Latest / Crooked Tree: A West Memphis 3 Podcast / Episode 9: Rumors and Whispers

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Episode 9: Rumors and Whispers · Crooked Tree: A West Memphis 3 Podcast

• Paul: Welcome to Crooked Tree, a West Memphis 3 podcast. I don't know why these three little boys were murdered. Did they see something they were not supposed to see? Did they hear things they were not supposed to hear? I I do not know that. I see no reason I I see no motive for why these three little boys were murdered. Welcome back, everybody. My name is Paul Day, forensic geologist and victim advocate for two of the children in this case. And I'm here with Kristen Rich, my criminologist colleague, also victim advocate for the same two kids, Christopher Byers and Stevie Branch. How are you doing, Kristen? I am doing very well, Paul. Thank you. How are you? I'm doing great. Right now we're kind of doing some Fun criminology stuff. This should be right up your alley. We've done a whole episode tracking down where the boys were that afternoon and we're still in the same document and we have a lot of information about rumors and whispers of rumors and what people were thinking and what they were seeing and getting first impressions to the police. What are your thoughts about today's episode? Yeah, I think it it's interesting to hear the types of things that people in the neighborhood reported following the crime, the things that stood out to them. So that's always interesting different people. Find certain things suspicious, some people don't. You can have two neighbors next to each other maybe see the same thing. One thinks it's suspicious, another one doesn't. So we're gonna go through all of those tips. These are the door-to-door notes that happened the first weekend after the discovery of the boys. So that's the seventh, eighth, and ninth of May. That Friday, Saturday, and Sunday after the crime. The crime happened on a Wednesday night, they were found on Thursday, so the police are scouring the neighborhood on the Friday, Saturday, and Sunday afterwards. Yeah, and there are some pages missing in here, which we will note. But during this section of their canvassing of the neighborhood, they approached at least seven hundred homes and attempted to talk with residents in the neighborhood and they received over fifty responses that included Tips. Now this doesn't include sightings of the boys because we've already gone through those, but these are additional tips about things they saw in the neighborhood that concerned them. So in this document of the door to door notes, which we published on our Facebook group, and of course you can access it by emailing us through our X account. There's a whole lot of stuff in here from that weekend, but there's also stuff for the following weekend. We're not going to be covering that because it's actually of a different nature. So we're just going to be covering what we think is pertinent for the seventh. and eighth and ninth of May that weekend. And of course remember the ninth of May is Mother's Day in nineteen ninety-three. So this is a very emotional time for everybody. And this is supposed to be a period of time we're supposed to be celebrating family and instead there's grieving that's happening here. Based on what was known this early in the investigation, we're talking within a couple of days after the boys were discovered, Inspector Gitchell is asked if he can explain the crime, does he see a motive for the crime? Are there suspects? And his answer is no, there's no suspects and I don't see a motive for this crime. And so it's possible that the results from this door to door canvassing will give him some clues, shed some light on why this happened. And that's part of the reason that they did this canvassing. And is what's really interesting is the canvassing yields what might possibly be a motive for this. And we'll be Going over that in detail as we go through this document. Are we ready to dive into this? Yeah. So we're gonna go through them in order of the pages. If you're following along in the door to door notes, we'll tell you what page we're on. We'll be skipping pages that don't have anything relevant on them. So we'll give you the page number. So if we're skipping ahead, you can skip to that page as well. So there's no questionnaire for this. This is a questioning where they're just going door to door and just asking random questions. What did you see? What have you heard? And did you see the boys? You know, that kind of stuff. It's just a general inquiry. There's no pointed questions that they're asking at this time. Yeah, that's right. So where do we start? Let's start on page three. Cool. All right, there are a couple of comments that we want to cover. The first one being at a seven ⁓ eight North Fourteenth Street. That comes from Jimmy Elmore. He said that within the week prior, he saw a woman in a big brown Chevy and was driving around the neighborhood looking at children. Yeah, that's a common theme that we're gonna see in these notes is people talking about suspicious vehicles driving around the week prior. This one here is a big brown Chevy. It doesn't actually say if it's a car, if it's a truck, it's suburban. We don't really know what it is. We just know it's a big brown Chevy. It is interesting that it's a woman, though. Yeah. We're not gonna we're not gonna get a lot of responses that include women. Most people don't assume that the profile for who did this is gonna be a woman, but here we see one of the very first suspicious persons pointed out to the cops is a woman in a Brown Chevy. The next entry of interest is from Joe Kerry. He lived at eight hundred North Fourteenth Street and he saw a nineteen eighty eight Buick that was seen in the area. He thought it was suspicious and it was maroon in color. This is not going to be the last time we're going to hear about a maroon or red car in these