He has a scar and some tattoos, and under peculiarities they write, he has a large nose and has a drawing of a nose and a light beard and a profile picture of a head with a beard. Have you seen this on any other subject descriptions, Paul? It's not often that you see that. You'll see a little sketches of tattoos and things like that. But of a nose and a beard? Yeah, that's a little weird. It it caught my attention. I mean, John Moore's no one here. I mean, he's irrelevant. But anyway, that caught my attention. I guess that's what you do at twelve forty five AM when you're having to track down this guy who has nothing to do with your case. I don't know. All right, we are still on May eighth. We're gonna go to six fifty one PM. And this subject is Timothy Cotton. The police end up questioning him based on the door to door notes. He comes up when Diane Hester is doing door to door notes on Wilson. And the residents at 714 Wilson noted a white male in his mid-20s on a bike yesterday, which was five six ninety-three, saw him about three different times, once walking, twice on a bike. That tips on page twenty nine, if you want to refer to that in the door to door notes. And that led the police to a guy named Tim Cotton. So Tim Cotton goes into the West Memphis PD on May the 8th and speaks with them. His subject description says that he's a white male, 26 years old. He lives at 710 Wilson, so he's a neighbor of the people that reported him going back and forth on May the 5th. He is five eleven, 152 pounds, blue eyes, brown hair, and interesting in his peculiarities, he is listed as ambidextrous. His occupation is listed as holiday lanes, but there's a note on there that he is soon to work at the Blue Beacon. So he's just gotten a job at the Blue Beacon truck wash, but he has not worked there yet. Timothy Cotton did submit to a polygraph exam on May the eighth. The remarks from the polygraph say in the pretest interview, the subject denied any knowledge or involvement. In the deaths of the victims, he further stated that he first learned of the homicide on Thursday at approximately 3 PM when he overheard a police officer talking about it. A ten question polygraph test was formulated, which contained ten relevant questions. Three polygraph charts were constructed. The following relevant questions were asked. Did you tell the truth in your tape recorded statement? Yes. Did you know those boys were dead before Thursday afternoon? No. Were you present when those boys were killed? No. Did you kill those three boys? No. Do you know who killed those three boys? No. It is the opinion of this polygraph examiner that this subject recorded no significant responses which would be indicative of deception when he answered the above listed relevant questions in the manner noted. Conclusion. No deception indicated. So there are a couple of things here that we should point out that Don't make a lot of sense at the moment. Well, first off, where's the recorded interview in the files? Right. He says he told the truth in his tape recorded statement. What tape recorded statement? Yeah, we have nothing in the files. We've never seen anything in the files. There's no tape recorded statement so far as we could tell. And our understanding is this missing interview goes all the way back to nineteen ninety three. So it's not like it's missing off Callahan. It's not like it's just missing to us. It was missing to the defense teams as well. Right. And the other interesting thing in there is that he knew that the boys were dead at approximately three o'clock Thursday afternoon because he overheard a police officer talking about it. So he was there either at the dead end at West Macaulay or somewhere nearby. So he was on scene. So this is suggestive of him participating in the search somehow. On the first page of the polygraph notes, it's all handwritten and it says specifically on there that he heard Inspector Gitchell talking about the murders and that's the police officer that he learned about the deaths from. ⁓ so th that suggests that he's hearing about it at the end of West Macaulay at the dead end over by the White House. Right. When when Inspector Gitchell left the crime scene to go inform the families. Yeah, so he's standing there right alongside them. That's very interesting. Yeah. So after this polygraph exam Detective Ridge writes an investigative report. It says that on may eighth, nineteen ninety three, Timothy Cotton came to the West Memphis Police Department to answer questions about the above noted homicide. He could not give any information about the homicide, stating that he did help in the search for the juveniles. He was given a polygraph which he was judged to be truthful in his statements concerning his knowledge of any facts surrounding the homicide. Timothy is not currently considered to be a suspect in the homicide unless further evidence is discovered that