Latest / Crooked Tree: A West Memphis 3 Podcast / Episode 5: Horror Behind the Blue Beacon

Transcript

Episode 5: Horror Behind the Blue Beacon · Crooked Tree: A West Memphis 3 Podcast

• Paul: Welcome to Crooked Tree, a West Memphis 3 podcast. On today's episode, we will be discussing the crime scene and the discovery of these three missing eight year old boys. Some of his content is explicit due to the nature of their injuries. Please exercise caution when listening, especially if there are minors present. We have posted a map made by the West Memphis Police Department that depicts the crime scene area for this episode. You can find it in our Facebook group and on X. At some point later on did you receive some kind of word that you needed to go to back to the area of Robin Hood? Yes. Alright. And what did you do after you got that word? Okay, that's when ⁓ I immediately left from Airport Road, which is a good ⁓ three miles away from that scene actually, and by the time I got there it was about one thirty. Alright, now after you arrived what did you do? I talked with Mike Allen who explained how he had been in the ditch attempting to ref retrieved some of the clothing items, those items being floated floating in the water. ⁓ I think there were shoes and a hat. And he explained to me how upon searching for that body he had found or searching for those clothes, going to those clothes, he had found a body. Hi, everybody, welcome back. My name is Paul Day. I'm a forensic geologist and victim advocate for two of the victims in this case. I'm here with my co-host Kristen Rich, criminologist and also victim advocate for the same two children. Today is going to be probably the most difficult of all the episodes we've done so far. We've kind of been dreading this for a while, but the story has to be told the best that we can to be able to raise awareness for these kids. To understand the tragedy t is to understand this case. And so we're gonna do the best we can to push through it and hopefully you are there at the end with us and you understand exactly the pain that this case can bring to the people that experienced it. As Paul said, I have also been dreading this episode. It's not something that anybody wants to cover, but it's something that we have to talk about. In preparing for this episode, I had to call George and talk to him a little bit about Christopher and about what we were gonna talk about and that helps. talking to the victims' families. They know we have to do this. We don't want them to have to hear it or relive it. It's just part of this case. And the things that happened to the boys are so relevant that it's not something we can skip. So we're people too, just like all of you, and ⁓ it's a hard subject to talk about, but we're gonna do the best we can. We're gonna try to present this information in as respectful a manner as we possibly can and we need to understand all of us that are listening that not only are these real children But the people that investigated this case are also experiencing trauma from what they observed that day. And we need to be respectful of their experience as well. And we're gonna try to do that as we do this podcast. We're gonna try to use their voices as much as possible so you could hear it from them and you understand exactly the conditions that they were experiencing. And we're just gonna have to jump into this. Yes. And in order to do that, we need to get a little better understanding of what this wooded area is that they've been searching since the evening of May the 5th. And Paul has described that briefly for us before, but I think it's really important. I didn't fully understand how the paths worked, you know, the the water, like the elevations, the hills up and down. I didn't understand all of that really until Paul explained it to me. And he's really good at that. So Paul's going to explain it to all of you. So hopefully you get a mental image of what it is that the terrain that these people are looking at. Well, I'm gonna do the best I can given that this is a podcast and the crime scene unfortunately was bulldozed a very long time ago. So it's not a place that I mean, you can go there and still see the pipe bridge going across the bayou. That's still there. But the area has been completely leveled, the forest has been removed, the creek has been moved, and so the original crime scene is not something you could see. So you have to draw a picture, a mental image in your mind of what this looks like. So I'm and I'm gonna do the best I possibly can. But of course, if you're the Facebook group and you have any questions about any of the things we're describing, that's an opportunity to jump in there, ask your questions. Because if you're asking yourself that question, I guarantee you so is everybody else. And so we want to make sure everybody gets to the finish line together. On May the 6th, the second day of the search, most of the searchers and the officers who entered Robin Hood would start at the White House. So if we're starting at the White House and we want to get To Robin Hood and see where the unnamed creek is. How would we get there? Yeah, so if you wanted to get to the unnamed creek from anywhere in West Memphis, you'd be pulling up on West Macaulay, coming up to the intersection of West Macaulay in WE Cat, that's of course right where the White House was, right next to Mayfair Apartments. And when you pull up there, you're gonna be confronted by a dead end sign, the big metal barriers that extend across the road with a big stop sign in the middle of it to make sure that you don't continue going and wind up putting your car out to the bayou. So you would park there at the dead end, you would get out and then go around the barrier. And once you get around the barrier, there's a couple little foot trails. And the one that is most relevant to us is the one that goes due north, straight down into the bayou. You drop about eight foot of elevation, maybe not that much, seven to eight feet of elevation down from ground level where the street is to get down to where the bayou is. And when you get down there, that's where the pipe bridge is. Remember the pipe bridge is a sewer line. So this is a buried sewer