notes. So this is another common theme is this maroon vehicle or red vehicle. Let's go to page five and this is a canvas of the Mayfair apartments. And the first tip we want to go over is from Ira Ingram. lives in number sixty at Mayfair Apartments. And Ira reports hearing a noise and seeing a dog barking on top of a hill. It says where they crossed about seven thirty PM. Given that this is Mayfair Apartments, which is right next to the Pipe Bridge, leads one to conclude that they're probably talking about the Robin Hood Hills, which are those little piles of dirt right along the Bayou there that the pipe bridge was going between. So a dog barking on top of the hill where they crossed at 730, that's somewhat suggestive that this might be a dog that is barking, possibly while the crime is being committed. It's possible. The timing would be in the right window. Yeah, it fits. Definitely fits the time. The next one on that page is Lori, and I believe it's pronounced Farler. And she reports that there are Satan worshippers back there in reference to Robin Hood Hills. And the last tip on this page is Jean Conley. She says that on Wednesday night at about eleven fifteen, a black male on a bicycle was hanging around the mailbox. There's gonna be lots of discussion in these notes about people just kind of hanging out, observing, kind of lurking and ⁓ there'll be lots of reports of those. The next page, page six, is also a canvas of the Mayfair apartments, and there's a marginal note at the top of the page, and it simply says there's a white male who lives at number four, Perry Russell. Subject stated he would like to kill someone to see what it's like. And it's unclear whether he's telling on himself or whether it's an anonymous person giving that information to the police. It's not written next to any of the unit numbers. It's just a marginal note that's at the top. So we don't know if a white male in number four is reporting about Perry Russell or if Perry Russell lives in number four and is reporting about someone else. It's unclear. That's one of the issues with these notes is you read them and you can infer a lot of stuff from it. And realize that in the end you don't really have any knowledge of anything. You just know that there's a Perry Russell who may be the one that's saying, I want to kill somebody, or he might be talking about somebody who wants to kill somebody and he just happens to be the one talking about it, walking by a police officer during the canvas and just says, Hey, I've heard this. So those are the kinds of things that we're seeing in these notes. Next we're gonna go to unit number fifty three, that is Lynette Thomas. And she stated that a white male with black and red long hair hang out in that area some type of cult. So we got another person reporting a cult in Robin Hood. Yeah. So the apparently Deborah O'Tinger is not the only one that is privy to this rumor of cults being back in Robin Hood. We're now starting to hear this is at least the third person that has talked about this. And we're going to continue with Mayfair Apartments and go to page seven. And on page seven there's an interesting entry there from Carol Taylor. She lives at number eleven. She recognized that there were two black males Fourteen to sixteen years old, and a white male with long blonde hair, age sixteen, that was in the area. Never saw them before, had on olive green overalls. These subjects had a gun. It's interesting how she knows that the white male is sixteen. The two black males are fourteen to sixteen, but the white male is sixteen and they had a gun. And there's one more on that page in unit sixteen, Verma vowel. I hope that is correct. Said about a week ago someone was hanging around knocking on doors, a black male in his forties. On to page eight, that brings us over to Wilson Street. Wilson Street is the street that is right behind Christopher Byers' house. And it goes from Barton and extends all the way north up to Goodwin. And they were canvassing this area, and a lot of these people knew Christopher Byers. They knew Michael Moore. And so they had some interesting information to share. At 7 Eleven Wilson, we have the home of Bill Heck and He said that he didn't see anything but that the police department needed to talk to Mrs. Clark. She worked for Schneider Trucking Lines on the evening shift and she said a driver saw a man with blood all over him Wednesday night and he asked that his name not be used when they contact Mrs. Clark. Yeah, this is one of those interesting leads that come up where you just go, Wait a minute, ⁓ there's a bloody truck driver. You know, we should we gotta track this down. And fortunately for us, the Police do investigate this. They go to see if there was any reports of anybody that fit this description of a bleeding person that would have been there on Wednesday night. And the closest they come to is a person by the name of Warren, Charles Warren. He's a white male. And Charles Warren reports that he had experienced a family misunderstanding and his neck was indeed cut. But we also recognize that that family misunderstanding dates all the way back to nineteen eighty six. So he might not have been bleeding on that Wednesday night, but He is somebody who bled from the neck at some point in the past. And that's the closest they ever got to being able to track down who this bleeding man was at Schneider trucking. The next tip comes from seven twenty one Wilson. That is Mrs. Edwards. She works at the Flash Market office and she reported that a Jack Patterson who's building a new flash market. said that on Wednesday afternoon a black male in a blue van with an Illinois tag was bugging him for a job. ⁓ Jack said he was acting crazy. And the male in question here told Jack that he was spending the night in his van near that mid continent building that we've mentioned before. And that Thursday morning he began bothering Jack. What's really