could link him to the crime scene or the victims. So what's really interesting about this is on the one hand, he's being cleared by polygraph. That seems to be the main thing. But on the other hand, they also fingerprinted him just in case. So presumably at this point, we're kind of done with Tim Cotton and we should be able to just move on. The problem is is that it seems like it's a lingering question in the backs of the minds of the West Memphis PD because on May nineteenth, Mark Byers is giving his police interview and they begin asking him about a man searching on a bike that night. And the description of that person is basically Tim Cotton. So they're not gonna say, Hey, do you know this guy Tim Cotton? Was he out there searching? But they're gonna ask him about it. We're gonna go ahead and we're gonna play what they asked about this bicyclist in Mark Byers' interview. Okay, well let me ask you something. Did you see a young white male riding a bicycle wearing a red shirt? Bicycle was black, like a polarine bicycle? I saw a guy that I had never seen in the neighborhood before that acted like he was helping us search. He was on one of the bigger bikes, kinda like a racing size bike, you know, it wasn't a little bike, it was kind of a full size bike. It seemed like it did have mud grip type tires on it. ⁓ he was slender and had real short hair and kind of a thin face. ⁓ I don't remember if he had a red shirt on or anything, but I remember his face 'cause I thought, boy, it was just real thin face and his hair was really short, almost military short. It was real short. Okay. But he said I've been he said, I've been riding my bicycle down there looking for y'all. He said, I'm helping y'all up, you know, and I said thank you and we just kept on going. So on May twenty fourth, the West Memphis PD actually gets another tip concerning Tim Cotton. Yeah, so for somebody that they cleared by polygraph, this tip comes in here and this one's gonna make your hair stand up a little bit. A female white called advised that male white, first name either Tim or Tom, is possibly responsible for the murder of the three eight year old youths in Arkansas earlier this month. Collar advised that white male is into self mutilation and has broken bottles and cut himself in the presence of his sister. His sister has advised the caller that her brother had killed animals before and that when she heard about the boys, she suspected her brother's involvement. Suspect's sister's name is Tamara, and she works as a cocktail waitress at the Gulf Stream Lounge. Coller stated that the reason she believes he is involved is that he works at the Blue Beacon truck wash, and in parentheses it says three youths were found behind the blue beacon. Coller advised that Tim had been in an institution and liked to play around with five to eight year old boys. That would certainly get my attention. That's definitely you would think would cause them to rethink Tim Cotton. And another tip is gonna come in on five twenty seven. You got that tip handy? Yes. West Infis P D received a call from Sally Brashes. It's B R A C H E S, I believe. And Gina Riccio Riccio R I C C I O about the night the boys were missing. State they were driving around trying to assist in locating the missing boys. They saw Tim Cotton from Lakeshore riding a bicycle that was green and yellow go into Robin Hood Woods at the dead end of Macaulay. And they were driving around Goodwin. About forty-five minutes to an hour later, they saw him again coming from the area of Robin Hood. And he was wet and muddy. And they heard him tell someone of the search and rescue people he had fallen in the bayou and going home to change clothes. They said he was a weird acting guy and just wanted to check him out. He was seen going in woods around ten PM and coming out around eleven PM. And this is predominantly coming from Gina Riscio saying that he's going in at about ten o'clock into Robin Hood. He's coming out of Robin Hood about a forty five minutes to an hour later, so it's about ten forty five to eleven o'clock is when he's coming back out. And this is pretty interesting because there is another event that occurs at the same time he comes out. One, he's muddy, he's fallen into the bayou, he's dirty, he's filthy. But remember at about eleven o'clock, a little before eleven o'clock, in the door to door notes, there were five to six shots that went off right at the same time that he comes out of the bayou muddy. So this is an interesting coincidence for that evening. My big issue with this statement. And maybe these ladies were making an assumption, but search and rescue was not out there on the night of May fifth. So I don't know if they're making an assumption that those are search and rescue people that are on the scene or if they're just saying that in a general way and Dabbs wrote it in capital letters as search and rescue as if it's an