line, the downabout seven, eight feet down and is now extending across the the bayou. And the pipe bridge is about 42 feet long, just a hair longer than that. The actual channel itself is slightly shorter than that, somewhere probably about 36 to 38 feet in terms of total width. So you get over to the other side by waddling across this pipe bridge and then you climb the slope back up. The problem is is that once you get to the other side, you're immediately confronted by Turtle Hill, which is on top of that slope. Turtle Hill was formed when they dug out the bayou, the ten mile biodiversion channel in the nineteen fifties. Imagine a steam shovel or an excavator coming along there. It's gonna be pulling the soil straight out of the bottom of the ditch and then piling it over onto the side. And so this sewer line is going straight into the bottom of one of those piles. So you gotta climb back up to ground level, which is about eight feet, and then on top of that, another ten to twelve feet of soil to the top of Turtle Hill. So it's a very tall embankment, probably about 20 feet total difference in elevation, right? You're you got to go all the way up there. It's pretty slick. It's not an easy go to do this. And then once you get up the 20 foot, you're standing on the top of a long linear hill. This is Turtle Hill that goes along the side of the bayou there. The trail that you're on now splits into three different directions. You can go off to the west, which takes you off to the Unicall 76 truck stop. You can go off to the north and it immediately descends down into a flat plane. It takes you into the pond into the back lot of the Blue Beacon truck wash. So if you wanted to go to the Blue Beacon, you could just go straight north. The third route is the direction into where the body was located. And that requires you to go off to the right. And as you descend down Turtle Hill, it immediately goes past ground level and actually descends just like you were at the bayou before. It goes down below ground level again. And it winds up continuing straight down into this forest. The forest is made up of about three acres of Oaks and sycamores and cottonwood, sweet gum trees are all over the place. And these are all native woods in the area. There's not a bunch of undergrowth, so you can actually see through the woods pretty good. So you can search it pretty effectively if you need to. ⁓ Yeah, the trees aren't sufficiently dense to prevent you from seeing through it. You can actually get pretty good vision going across this area. The biggest issue that you have is is that you have elevation differences because once you come off Turtle Hill, you're immediately descending below the forest floor down into a hollow. Or as Arkansas people would probably call it a holler, right? It's a holler. It's a holler. So sorry, I'm from this is my West Coast vernacular is H O L L O W is a hollow to me, but I been educated on the fact that they're called haulers in Arkansas and much of the region off up into the Appalachia. Is that right? That is correct. We we call them haulers. Every Everyone in this area, if you say holler in Tennessee, Kentucky, Arkansas, Mississippi, they know what a holler is. They do not know what a hollow is. I don't know what you're talking about. So you descend down into this hollow or hauler and it goes down to a nice flat area that the West Memphis PD referred to as the Western Bank. This flat area of the western bank is noted by the fact that there are three trees growing together right as you get to the bottom of this. And overlooking these three trees, which by the way, we call those three trees the triple tree. This is a very important landmark. So you're coming down Turtle Hill, down into the holler, right? And then you're immediately confronted by the triple tree. And the triple tree is sitting right on the bank, right adjacent to a creek that we call the unnamed creek. So we're now standing down at a depth of about eight to ten feet. And so that's what's going to limit our vision. So once you're down there looking around, you can pretty much look around in the creek valley in the little gully. You can look in the hollow or the holler. And basically you're limited by the elevation differences that you have there. So once you're standing on this flat terrace next to the triple tree, there's a creek that's running along your feet. That creek is running approximately north south and it goes straight down to the ten mile body, which it drains into. That's located about ninety feet away, maybe eighty to ninety feet south of the triple tree. Would you stand right at the edge of the triple tree and the creek and look across, you're confronted by another tree that comes out, it looks like a J, and that's the crooked tree. We named our podcast after this crooked tree. It's a very important landmark in the case. It's pretty much the center of what's going to be this entire scene that we're going to be drawing out for you today. This is the tree that Mike Allen saw was kind of leaning out over the creek from the eastern bank, and he wanted to get over to the eastern bank because he wanted to get the shoe out of the creek, and he was leading across and he fell in. So he didn't quite make it across. This ⁓ creek is approximately four feet across, a little over four foot two inches is the official measurement that we got from the West Memphis PD. And it has a total bank depth of about three feet, so it could hold about three feet of water before it spills over onto the top of the terrace. That you would be standing under the triple tree. And at this time, the water was definitely contained within that narrow four foot channel that is down there. Once you are looking around there and you realize the way out of this holler or hollow is either to go back the direction you just came, which takes you back to the pipe bridge, but there's another trail that ascends off to the northwest. And as you're taking that trail up to the northwest, it's a very steep trail and it very rapidly brings you back up to the forest level. So you're going to climb about eight to ten feet. As you get to the top of that eight to ten foot level, you look off to the right, and there's a very