interesting about this lead is that If you recall, Mark Byers and Tony Hudson went over to the Mid Continent building and not only they searched the building itself, but they also searched some of the vans that were in the area. In particular one van that was full of equipment. That might have been this very van that they're talking about here that they searched. Remember, they described it as black. This one here is blue, but at nighttime, blue looks like black. So this is an interesting lead. And Mark doesn't comment on ever running into anybody over there. The guy was probably asleep. Yeah, asleep or hiding. Moving on to page twenty four, we're still staying in the area of the previous canvas. We're moving over to Holiday Drive, which is right adjacent to Wilson. And there's several interesting leads in here. First one being Miss Douglas, who lived at eight nineteen holiday. She recognized that heavy set white boy plays with smaller children. He seems very odd, plays basketball a lot, may live there. He's fifteen to sixteen years old is what she reports. Next is seven eighteen holiday. This is the home of Patricia Clyet. She reported that her daughter Heather, who's 15 years old, knew Ryan Byers. She means Ryan Clark, the older brother of one of the victims. She heard rocks being thrown that afternoon and will call Brian Ridge when she gets in from Skate World. This is an interesting note. Some of you familiar with the case may know the name Heather Clyet. We are going to talk about her a lot coming up, and she is linked to at least one of the three who are convicted. She turns out to be the girlfriend of Jason Baldwin. And they are going to get together that night at Skate World. So we will hear from her again and she will be interviewed by the police. Usually we leave in place a little bit of fog of war, a little fog of the investigation, but this will be our first time talking about Jason Baldwin having a connection to anybody in this neighborhood and that would be to Heather Client. What's also really interesting is the throwing of rocks. That does sound like our boys and by the end of this canvas We'll hear that these boys definitely like to get into mischief. They're known for it, so them throwing rocks probably happened. And we know that they were playing right in that area, playing with a large dog, in fact, that afternoon, right there next to Heather Clyde's house. The next one, which is actually the last entry on this page, is at seven twelve holiday. Bob Hill reported that a white male, thirty seven to forty three years old, rides a bicycle and it says twenty-six inch. So I I think he's alluding to him riding a child size bicycle, which apparently he finds strange. There is somebody that lives in the area that does like to play with kids. He likes to play basketball. He's older. ⁓ we'll be bringing him up at a later time. All right, let's move to page twenty-five. And we're still on holiday drive at seven seventeen holiday drive. And this is Mr. Nolan. He reported that he has a dopey type neighbor in trouble all the time. His name is Scott, across street in juvenile facility somewhere. Been home in the last week, haven't seen in the last couple of days. So there's a dramatic pause there, right? Not in the last couple of days. He hasn't been around. And again, we know the boys are in the area. So this is another theme that we're gonna be picking up on. The West Memphis PD is gonna be looking at people that have some type of mental handicap. ⁓ and their definition of mental handicap is very different than how we define it today. So we'll be bringing that up later on. All right. We're gonna move on to page twenty seven and we are going over to WeCat or WE Cat. The first really interesting entry on page twenty seven is at eleven hundred W. E. Cat. And this is very interesting because this is the White House. This is the house that is closest to the crime scene. It's right next to the pipe bridge. It's right there at the end of Macaulay. And the person who answers the door is Charity Collum. She reports that there were two black males, nineteen or twenty, never seen before, wearing multicolored shorts and shirts. She saw them jump the fence while police were in the area. She also spoke to the newspapers, and in a published report on May the eighth, which is that Saturday, she's quoted saying, People are going into those woods all the time. No telling who was back there. It's really pretty scary. I had a lot of trouble getting to sleep last night. It's all so close. Then we're gonna go to the neighbors at eleven ⁓ two. This is the home of Cheryl Carlock, and she tells the police that at approximately 9 15 p.m. she saw two white males who were approximately twelve years old. It doesn't give the day. We don't know if she's referring to May the fifth, May the 6th. This note was taken on May the seventh. I'm not really sure what day she's referencing here. Yeah, that's one of the problems with these door to door notes. If it's May the 5th, the evening that the boys disappeared at about 9 15 in that area. It's reasonable to infer that these two twelve year olds are actually probably thirteen slash fourteen year olds. And they're searching. And they're searching. This would have been Ryan and Britt coming through that area sometime between nine and nine fifteen. And at that hour it's dark. It's hard to probably to estimate a correct age. And you would assume that they're probably making a ruckus as they're moving through there. Yeah. If it's them, they're yelling to each other and for Christopher. Yep. All right. And the last one on that page is at the very bottom. It's at twelve. twelve ⁓ eight W E Cat. This is Robert Perry. And he reported that last weekend, Saturday perhaps, saw an elderly white male around five PM between the ages of fifty four and sixty two walking west. So that would have been in the direction of the White House up towards the Pipe Bridge. I