official search and rescue team from Crittenden County. But I have an issue with that statement because search and rescue was not present. Yeah, that's one of the big questions right there. Is what do they mean by search and rescue? And it's probably she's confusing search and rescue for the neighbors. There's neighbors walking around there searching. There are people out there trying to help. Not a whole lot. There's not a huge presence. In fact, when Jackie Hicks and Pan get out there, they actually recognize that nobody was out there by that point. So those gunshots happen. Don't know if it has anything to do with Tim Cotton coming out of their muddy. Who knows? Tim Cotton is the only one that would know that situation. And so we have these two tips. Both of them make your hair stand up. There's the gunshot coincidence with him coming out ⁓ you know, being muddy. We know that he's part of the search the next day as well because he hears Gary Gitchell provide this information at three o'clock. But he also gives an interview to the people that wrote the book Blood of Innocence. Blood of Innocence is written by a couple of newswriters for the commercial appeal, and in it they got some interesting details that is not provided anywhere else. Now it might have been in his tape recorded statement that he gave to the police, but we don't have it. So this might be the best that we're gonna do. So on page forty-eight of the book Blood of Innocence, it reads Twenty six-year-old Tim Cotton was looking for a job at the Blue Beacon that morning when he was asked to join the search. Cotton went home and retrieved his four wheel all-terrain vehicle and headed for Robin Hood, throttling down the mud cake trails and boggy undergrowth. Near the east end of Robin Hood, two women watched as Cotton, covered in mud and water, emerged from the woods. Now I'm just gonna take a quick moment. This is a pretty common issue with the Blood of Innocence people when they're writing the book. They will move things that happened the previous night to the following morning so they get their times messed up. The incident that they're described exactly from the previous evening, so Blood of Innocence just has the time wrong. He was a strange sight, the women thought, pale blue eyes staring out behind the blood and funk that enveloped him. Cotton told search and rescue workers he had fallen into the bayou and he was going home to change clothes. Two women observers couldn't put their finger on it, but there was something about Cotton that bothered them. They made a mental note. Meanwhile, Cotton was having strange thoughts of his own. He couldn't get over how the wooded area north of the pipe seemed to smell like blood. Smell like blood. Yeah. So combined with the tips, this is a person of interest for sure. So Tim Cotton is first looked at on May the eighth, does a polygraph, he's basically cleared. Then a tip comes in about him on May twenty fourth. They revisit Tim Cotton. And there may be a third time. We may have to hear from Tim Cotton again. So for the next tip, we're gonna Go back to those door to door notes again. When Mayfair apartments were being canvassed, we told you about a tip that was in the margin about Perry Russell. Subject stated that he would like to kill someone to see what it's like. I'm sure you all remember that tip because it kind of stands out. We thought it said like white male forty four. It actually comes from apartment forty four. And that is the apartment of Glenda Plemens. So now we know who gave that tip. So on May the eighth, Glenda Plemens is interviewed by Lieutenant Sudbury. She stated that her daughter is Melissa Driver and that Melissa went to school with Perry Russell approximately two years ago. Russell told Melissa or said in class one day, I wonder what it would be like to kill someone. Glenda has not seen Russell in three or four years, doesn't think he even lives in West Memphis anymore. So then ⁓ Lieutenant Sudbury concludes doesn't appear to be of any value at this point. All right. So let's move on to May the ninth, which is Mother's Day. And the very first person we're gonna look at is Arthur Seary. And all we have is a single report. It's a investigation report filed by Bill Durham, and it reads the following On Sunday, May 9th at 230 PM, Detective Griffin and Detective Durham talked with Arthur Seary on the South Service Road east of Love truck stop. Now I'm just gonna quickly say this area it's on the South Service Road east of Love's truck stop is basically where the Blue Beacon is. It's right near the woods. It's in that vicinity of the crime scene. This subject had been stopped by patrolman Oaks and Perini. The subject's full name is Arthur Jean Seary, white male, thirty six years old. He's from Holiday, Tennessee. The subject was on foot. He said he had just got out of jail in North Little Rock this morning. He said he was