distinctive tree sitting on top of a bluff, which is now above the hollow or the holler. And it's also above the gully. And this tree is covered with ivy. And when you look at the crime scene photos, you will actually notice this tree. It's very distinctive. It has ivy all over it, very large green leaves, very distinctive. And it is from the side of that tree. When you come up to the tree and you look down from that bluff. down into the gully where the creek is flowing. That was the position where Steve Jones was standing when he noticed the shoe in the creek. And when you're standing there, everything in that creek would be concealed, with the exception of if you happen to be looking right there, right at about one o'clock when the sun was overhead, it was able to illuminate that shoe so that it stood out nice and bright. I have a question. Besides obviously crossing the creek itself, is there a way to get to the east bank of the creek without crossing the creek? There's no way to get across, with the exception of one location, there is a tree that fell across the bayou. You can see it in the crime scene photos. It's kind of off in the distance. You gotta know to look for it. In fact, Ryan Clark climbed across that tree the night before. We didn't talk about that in our podcast. We'll be coming back to Ryan Clark in his search in that area in future podcasts. So there is a single tree that allows you to get over there, but you gotta know it's there. And you can get on your stomach and you can slide across this fallen tree that takes you over to the eastern bank, but it's located well to the south of where the shoe was originally located. So there's no parking lots, no entrances on the other side of the bank that you could, you know, park at, walk through and arrive at the east side. If you wanted to get to the east side, what you would have to do is you'd have to drive all the way around to the blue beacon, go over the creek because the creek actually passes underneath the freeway there. And then you would have to turn right on the service road and into a private field. There's a wheat field over there. You'd have to pull over into that open agricultural field and then you would have to descend from there down onto the eastern bank. I think that what happened is Mike Allen just felt like it wasn't that far. I mean, fourth float doesn't look like it's that far when you're standing next to it. ⁓ I could jump over to that crooked tree and I could just kind of hook it and get over to the other side. And he just made the mistake, I think, of getting it halfway across and realize, ⁓ this is too far and there's some Pretty interesting images of him kind of sprawled out across that creek that were caught by some of his colleagues where they were kind of poking fun at him because he was trying to get across. And then he fell into the creek right after that. So the other important landmark that you need to know while you're standing up at the ivy tree is that if you look due east, probably ten, twelve, thirteen feet, something like that, off to the east, there's a very notable large tree. And that tree has a very ornate root system. That's how I can describe it. I mean, there's just roots going all over the place. It's almost like the tree was growing and the water washed out the base of that tree. And underneath that tree is a hollowed out area. And that is referred to by us as the hollow tree. And so we have the ivy tree up on the bluff. We have the hollow tree across the creek. And then between the hollow tree on the eastern side of the creek and the crooked tree on the eastern side of the bank, there's a big wide open terrace over there. There's no trails that go to it. It's just over there. It's part of the creek system. And it is underneath that terrace. Which is where Mike Allen found the body. Once Detective Ridge is on scene, they decide that Detective Ridge will enter the water in the unnamed creek and physically search ⁓ for any additional evidence. And as he discovers evidence, he will give that evidence to Detective Mike Allen. And just as a reminder, this creek is about knee deep, maybe a little less than knee deep. And so he's able to get in there pretty effectively and do this. Yeah. So Detective Allen points out where the items are floating that he was attempting to reach when he fell into the water. He gives Detective Ridge the location of the body that he has encountered in the water. At that point, Detective Ridge enters the water about ten feet north or upstream from this body so he can begin his search. Now, Detective Ridge, after you got there, I believe earlier you did say that you'd gotten in the water, is that right? Yes. After you got in the water, what did you do? I got into the water n s ⁓ north of the v victim that had been located and I proceeded to work my way through the water through the ditch and being careful not to destroy any evidence. I was searching the bottom of the ditch as I made the my way to the body. Okay, I found some clothing items. Okay, you c obviously can't see into this muddy water, so the best way to describe it is I actually do it from the water level, I would raking my hands From one bank of the water to where it came out on the other side, along the bottom all the way. Okay. And that's what I did until I made my way to that bottom. Okay. Those are Detective Ridge's own words. We actually have the audio from the crime scene and we want to play that for you so that you can hear exactly what was being said by all of these police officers while they're making discoveries. The voice that you're going to hear is Inspector Gary Gitchell. He is the chief of detectives and the public information officer. He is the person in charge of this case. This is his case. And he is dictating notes here at the crime scene. Thursday, May sixth, nineteen ninety-three time is ⁓ two forty-five PM. ⁓ the first body taken from the ditch appears to be that of Michael Moore. Date of birth seven twenty seven. of eighty-four and he's eight years of age. ⁓ body is nude with wrist and feet tied. It's in a hog type tang fashion. It appears to be ⁓ sh shoelaces used for the tang. They are either dark blue or black from my position I cannot tell. The