would also like to note that you are almost elderly according to Robert Perry. This must be a kid, right? Who reports that a fifty four year old is elderly? Yeah. I think that's funny. Me too. I got I get a little irritated with some of these people. All right. So we're moving over to page twenty nine, which is back to Wilson Street, again, right behind Christopher Byers' house. And the very first location of interest is at seven ten Wilson Street. James Birch reports that Calvin Birch last night observed a small maroon vehicle. So remember we've been keeping track of maroon vehicles in the area. They seem to be around with several black males. Who yelled, There goes a white boy right there refers to the evening of five six ninety three. So probably has nothing to do with our murders. No, it's just people driving around in nineteen ninety-three harassing people. Yeah. I've never seen that in West Memphis. Yeah, that never happens in West Memphis. All right. Then at seven fourteen, Wilson, the police spoke to a resident who is not named. That resident said that a white male in his mid twenties was on a bike yesterday, five six ninety-three, approximately six feet tall, slim built, sandy blonde, medium length hair, blue jeans, plaid shirt. Saw him about three different times, once walking, twice on a bike. So this is a perfect description of somebody that lives in the neighborhood, not that far away from seven fourteen Wilson Street. We'll be talking about him quite a bit. And his name is Tim Cotton. And he's just somebody that's in the area Rides his bikes, he was part of the search, and a lot of people found him to be pretty suspicious looking, and this is a perfect description of him. At eleven ⁓ nine WeCat, Milton Holliday said that he did not see anything, but Sheila Stewart, who was currently living at a thousand nine Roy Pugh, used to live at eleven hundred WeCat over a period of about two years, off and on, and observed a white male approximately forty years old, six foot two, one hundred and forty to one hundred and fifty pounds. Dirty, blonde shoulder length hair. So this is pretty interesting because this is the same place where Charity Column would have lived where Charity is saying the two black males were acting suspiciously that evening. A few doors down. A few doors down. And Sheila Stewart, who used to live at that exact same house, is saying that there's this transient living in Robin Hood and probably frequented there for an extended period of time. Next we're going to move to fourteen ⁓ one Goodwin. This is the home of David Beasley. This note is interesting, and we're going to explain why. The note says, check out white male, late teens, early twenties, shoulder length, reddish hair. And then it has a pentagram in a circle on the notes. This one is different because this description is. Of David Beasley, the resident at 1401 Goodwin. And the reason we know that is because these notes were taken by Hester. She files an investigative field report about this on May the seventh. And she says that that afternoon of May the seventh, upon conducting house to house interviews, I knocked on the door of fourteen ⁓ one Goodwin. The door was opened by a white male. Late teens to early or mid twenties, approximately five six, five seven, slim build, shoulder length, reddish brown hair, wearing jeans and no shirt. It does not say here what she talked to him about. She has written down a description of the resident so that someone will check him out further. That was the point of her writing this down. Yeah, we're gonna be covering David Beasley again in an episode pretty quickly, in fact. He's gonna come up hot. for the West Memphis PD because here we have somebody with a pentagram. We already have a couple of reports of Satanists in the area and Colton in the area. And here's somebody else said there's a guy with black and red hair that goes back there. Well here's a man with a pentagram or what appears to be a pentagram with red hair. And of course the location of where he lives at fourteen ⁓ one Goodwin, it turns out he lives right at the entrance of Devil's Den. So we're definitely gonna be coming back to him. Yeah, this interaction that Hester had with him put him on her radar. We will talk about more about that interaction that she had with him, but that's what this note is on page thirty. Okay, moving on to page thirty two that takes us over to Proctor and the first and only relevant rumor or sighting that occurred that we want to report on occurred at twelve ⁓ four. And they report that between ten and eleven o'clock they heard five gunshots. This is the second time they appear in the door to door notes. They're also in the door to door notes on page twenty two, which we're not covering until later on, and we find out that the person that lives there is Nancy Garrett. And there she reports that they heard between five and six gunshots that evening, between ten and eleven o'clock. On page thirty four, at eleven ⁓ two Little Elton Miss Clemens said that about four years ago a group of twelve year olds were meeting in the woods and planning to go to Florida with an eighteen to nineteen year old white male in a van. It didn't happen. So this is just kind of another random rumor that's going on is that we got these twelve year olds hanging out in Robin Hood and they're planning to do things that then don't happen, but they're writing down what little they know. So now we're gonna jump all the way up to page eighty-seven, which is where we get the next definitive note from the canvassing from that weekend. And that takes us to eleven thirteen East Barton. That's where Jason Hinkle tells of a white astro van. White astrovans were really common vans at the time. It had a red stripe that followed him four or five times. He was with Bobby and Herman Posey when the van was seen. ⁓ so here's where we come to a group of missing pages, numbers. 