arrested twice in North Little Rock, with the first time being Thursday. He said he was in Texar, Canada on Wednesday and is hitchhiking back to Holiday, Tennessee. I contacted the North Little Rock police and learned that the subject was arrested on Thursday, May sixth, nineteen ninety three at eight forty PM for public intoxication and released on Friday, May seventh, nineteen ninety three at nine twenty AM. So he spent the night in jail. He was arrested again for public intoxication on Friday at four ten PM and released on Saturday, May 9th at six fifty four AM. So he did another night in jail for public intoxication. Subject is five foot eight. A hundred and fifty pounds. And that's all we have on him. They effectively don't think he could have been in West Memphis, committed the crime, gone back to Little Rock, gotten drunk, spent the night in jail in enough time to make all this happen. All right. We are still on May 9th. We are a few minutes after the last report, now at two forty one PM. And Shane Griffin interviewed Sheila Stewart. You may recognize that name. She was in the door to door notes. On page thirty, Sheila Stewart said she used to live at eleven hundred WeCat, so that is obviously why they've decided to talk with her again. And in the interview on May the 9th, she tells Shane Griffin that for the last two years an unknown white male described as around six foot tall. Weighing a hundred and forty to one hundred and fifty pounds with shoulder length dirty blonde hair, has been staying in the Robin Hood Hills area off and on. He was seen carrying a blue sleeping bag, usually wearing jeans and a plaid shirt. She also noticed that he had a knife sheath, like a buck knife, on his belt. She last saw him about three weeks ago going into the Robin Hood area from North Macaulay about three weeks ago and said he acted very strange. So this is very similar to what is being reported by a woman named Virginia Column. Now Virginia Column is the mother of Charity Column, who lives at the White House. And they tell a very similar story, and it's actually reported in the Tribune, but she says Column says she knows in particular about one man with a long beard believed to be about forty who lives in the woods. So that's a reference to this very same person. And they're kind of aware of this transient who comes in and out of Robin Hood pretty regularly. During that interview, she goes on to give another tip that's completely separate. She stated that around October there were several black males that were supposed to be involved in devil worshiping in the Robin Hood area. She stated that her husband found dead sacrificed animals in Robin Hood around this time. She stated that during the nights she could smell smoke and hear chanting and strange music coming from the area. She also saw two black males come out of the area one night wearing some type of a green wrap with a hood. Yeah, that's kind of interesting. Yeah, I might move too. So this is obviously not this first time we're hearing about devil worshiping in the Robin Hood area from people in that vicinity. She lived either at the White House at the time or was shortly moved away from the White House, but the fact that they could hear it, Roy Pugh is not that far away. You can hear what's going on in Devil's Den and all throughout Robin Hood from Roy Pugh very easily. So apparently her husband went into the woods at least a few times because he found dead sacrificed animals. And so the smelling smoke, hearing chanting and music is All new, we haven't heard that before. ⁓ no one has described any of the cult or satanic activity in Robin Hood with those specific terms before. Nor has there been a sighting of anyone wearing a green wrap with a hood. Let's move on to May 10th. And we're gonna finish up with May 10th. This will be our last day. It's the Monday after. And there's a reason why we're s finishing here at May 10th because there's a significant change in the direction of the investigation right around the 10th. And that will determine who gets interviewed after that. So on May the tenth around nine fifty AM, Alan Lofton called the West Memphis PD and told them that they should check out Stephen Tybell, a white male thirty five to thirty seven, and that he has been in and out of mental institutions. Four days after the tip, Mrs. Tybell, who lives at three ⁓ one South Worthington, is interviewed and it appears that her son is Stephen Tybell and it lists him as a manic depressant. Moved to Benton, Arkansas around nine years ago, lives in trailer alone, hasn't been to West Memphis since Christmas. And that's basically the end of anything having to do with Stephen Tybal. Yeah, that's Stephen Tybell. So the very last person we're gonna talk about is a phone call that comes in from Phelps County Sheriff's Department from a officer Rick Williams. He calls in at eight forty five on May the tenth, and