child has a ⁓ abrasion to his left side of his forehead. Also ⁓ blood coming from the nose once he was brought from the water. ⁓ there's been three pair of blue jeans taken from the ditch. ⁓ officers in the ditch are Sergeant Allen and Detective Ridge. ⁓ another clothing item found in the ditch observable is a Cub Scout cap. Also there has been We have located also three pair of tennis shoes at this time. ⁓ search is continuing in the bowel. So when you hear that type of audio, you you really don't know how to react because at this point they are looking for kids that they think might have drowned, right? Steve Jones, his impression was that he felt that these boys had drowned and there's no doubt about it. Having their clothes taken off, being tied up like this, they're gonna take this child Michael Moore, and they're gonna place him up on that eastern bank between the crooked tree and the hollow tree. And he's going to be up there. Attached to his chest is a ivy frond with three or four leaves attached to it, and it's covering him up partially. But this is the worst possible outcome that they could have come up with. And it's hard to find words that kind of describe the horror that they were experiencing in that hollow by the unnamed creek that day. Next on the audio from the crime scene, Inspector Gitchell will describe who is on scene helping with the search and you will probably pick up on the fact that a couple of people who were there at the beginning of this search at this particular time are no longer there. So let's go ahead and play that. ⁓ Detective Durham, Detective Anderson, myself, ⁓ Detective Birch, also Lieutenant Hester, ⁓ Captain Miller, all present. ⁓ taking Polaroid pictures will be officers Detective Stanberg. ⁓ officers are making a separate path than the normal path coming in to the crime scene area. This path is being taped off with security tape so that will be the only method coming in and out to the crime scene. ⁓ the entry of the crime scene will be at the rear of blue beacon. We know that ⁓ Inspector Gitchell has left out a couple of people there. Obviously Detective Ridge and Detective Allen are present as they are the ones doing the search of the unnamed creek. But you will note a couple of people that are missing, as you'll recall when the shoe was originally found floating in the creek, present were Denver Reed of the Crittenden County search and rescue team and Steve Jones, juvenile officer for Crittenden County. At this point they have left the scene. Denver Reed is preparing to help his search and rescue crew search the main Ten Mile Bayou diversion channel. And Steve Jones couldn't be there any longer. Once Detective Allen slipped into the creek and found Michael Moore's body, ⁓ Steve Jones left quickly, according to Detective Allen. He became ill and had to leave the scene. Yeah, and this is before they even realize that They were tied up. This is a horrific scene. Once Detective Allen had slipped into the creek and discovered that there was a body, they knew immediately that it was a crime scene of sorts. They didn't know exactly what was going on, but they knew they had found a body and they found it likely probably that they would find the other two boys as well. At that point, they have to treat it as a crime scene. So Detective Allen exits the water. They radio in for additional officers to come to the scene to help search the unnamed creek. At that time, it's between two fifteen and two thirty, somewhere in there. They put up crime scene tape so that none of the searchers that were out there looking could go past that tape. This is a huge moment. The crime scene tape signals to everyone out there that that something in this search has changed. They also decide that they do not want to contaminate any possible evidence that might be out there. And obviously there's a main path that Paul has described to the unnamed creek. They decide that they are going to use a different way to enter and exit to the area so that if there is any kind of evidence on that path, it can be preserved. So at that time they make a new path and they put up crime scene tape. So now that they've got the area taped off, they're taking photographs, Polaroid photos, they're documenting everything. Gary Gitchell has still got his audio recorder and he's documenting all the discoveries. And the person who has the burden of going into this creek and going downstream is Brian Ridge, who's been down in there, you know, since he got ten feet north of Michael Moore. He's picking up these clothes. He's moved Michael Moore up to the eastern bank between the hollow tree and the crooked tree. And now he's continuing on the path to the south, through the creek, wading through it. Remember the water's knee deep, it's muddy, and he fully expects that if he's got one what is an obvious homicide victim, he's probably got two more that's probably ahead of him. So he's gonna go just as he had been doing previously, methodically. The way that he would say it was raking his hands back and forth, which means he's putting his fingers into the mud and scraping along the bottom of the mud. Looking to see if there's anything that he could find, whether it's clothes, whether it's evidence, a weapon, anything like this. And he does this. He winds up going south between the crooked tree and the triple tree. So now he's slightly south of the triple tree at this point, and that's when they make their next major discovery at two fifty six PM. Let me see. Okay, time is two fifty six. ⁓ Detective Ridge has found a second body. The body is approximately twenty five feet south from the first body. It is also tied in the same ⁓ way as the first. The feet are upstream and the head is downstream. ⁓ a child has several wounds to the left side of the face. The second body ⁓ that Detective Ridge located is Stevie Branch. When they found Michael Moore, they noted that he had an abrasion on his forehead and that once they pulled him from the water, there was blood coming out of his nose. When they recovered Stevie from the water, he has several wounds to his face, especially on the left side. It is a large wound. It appears that as they are discovering these boys, the injuries to them