92 through 103 are missing out of this copy of the door-to-door notes. I've never seen a copy that includes them. So we don't know why they're missing, what they're about. We don't know if they were important to the investigation. So they were pulled out or if they were accidentally missing or they were never turned in. We just don't know why they are missing. So we're going to go to page 105. We are back to the Mayfair apartments. And the first tip we get there from Mayfair Apartments comes from Nikki Taylor, who reports that She was chased by black males on foot in front of the local fidelity office. She doesn't give a time, she doesn't give a date, she doesn't give any context, she's just talking about suspicious people. And the second tip on that page is from Mary Bell, also at the Mayfair apartments. She suggested that there was a black male named Eric who tends to aggravate small kids in the area. So that was her tip. Next we're gonna move to page one ⁓ six. This is at eighteen ⁓ five Goodwin. We do not have a name of the occupant there. The tip states that a white male twenty to twenty five at seventh to lakeshore, five ten, a hundred and sixty pounds, black hair, trying to get a ride every morning, saw Thursday morning, white hair with beard. Yeah. And it says that Seventh Street, exit fifty, which is where I think their reporting was the last place they saw them. On Thursday morning. On Thursday morning, yes. Yeah. That I think that note is extremely hard to read. So if you're following along, you understand our pain and trying to decipher what that says. Yeah. If you can pull something else out of it that we're not seeing, please let us know in the Facebook group because I have looked at that note for way too long and not gotten out any really useful information from it. All right. Page one ⁓ seven and we are at North Fourteenth Street. This is eight ⁓ five North Fourteenth, and this is Ann Stacks. Ann Stack says her daughter Wendy said at about nine PM Wednesday night, she was at Coastal in Marion and saw two transient male whites were in the area and looked as if they had just cleaned up late twenties clean cut. So this is kind of interesting when you see somebody who you don't expect to be cleaned up and you've shaved for the first time in probably a week or something like that at a suspicious time. ⁓ it makes it look like you're almost doing a disguise. Right. You're hiding something. You're washing something away. Yeah. And the next interesting tip comes from page one twelve. And this is a tip from Becky Hinkle. Now, we've already heard from Jason Hinkle earlier, right? Jason Hinkle is the young man that was talking about being followed by the white astro van with the red stripe four or five times in the neighborhood. She offers something completely different, and this is a very interesting tip that the police are going to take fairly seriously during this case. She feels that a Chris Latrell or Murray Ferris is involved because they kill small animals and have a six-pointed star, both in high school. To page one hundred thirteen, that takes us to Goodwin Avenue. And the very first tip that we have there is a Pam Carey who reports that her son was riding the bike in the area at the time that all this happened. This is not normally something that people would care about. Hey, my kid was out there, but there's gonna be a question about whether or not Michael, Stevie, Or Chris was playing with anybody in the area at the time when they went missing. So it's kind of an interesting note to put down that Pam Carey's son was riding his bike in the area. At sixteen thirteen Goodwin Circle, Helen Bryan reported that two teens with a knife were seen last week. So the observation in the notes is that this would have occurred near 114 Goodwin Circle. The issue is there is no one one four Goodwin Circle. The name that is there is probably eleven fourteen Goodwin Circle, which is right across from Devil's Den. It's very similar to the observation made by Thelma Robuck, who also lives right there at Devil's Den, right across the street from Deborah O'Tinger. And she said that there were three teens and they were playing with a very large knife behind her house. And she had said that it was the previous weekend. By the time this comes along they're saying it's last week. So this could be a sighting of the same situation. Three teens playing with a large knife. Sure. Hopefully that doesn't happen real often. Was happening a lot that week. Seems that way. All right. One fifteen. Let's move to page one fifteen. Okay. So that takes us up to Roy Pugh. Roy Pugh's up in the area by WeCat in Goodwin, not too far away from the crime scene. And that takes us to the our first lead on that page, which is at one zero zero four. This is James Lance. ⁓ his house was egged at nine o'clock. We've mentioned his house before when we were talking about Regina Meek's timeline. And it was the egging of his house that pulled Regina Meek back away from Bojangles. She had to go ahead and investigate this at nine o'clock. James Lance knew the boys. Boys always roaming the area and he reports that they are usually into mischief. Not the first time we've heard that. Won't be the last time. I think he's insinuating that they might have been the ones that egged his house. All right. Then we're gonna go to one thousand and eight Roy Pugh. And this is Christine Roberts. She said that she was at court with Chris's father, so Mark Byers, and left and returned and stated that he was pissed off at Chris about breaking the window and taking food. And then it says some other things that's hard to read, maybe the word cult, but it doesn't make sense there. So if you all are looking at page one fifteen at the very bottom note and you can decipher what that handwriting says, please let us know. Yeah, it looks like plus cult to me. It does look like plus cult. Reporting that they were at court. Mark was really angry at Chris