the message is picked up a hitchhiker on I forty four, south central Missouri, five foot nine, hundred and fifty pounds, male white. Thought he might be who you're looking for. So on May the eleventh at nine ten A. ⁓ he is interviewed by Bill Durham. He is five foot nine, a hundred and fifty pounds, blonde hair, shoulder length, and it says he is in custody. Apparently he was with another man named Michael Su Chan, who is not in custody. He's a white male, twenty-two years old. They were stopped while hitchhiking on I-44 West and have been somewhere in Tennessee. So we jump from May the eleventh to June twenty-eighth when Detective Durham files an investigative report in regards to William Diddle and Michael Suchen. He says these subjects were hitchhiking in Rola, Missouri, and were detained by Lieutenant Gary Phillips on the Missouri Highway. Prints were obtained and sent by FAX. Detective Tony Anderson said he could not check Fax fingerprints. The subject had said they had been in Tennessee. It was not possible to place them as having been in Arkansas and a search of their personal property failed to produce any evidence linking them to the crime. So they are effectively cleared at that point. Yeah, just two suspicious guys looking like they're trying to be untraceable a little bit. And they came up hot on the radar for smoking marijuana and being in the wrong part of Tennessee. Right at a time when people are looking for some killers. So yeah, it's very interesting. So that's gonna be the last one we're gonna cover for this episode. These are the knee-jerk reaction leads that we see. There's no profile that they're following. They're just looking for suspicious persons in the area doing things that look like they're trying to get away or they're trying to cover up where they're coming from, that kind of thing. There's no FBI profile behind this telling them maybe you should look in this area. There's nothing like this. It's not directed. It's very organic at this point. Based on these leads that we covered on this episode, it is a lot of transience. It's people passing through. I mean, there are a few people that live there, but it seems like they were leaning toward maybe the idea that whoever did this wasn't from West Memphis or didn't live in West Memphis at that time. Which is a stark contrast with what's going to happen. From May 10th on, they are certainly focused on looking locally at who might have done this as opposed to looking broadly. You know, looking for people that are in Tennessee and people that are hopping on trains and looks like they're going the wrong direction or misdirecting the police about their identity and things like this. Of course, anybody that's selling drugs would do this. Anybody who is skipping on their parole officer is gonna do this kind of thing. So it doesn't necessarily mean they're committing a crime, but it just means that everybody suddenly becomes a suspect. And to that point I wanted to bring in a newspaper article that was published on May the ninth. So this would have been Mother's Day. In fact it's entitled Murder of three boys taint Mother's Day, Arkansas Town, Scared and Angry. This is a Chicago Tribune, and I just want to read a couple of excerpts of it. ⁓ Fearful parents kept their youngsters inside and police searched outside, combing the wooded area along the ten mile bayou for more clues in the grisly case. The anxiety gripping the West Memphis neighborhood several miles west of the Mississippi River largely comes from the announcement by authorities Saturday that they still have no suspects in the murders. Even though his office has fielded hundreds of calls with tips, Gitchell said police had no solid suspects in the deaths of the second graders. In a briefing Saturday, he said police were pleased with the progress they were making, but asked residents for Patience. Unraveling such a crime, he said, may take time. He confirmed that several transients had been questioned, but no one had been arrested or detained. Some parents complained that police were slow to respond and did not initiate a full scale search until Thursday. Gitchell defended police actions, noting that many children are reported missing only to be found a short time later. He said questions about the police response were, quote, a lot of if, if, if. He then added, quote, I don't want to lay a guilt trip on anyone. But if the kids were not allowed to be down there, maybe this wouldn't have happened. Victim blaming is not a good look for a police department. 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. 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 this, you know. motorcycle riders, I've never seen anything like 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 that he had. With the the devil up with his claws on his haunches. I've never seen one like that on the body. That's what caught my attention.