are getting worse. It's almost beyond belief. They find a second child, an eight year old child, tied and bound, wrist to ankle, second one in that same creek. I mean, this is just south of the triple tree, just a couple of feet, exactly twenty seven feet south of where Michael Moore is. So they're all in that creek. And you know that they're expecting the third one is probably gonna have something very similar with a very similar fate. But the condition of Steve in that creek with the injuries to his face absolutely horrifies them. And it doesn't get easy to talk about and it's not gonna get any easier from here because Brian Ridge is gonna pick this child up and he's gonna take him instead of over to the eastern side, he's gonna take him to the western bank right next to the triple tree and he's gonna lay him down and that's where many of the documentaries actually open up with the image of him being laid over there. In a very shocking fashion, if you've seen that documentary, you know what we're saying here. And they're gonna lay him down over there in as respectful a manner as they possibly can pick this child up, they do this. And it doesn't take him very long. He's gonna go back into the water and three minutes later at two fifty nine they're gonna make their third discovery. Okay, we've a third body. Time is two fifty nine PM. Five foot south of the second body. It's approximately five feet south of the second body. Northbound, head southbound. Feet are facing north, head facing south. ⁓ this third body is also bound and tied in similar fashion. The method to use appears to be they're tennis shoe strings. ⁓ blood coming from the early left ear of this child. This this child has ⁓ had his penis removed. There is a ⁓ large gaping hole there. ⁓ So the situation just continues to deteriorate to the point where when they get to the third body, and this is the body of Christopher Byers, where his genital area has been removed. And if you listen carefully, you could hear in the background one of the officers is sick. And you could hear the change in the voice of Gary Gitchell when he hears this. This is an experienced West Memphis PD inspector, and even he's obviously in a state of shock. Yeah, they they already know with the discovery of the first two bodies that this is absolutely a murder. There's no question about that. There's no accident here. And with the discovery of Christopher and looking at his horrific injuries, they know it's some evil kind of murder. Something horrible happened to these three children and it affects all of them. It's not something they've ever seen before. It's something that has never been seen in the United States ever. This is one of the most nightmarish crime scenes that anybody has ever seen. And based upon an interviews and discussions we've had with people close to some of these West Memphis PD officers, it still haunts a lot of these guys to this day. And this hasn't been easy for us to even talk about. It's not easy even to listen to this stuff without it leaving a deep imprint on you. And you you can hear it in the officers' voices also when they eventually testify in trials. And I would like for everyone to hear how Detective Ridge describes his search because it it had to have changed him significantly. And then what did you do? I continued the search. we placed that by the same manner? Yes. I did. I I'm the one that actually stayed in the ditch the entire time and and from start to finish until all the bodies were found to as far as I could go in that ditch and reach the bottom. That's the way I searched it. About how many feet would you say that you went In in that manner? Probably about forty five feet. Okay. And as Detective Ridge didn't stop there, he continued to search until the unnamed creek drains out into the ten mile bayou and the water was sufficiently deep where he could no longer rake along the bottom and he pulled himself out of there. Having been to that bayou, I want to tell you there's other things that would have been on his mind. The fact that there's snakes, there's water snakes all over the place there. It's not a safe area. We find wild animals swimming in there, some dangerous ones. Alligator Gar. Yeah. And they would later testify that that was on their mind while they were doing this, and still they didn't care. They did this. This is a It's just for all the way around. There's it's scarred everyone involved for life. So once Detective Ridge has gone through the entire creek and pulled everything he can, he's out in the ten mile bayou. He's gonna pull himself back out of here and they're gonna start processing this crime scene. They're gonna take inventory of what they were able to find. In addition to the three children that they found, all of which had their clothes removed and they were tied left wrist to left ankle, right wrist to right ankle with what appeared to be shoelaces. They began taking inventory of what they had pulled out of there. And so here we have the crime scene audio from in this case it's Diane Hester because Gary Gitchell has left the crime scene sometime after the discovery of Christopher Byers and we know that he's gone back across the pipe bridge and that he is talking to parents about what has happened. And we're gonna get into the reactions of the parents here in a little bit. But it's his duty, right? This is his case and he's gonna let everybody know that he's gonna try to do the best he can to try to get justice and find out what's going on. But they gotta know not only were their kids they didn't die in an accident, they were murdered, and he's gotta be the one to break the news. So here's Diane Hester going over with the inventory of the things that were removed from the creek from the crime scene audio. Sergeant Allen has recovered a partial appears to be shoe print. ⁓ where do you want me to say you recovered it from? On the west side of the bank, directly out from where body number two was located. It's been placed in evidence. Body one. Near the lo location of body one there were three pair of jeans located. There was a Boy Scout yellow and blue cap. Also three tennis shoes were located near body one. None of the tennis shoes that The left foot of the