and ⁓ and there's a cult. So they're covering all bases on this. I'm I'm not sure. But there's confirmation that Mark and Ryan were in court. And it's absolutely true that Mark Byers was not happy with Chris that day. And one of the reasons why was the breaking of the seal of the outer window. On page one sixteen at one thousand five Goodwin Circle. There's a note. Bear with us. It's really hard to read. It looks like it says second house on left, Moticia Mathis, and then Ginger Vaudine, Van Deen, Van Dyne, fourth, Miss Franklin, says she knows who did it. I'm not sure what any of that means. You would think if they had the ability to crack this case right here and right then they would have done a better job in note taking on this door to door note. Yeah, they're writing across other words and you have to extract the layering of the writing to figure out what's going on here. Also, if you're looking at the door to door notes right now, you can see that the ink has bled through from the other side where they have taken notes on the other side of this piece of paper. So it's bleeding through and making it even more difficult to read. That's what we think it says. According to this note, says she knows who did it. It would be nice to know what she knew. Moving on to page one seventeen, there's a tip. From Mayfair Apartments regarding a black male who had a black box van and was in the area. These van leads are ubiquitous in the case. They keep coming up over and over and over again. Black, white, striped ones. And ⁓ it does turn out that y we are able to pin down some of these vans, but this one here is just kind of a random tip. And as far as I could tell, it was never identified whose black van it was or who the black male was that was driving it. Moving on to page hundred eighteen. We are now at eleven ⁓ five Ferguson. Nancy Brown said there was a cult over there. Have white robes and have rituals there. Another cult sighting. There is again. Yeah, what this is probably at least the fourth time this has been brought up in the notes for that weekend. So moving on over to page one hundred twenty six, that takes us back to Goodwin Avenue. At fifteen ninety six, Marion Ernest saw Two white male hitchhikers with backpacks crossing the old bridge going east. And at seventeen ⁓ two, Jenna Dunaway or Gianna Dunaway heard that a gang meets in Robin Hood. So this is nineteen ninety three. ⁓ gang violence was a big deal in the nation and there was a concern about gangs hanging out in these natural areas sometimes. So now we have gangs as well as apparently cults. Witchcraft. Or a witchcraft gang. Okay. Next, we're gonna go to page 127. The number is hard to read. It is right after page 126 in the door to door notes. And this tip is actually upside down. If you're looking at it, it's on the bottom of the page, and it is upside down as you're looking at it. But if you turn it over, it's another tip from Charity Column that we talked about who lived at the White House. It says on W E Cat saw two black males running from field area. Two seem lanky between nine thirty is what I read it to say. Wanky. Yeah, that's that's an old ninety three term for people to be a tall and skinny. Yeah, tall skinny guys. And then we're gonna go to page one thirty at eight ⁓ two McCauley, Roy Taylor's wife heard screams and saw blacks in two brown cars. So this is kind of reminiscent of the two young men going around in their car harassing people, but in this case that was a maroon car. This one here is a brown car or cars, right? It's kind of hard to tell. Yeah. And just below that at 712 Macaulay looks like Bastel is the last name. A white van statement from kids. We don't have the statement, but apparently there was another reporting of a white van in the area. Yeah. Black vans, white vans, red vans. Yeah. Maroon vans. Maroon cars. Brown cars. Brown Chevy. All right. And we're going back to Mayfair, page one hundredty one. So there's a Lynette Thomas note for number fifty-three. This is the second time she's in these notes and she repeats what she had said before, which was about the suspicious red haired, black haired kids going into Robin Hood previously. So then they talked to the office manager and the office manager stated that he or she only heard shots fired that night. So we did talk about there being a group of five, maybe six shots being fired that evening. This is probably a reference to those shots being fired. So here we have another witness to it. Remember the previous gun shot was a single shot that occurred at about eight fifty five. Some people say it r around nine o'clock, nine ish. But that's a single shot. This is a grouping of shots. So the fact that it's plural kind of implies it's the second grouping of shots that rang out that was picked up by quite a few people in the area. And then the next ones are ones we've already covered, Ira Ingram, Catherine Fleming, and Jamie Johnson. Yeah. Jamie Johnson, who we've talked about before, she's in here Talking about gunshots on page one hundredty one. And then again on page one hundred-two, she mentions hearing gunshots later that evening. So that's a common theme that we keep hearing over and over again is the gunshots sometime between ten and eleven o'clock. And we'll be able to narrow it down to just before eleven o'clock before this is all said and done. All right. On page one hundred-three, we're gonna go to eleven ⁓ one Goodwin Circle to Rita Graves. She said she saw boys about nine PM. This is very nondescript, but could easily be Ryan and his friends out searching for Christopher. Yeah, I've always interpreted this as Ryan and Britt right around nine o'clock. This location eleven ⁓ one Goodwin Circle is has a direct sight right to the area of Devil's Den, and those guys would have come out of there that night to go on to Goodwin and then went to WeCat on their way over to the White House. So it's probably a sighting of them. And