blank and purple C U G A shoe has a black shoelace still intact. The The rest of shoes that were found to not contain shoelaces, it appears that possibly the material used to find the victim's hands and feet were the shoelaces from the shoes. Detective Ridge located a Boy Scouts of America shirt in the water in the water close proximity to the first to the area of the first body. One pair of the jeans found or Russler brand. Seven slim. Seven slim. And they are turned inside out. And they're turned inside out. Boy Sket of America shirt. Size eight. No other outstanding anything remarkable. One pair of Nintendo Super Mario underwear. size six, also located in close proximity to the first body. One undershirt. Black and white. with white designs and the shirt turned turned inside out is found. Also located in close proximity to the first body. One size eight. Coast highway brand. Striped shirt. People with surfboards on the designs of the bottom of the shirt also turned inside out, also located in close proximity to the first body. There's a there's a couple of things that stand out about the clothing items that were recovered from the unnamed creek. I think the big one is that all but one of the tennis shoes have no laces. The b black and purple couga shoe is the only one that has a remaining lace. I can tell you that that is Christopher's shoe. And everyone else's will have all of their laces missing and the significance of that is not lost on the police. Yeah, it's horrible. Somebody murdered these children. And then took their own shoelaces and tied them up with them. This is it's barbaric. It's angering. And I could tell you that it makes you want to go out and find who did this and make ⁓ pay. It also tells us that whoever did this wasn't prepared. Using using whatever you have on hand at a crime scene indicates that it was not something that was pre planned. Another thing that you probably picked up on is all of the clothing that is inside out. that has definitely struck me when I first read about this case and listened to this audio. Two pairs of pants that they have listed here are inside out and are two shirts as well. So that's interesting and we will talk more about that at another time when we discuss this further. What's really notable is the fact that there three boys, but there's only one pair of underwear that's discovered there. So there's a question, did the creek wash the underwear away and it's just lost? Or were they stolen by the perpetrator, the person or persons that did this? Especially given what happened to Christopher Byers. It's very quick to say somebody took a trophy while they they hurt this child in a manner that is hard to say out loud in words. It's unspeakable. It is, but it's indicative of certain types of predators and that's what they're immediately thinking when they see the injuries to Christopher. Also, there's zero mention in the notes of socks. I don't know if the boys all wore socks with their shoes or not, but at this moment there are not any located in the creek. None discussed being located in the creek, yeah. At 320 that afternoon, the police department made a phone call to the county coroner, that is Kent Hale, and he will make his way to the crime scene with a gentleman named Ed Poe, who works for the Roller Citizens Funeral Home. And they arrive on the scene at 355 PM At 3 58 PM, the coroner pronounces Stevie Branch dead. He notes that the body is lying on its left side on the West Ditch bank. His right hand is tied to his right ankle by a shoelace. His left hand is tied to his left ankle. There are lacerations to his face and neck on the left side, and it looks like bruising to his face. In the trunk of his body. He has fly larva in his eyes. He was found in approximately two and a half feet of water that was approximately 60 degrees. He has lividity in his left buttocks, and his back will blanch with pressure. Rigor is set, but he cannot tell to what degree due to his limbs being tied. His body is placed in a sheet to prepare for transport. There's a couple of terms in there you might not be familiar with. Lavidity. That is the pooling of blood in the lowest part of your body when you die. So for example, if you die on your back, the blood just due to gravity is going to pool on your back. It goes to the lowest part of your body and it causes your skin to look pinkish or reddish, sometimes brownish as it pools. If you were to turn that body over and touch the skin, that's what the blanching with pressure means. The skin is going to turn white where you touch it because you're pushing the blood out away from that area. And they can use that to kind of ballpark how long someone might have been deceased because at a certain time you it will no longer blanch with pressure. And then the other term there is rigor mortis, that is the stiffening of your muscles after death. And that is a process. They go from being Flexible to being completely stiff and then that stiffness goes away again after a certain period of time. So they can use both of those things to help try to determine time of death, but it doesn't always work. But he has noted that for the boys as he's making his observations there at the crime scene. Yeah, and then being in the water can add additional complications to figuring out how that works. But that's something we'll have to address at a different time. Yeah, absolutely. It complicates everything. At four ⁓ two PM, the coroner pronounces Christopher Byers dead. His body is lying on its right side on the West Ditchbank. His right hand is tied to his right ankle. His left hand is tied to his left ankle. His body has been emasculated. He may have been sexually assaulted. He has a cut on his head and it looks like bruising on his face and legs. He has fly larva his eyes and nose. He has lavidity in his buttocks. And his back will blanch with pressure. Rigor is set, but he cannot tell to what degree due to his limbs being tied. At four ten PM, Coroner Kent Hale declares Michael Moore dead. His body is lying on its side on the east ditch bank. His right hand is tied to his right ankle by a shoelace. His left hand is tied to his left ankle by a shoelace. He has fly larva in his eyes and nostrils. He has lacerations to his head. He has lividity in his buttocks, and his back will blanch with pressure. Rigor is set, but he cannot tell to what degree due to his limbs being tied, and his his body is placed in a sheet and prepared for transportation. All three bodies show signs of postmortem staining in their face and chest, so that's a type of lividity. We'll talk about the indications of that. Later. So all three boys have been observed by the coroner. They are all three ⁓ pronounced dead there at the scene. They're covered in sheets and then transported by Ed Poe to the Roller Citizens' Funeral Home. Right there in West Memphis, where the bodies will be made available to the families for family identification at that time. And my understanding is probably Todd was the one that did it for Michael. Jackie Hicks Senior did it for Steve Branch and Mark Byers did that for Christopher Byers. After the three boys are transported to the Roller Citizens funeral home, they will be transported once again to the medical examiner's office in Little Rock to have autopsies completed to find out, you know, cause of death and things like that. They will be entrusted to ⁓ the medical examiner there by the name of Frank Peretti. And We will pick up on that ⁓ at a later date. Yeah, Frank Pareti is a very big deal in this case. So we know at the same time that Kent Hale came out, Gary Gitchell reports that the utility department for the city of West Memphis is out there and they've sandbagged both the northern and southern portions of the creek, of the unnamed creek, largely because the bayou is sufficiently high that if you don't do it on both ends, the bayou will just flood back into the lower end of the creek and make it so that you can't search. So what they're doing is they're sandbagging us and then they're gonna pump the water out in a last ditch effort to try to find any evidence that they could find. Maybe there's a shirt still stuck in the mud. Maybe there's something else that they didn't identify previously. And so, you know, for the most part this is kind of a fruitless effort, but it's something that they're trying to do after the fact to find all of this stuff. Now with that said, you know Brian Ridge has already kind of come through there. He's raked back and forth. And so if there's anything down there that was important in the bottom of that creek, it's been touched, it's been affected by his search. But they're gonna make the attempt nonetheless. So that happens right about four o'clock. And there's still kind of a lingering question though. We know that the boys came into Devil's Den eighteen hours earlier and they were on two bikes. Where are the bikes? Once they have located the boys, they still have Two bicycles missing. Everyone knows that there were three boys on two bikes. And they have determined that a really good place to look would be in the 10 mile bayou diversion channel. So the members of the Crenton County search and rescue have decided to put a boat back in the bayou and search there. There is an officer who was actually searching that morning. His name is Jane Griffin. He's a narcotics detective. And he actually began searching at eight o'clock that morning. For the boys. He looked in some fields and a few other places around the area. He searched a couple of hours that morning. He was called away to execute a search warrant for the drug task force. As he's wrapping up that search, he gets called by Inspector Gitchell and he is notified that the boys have been found and that they are now searching for the missing bicycles. And he is asked to come to that location and assist with that search for the bicycles. So Detective Griffin makes his way over to the bayou at that point. So search and rescue at this point under the direction of Denver Reed is going up and down the bayou and they're actually dragging a large magnet through the bayou, hoping that they're going to catch something using the magnet. When that doesn't work, they used a grappling hook. And when they were going up and down the bayou right around the pipe bridge, lo and behold, they actually caught something. And sure enough, something hooks up under the grapple. They pull it up and when they start to hoist it up, they realize very rapidly that they have a green bicycle. This green bicycle is going to be the bicycle of Michael Moore. And they're going to pull it up, they're going to hoist that up onto the pipe bridge and have it right there visible for inspection by the people that are there. It doesn't take them very long for them to realize Stevie's red bike is probably also very close by. And sure enough, they do locate it, but one of the little wrinkles in this is that it's not on the same side of the pipe bridge as Michael's was. It's actually on the opposite side. And they grapple this one, they pull this up onto the pipe bridge. And so one of the most iconic images of this crime scene is the photograph of the search and rescue team standing next to two bikes on the pipe bridge. And the image of these two bikes on this pipe bridge is symbolic of everything about this case, right? This is ⁓ the location where Jackie Hicks had come down the night before, had traced the bikes down to the pipe bridge and doesn't find them on the other side. And it looks like the reason why is now kind of obvious. The bikes did make it across the Pike Bridge. And Shane Griffin is gonna take possession of these bikes on behalf of the West Memphis PD, and those are gonna be brought into evidence alongside all the other items that were collected from the creek that day. The last thing that we need to talk about is the reaction to the parents and how they found out about this. Once the crime scene tape had gone up, there was crime scene tape at the dead end of Macaulay and everyone is on alert that something is going on. And once that tape is up, everyone's making phone calls and going to tell people that they found something. There's something going on. And this is what first alerts people to contact the parents and let them know that there's movement. There's been some sort of discovery there in Robin Hood Hills. That afternoon, Pam and Terry Hobbs had gone to Weaver Elementary School as school is