then at eleven ⁓ five Goodwin Circle, Ethel and David Sherrill. Report seeing a red Ford Diesel Dooley club cab. That's very specific. You can tell this is a car guy, right? He knows his trucks. ⁓ white male older 50s wearing a gray uniform, muddy, dirty. Parks at school are in front of eleven ⁓ two Goodwin. Hasn't been seen since boys discovered. Toolbox in back. Suspicious guy in a big red truck who parks at the school or in front of another house. At eleven ⁓ seven Goodwin Circle, Joey Dickinson reports seeing two men run from the woods Wednesday night. A little girl told them this and some of her family members stopped the two men. Yeah, that's a big lead. Who are these people that they stopped? Two men running from the woods on Wednesday night. I wish there was more information about what the family members were told when they stopped these two men. Who is the little girl? We don't know. Yeah, we don't know. That's a huge loss. It is. That's a really important tip, I think. At a minimum, these are important witnesses for us. For sure. And then at eleven nineteen, John and Susan Almeida, they report a red truck in the area. And we will be seeing lots of reports of red truck being in that area from several sources. Right. So we've got eleven ⁓ five and eleven nineteen Goodman Circle both reporting a suspicious red truck. All right, page one thirty four. We are still on Goodwin Circle and we are at eleven fourteen. This is June Jordan, who s someone unknown in the street with a large knife. Two white, two black males past Saturday. So here's another reference coming from the area right near Devil's Den of teenagers that weekend playing with a very large knife. Yes. On page one hundred thirty five at seven hundred East Macaulay, Donna Aldridge reports fourteen to fifteen year old to wander, somewhat mental, stays in trouble, been in Mid South Hospital, states that his teacher knows more information. She saw Terry at approximately four thirty PM at Weaver School area. So this is interesting because four thirty On May the fifth, this is right near where Michael Moore and Christopher Byers were playing. Remember, they were going up and down Wilson Street, they were in the area. Christopher was waiting for his mom and dad to come home. Michael was with them. And so right next door to Michael Moore's house is Weaver Elementary. So this kid that they're talking about is within a few hundred yards of where these other kids were playing. So this is an interesting tip, just for that reason alone. All right. Page one thirty nine. We are back at Mayfair apartments. The first tip that comes out of there is from number five. This is Diane Knight. She's a very close family friend of Damien Eccles, Pam Hutcheson, and the Hutcheson family, one of the West Memphis three. So she knows Damien very well. They're very close with them. And so we just kind of want to lock in on the fact that there's this connection to the broader case and to this specific person here. Diane Knight reports that she heard shots a little before eleven PM. So this is Pretty reliable. This cluster of shots is probably the same five to six shots everybody else is reporting occurring between ten and eleven. The fact that she puts it a little before eleven PM means that we have a pretty good reliability for time on that. She also reports that a black male named Thomas was around the bayou picking up cans. All right. And then in unit number nine, Dwayne Newsom, black male, late fifties, full beard and mustache, short, medium complexion, dreadlock. box, blue jean overalls, black hat, south side of Bayou, rides bike, acts peculiar off West Macaulay. It's another random guy on bikes, is that what you're saying with his Dwayne Newsome? Yeah, I mean another bike rider. It's a pretty detailed description. Yeah. We know exactly who Dwayne Newsome is. All right. ⁓ page one hundred forty, we are still at Mayfair, apartment number three. Mark Welch, age thirteen, heard gunshots four or five at ten thirty PM So here's that cluster of gunshots coming in, right? We've heard between ten and eleven. Others have said just before eleven o'clock. That's the reason why I kind of settle on it being a little before eleven because ten thirty is kind of closest to being a little before eleven. So it fits. All right, next we're gonna go to page one hundred forty two. And we are at ten twelve Barton. And a thirteen year old boy named Scott Long lives there. He said that he saw a dark car driving slow with a tan roof. Rusted wheels. And the first time he'd seen it was two weeks prior and that there was a black male driving the car. And he last saw it on Saturday or Sunday. Yeah, so another one of these vehicles coming through the area and driving slow and making people a little bit nervous, especially in light of what happened. For sure. So moving right along over to page one hundred and forty-three. That's going to bring us to nine hundred fourteen, East Barton, where we're going to find Barbara McCafferty. Barbara McCafferty reports that on Wednesday at nine thirty she heard kids screaming. At ten o'clock she came home from the store, heard nothing. She also reports a white van, one street north yesterday, possible white mail. So here we have another one of those quasi random white vans. You're gonna have a van in the area somewhere. And so these things are in the notes everywhere, these vans. And then we're gonna go to ⁓ the last one we're gonna talk about, which is on page one hundred forty-four. And this is the home of Bobby Posey at eleven ⁓ seven East Barton. Does not list his address, but that is where he lived. We're not sure where he was when he was spoken to by the police. Bobby said that Chris said his daddy whipped him and he was going to run away. I'm reading exactly what the notes say that were written down by the police. Then it says Carlos Seals 808 Wilson. And then it says Chris left and dad came to door and asked