getting out, just to see if For some reason, Stevie might have shown up there. And when they are at the school, someone tells them that there has been a discovery of the three boys. They leave there and they drive over to the dead end at Macaulay over by the White House. They see the crime scene tape. They see the crowd that's gathering there. Stevie's dad, Steve Branch, is already on scene and he has already been notified that they have found all three boys and that they are all three dead. He is the one that tells Pam that Stevie is gone. Pam faints and falls to the ground. And when she comes to, she begins screaming and crying. She is picked up by her family that is there and then taken to a vehicle so she can have some privacy and digest the news that she's just been told. Steve Branch had found out about the death previously when the crime scene tape had gone up. Mark Byers and Todd Moore, my understanding is from Mark. Is that he had heard on the scanner. Remember, he had been listening on the scanner for any news that he could get on what was going on and he heard about the crime scene tape coming up over at Mayfair apartments over in front of the White House at the dead end at Pakali. And he and Todd made their way over there. And my understanding is that was when Steve Branch, Todd Moore, and Mark Byers all found out the horrific news of what happened to their children. And then of course Mark Byers had the horrible task of having to go home and report to Christopher's mother. Melissa, what was happening. And the way the story has been told is is that Mark walked into the room and didn't even say a word. He just the look on his face was sufficient for Melissa to immediately know and apparently she started screaming and Ryan, Christopher's brother, was there and observed this and he says it rings in his ears to this day. And I'm sure that a similar situation played out in the Moor home when Todd went home to tell Dana. There's no easy way to tell this story. There's no easy way to talk about what happened at this crime scene, but it's an important part of telling the story of what happened to the kids so people understand the true horror of what happened that day. So that people understand what is motivating not just the interest in the case, but the interest in the well being of the families and the well being of the community that suffered as a consequence of this catastrophic event. Kristen and I had to hit pause, we had to stop, we had to edit this episode over and over again. 'Cause there's no way you could just tell this at what take. It's too hard. It's just too hard. And I could tell you ⁓ we barely made it through this one and I'm we this is one of the episodes we had been dreading, but ⁓ I'm glad we made it. And I'm glad you're here with us listening to this and supporting these families all these years later still suffering with the events of what happened that day to these three wonderful boys. That's it. It's still real. It's thirty three years later and when you are forced to digest the details of what happened to them and how they were found and all the people it affected, it can't help but affect you. And there are still families suffering. There are still families who have all these wonderful memories. I mean, these these were sons, they were brothers, they were nephews, they were cousins, they were classmates. They brought so much joy to their families and their deaths were absolutely devastating. And these family members and friends, they still feel that today. But out of respect for what they went through, we have to and That's what we did today. One other thing that Kristen and I talked about off air a little bit, but I want to share is the reactions between the two of us. You you can hear Kristen's response. I don't have to tell you what's going on. In terms of what you're hearing in my voice, you know, it's I'm sad, but I'm also extremely angry. I know what it did to these families. I could hear the pain when I talked to their family members, including just one just yesterday who cried for almost an hour on the phone with me. I'm very angry that this happened. You know those dads were extremely angry this happened. You know the West Memphis PD was angry this happened. And that's gonna set the table for what's about to happen in this investigation. People are very upset, they're distraught, and they're scared. And they want someone to pay. And that's where this podcast is going. We're gonna have to cover all of that. And like I said, this is going to be a slow crawl. We're moving through this slowly because we want you to understand the details, because the details in this case matter immensely. I think it's evident if you listen to the audio or watch the Paradise Lost series that these men and women who serve West Memphis and Crittenden County were deeply affected by this search and the discovery of these three eight year old boys. On Thursday, May the seventh, there was an article published in the Arkansas Democrat Gazette and they had spoken to Lieutenant Diane Hester and She's quoted there saying, I've been a cop for fifteen years and I've never been involved in anything like this. And I investigate child abuse. There were reporters standing behind her behind the yellow crime scene tape. She's standing at the dead end of Macaulay talking to reporters. She looks behind her at Robin Hood Hills and she says, As a kid, I played out here. This is where she grew up. This is her home, a place that was Full of wonder and imagination and where she had a good time and she enjoyed her friends. She went back to that very place that she played as a child and she discovered the bodies of three eight year old boys. 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. that they've ever investigated. The most difficult case in the history of the West Memphis Police Department. Inspector Gitchell gave daily news conferences about the progress in the investigation. He told ⁓ what information he could about the progress. Ladies and gentlemen, there was a public outcry. The the public was demanding that someone be arrested for this crime. And the police department were trying to respond to this tremendous amount of pressure that they were under.