Carlos where Chris on Goodwin. Dad stated going to have to whip him again. Bobby went to Carlos house and stayed till eight PM. This note's a little bit confusing. Like I said, we don't know where the police actually spoke to Bobby if it was at his home, like there's no address written down. And we're not even sure that Bobby saw Chris. He's noting that Chris was talking to Carlos. He went to Carlos's house, but we don't know if Bobby was at Carlos's house when Chris was there. It kind of sounds like he's repeating a story, maybe that he heard from Carlos. It's not quite clear. So I've always interpreted this entry as being a hearsay story from Carlos. Chris said Daddy whipped him and he was going to run away. But then the very next line says Carlos seals eight ⁓ eight Wilson. So that seems to be where the story is coming from, that there was a spanking and that Chris was upset about it. And then it says Chris left and dad came to door and asked Carlos where Chris on Goodwin and Dad stated going to have to whip him again. Bobby went to Carlos's house and stayed until eight o'clock. And so I I'm reading that exactly as it's in the notes. So there's nothing here that actually says Chris went over to Bobby's house. There's nothing here that says Bobby ran into him. It reads to me as if it's a story that Bobby put together from his conversations with Carlos. That is what it sounds like. And ⁓ just so y'all know, we will cover Carlos later. But when the police spoke to him and he talked about who he was with that night, he does not mention Bobby Posey. So I don't know, maybe he heard this the next day. Or that night, like later after Mark had come by looking for Chris. I'm not sure. It's kind of confusing. Aaron Might have been during that period of time that they went over until eight o'clock on that evening, right? So Bobby Posey might have come over to Carlos's house and Carlos says, Yeah, Chris was just here and like he's really upset. Apparently got spanked. Aaron So that's why we put that in these sightings of rumors. We're not sure what happened. So it's gonna stay over here in this category for now. Aaron Ross Powell But we will definitely be revisiting this because this obviously has something that A lot of people might want to sink their teeth into, especially if you are upset about how Chris got spanked on that last day. So do we have any last thoughts on this before we wrap up this extremely enlightening and interesting discussion on the door-to-door notes? Yeah. Just to reiterate what I said at the beginning, in this weekend after the boys were found, they approached over seven hundred houses that weekend and attempted to talk to people. And they got over fifty responses with tips and that doesn't include the over thirty sightings of our victims. So they did get quite a few responses during that canvas. And most of their tips are vehicles, strange people on bikes, cults, witchcraft, gangs in Robin Hood, and then lots of, you know, people talking about hearing the gunshots. I think those are the things that stand out. How about you? I mean when I read through this, the big takeaways for me, it's the Gunshots for sure is the first thing that rings out. There's five to six additional gunshots that evening. Where do they come from? Are they associated with the earlier one? What's really important about gunshots is it's almost like a ticking clock, like a big bend in the middle of the area. When that goes off and somebody says that there were gunshots, everybody knows that they could sync themselves to that. So gunshots are always really important. So we have a cluster of five to six just before eleven o'clock. I'm also fascinated by the dog barking. And the dog is barking out there at about seven thirty out there next to the pipe on the hill right over there. Yeah, that is very interesting that we may have a an eyewitness that's not a human. If only dogs could talk. I think the most interesting tip that they got was the one that's kind of weird that was Hester. She approached a home and the resident seemed really off to her, made her write down a description of this guy so that they'd go back and look at him again. And so I trust that, you know, she's got the sixth sense. This is what she does. She is good at reading people. And this is the thing that stood out to her, so much so that she wrote down this guy's description and wanted to follow up on it, did an investigative report ⁓ on this guy. So that's the one that stands out the most to me out of all the tips. Yeah, he's really interested because he's living right there at the entrance to Devil's Den, right where the boys are seen alive for the very last time. He's wearing a religious Amulent of some sort. ⁓ she reports it as a pentagram, I believe. And he's acting pretty strange. And that's gonna catch her attention. So yeah, David Beasley is somebody we'll be coming back to for sure. Yeah. And you know who is not in any of these sightings? None of the the convicted are in any of these sightings. Not by name, not by appearance, not three teenage boys together. There's nothing in these notes that indicates any of them were seen in this neighborhood. And at least two of the three have social connections to the area. We mentioned that Jason Baldwin's girlfriend, Heather Clyet, lived right over there on holiday. In fact, she and Jason Baldwin become boyfriend, girlfriend, if not that day at Skate World on that Friday night. It's very shortly thereafter the following week. And of course, Damian Eccles has very close family ties with the Knight family and ⁓ Diane Knight's twin sons, the Renn twins, who live in that area. And There's no reference to him being anywhere in the area. 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, 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, it is. Right. 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. Mr. Fogman you said. As far as it's aware to us. Thank you.