Latest / Crooked Tree: A West Memphis 3 Podcast / Episode 8: Canvassing the Neighborhood

Transcript

Episode 8: Canvassing the Neighborhood · Crooked Tree: A West Memphis 3 Podcast

• Paul: Welcome to Crooked Tree, a West Memphis 3 podcast. On today's episode, we will be talking about several locations in the West Memphis area. We've created a couple of maps that we have posted to our X account and in our Facebook discussion group if you'd like to use those to follow along. It's the job of the police department to find the answers. But then since they didn't know who they were looking for, they began a exhaustive and massive investigation. They went door to door in this community, knocking, asking, what have you seen? What have you heard? Do you can you tell us anything to help? Welcome back, everybody. My name is Kristen and I'm here with my co-host Paul. We are victim advocates for two of the families in this case. How are you doing today, Paul? I'm doing great. Really looking forward to this discussion. This is one of the most interesting parts of the case. If you're into taking notes and timeling stuff and doing armchair criminology, this is your opportunity to do it right alongside us. And I'm excited to see how this all works out. Yes, we are going to talk about the information that the police obtained in the days and weeks following the discovery of the boys on May the sixth. It is pretty standard when there is a crime to canvas neighborhoods, go door to door, talk to people in the area and see if they saw anything, heard anything, know anything about the crime that occurred. That is exactly what the West Memphis Police Department did following this crime. They mostly canvassed the northern part of Holiday Gardens neighborhood, which is closest to the crime scene. Literally going door to door, asking people, What do you know? Have you heard anything? Did you see anything? Trying to get some information that would lead them to a suspect or suspects. They pretty much canvassed the entire region between where Christopher and Michael lived, all the way up to the White House and all the homes in between. They were asking them, Have you seen anything? Have you heard anything? Have you heard any rumors? They were taking notice of vehicles that were strange and writing it all down. But some of them actually gave us important information about the whereabouts of the boys that day. They weren't seen a whole lot, but they were seen a few times, and we have a pretty good idea of where they were playing that afternoon between the hours of three o'clock until they disappeared at six thirty. And we've compiled those sightings into a nice little timeline that we want to go through. This is derived directly from the door to door notes and the meeting with the neighbors. So this is the memory of the neighborhood where those boys were playing that day. It's very helpful. There are a lot of sightings. Those three boys were all over the place and they knew tons of people in that neighborhood. They went to school with them. They were neighbors. They were friends. So there are some really legitimate sightings of the boys that help us map where they were that day. Speaking of maps, Paul has created a map of all of the locations that we're going to talk about today. And that will be posted in our Facebook group. We'll post it on our ex account as well. We have a PDF of the door to door notes that were taken by the West Memphis Police Department during their canvas of the neighborhood. And we are going to post that for you as well in our Facebook group and on X so you can follow along and see what we're looking at in the police officer's handwriting, the tips, the notes that they received while they were talking to all of the residents around Holiday Garden. Yeah, it's kind of a fun exercise to go through this if you're timeling this. It's kind of fun to have the map on one side of you and the door to door notes on the other side to actually read the handwriting and to put the entire story together as they were putting it together. And we'll be giving you those locations. You know, we got locations one, two, three, four. We've got them numbered sequentially, so we're gonna go through those. And then we'll also give you the door to door note number so that you know where to look that up. So if you're listening to the podcast, you might wanna pause it really quick. Find the location on the map and then go and read the door-to-door note that we're referencing so that you know exactly what we're talking about. Yeah. And on those door-to-door notes, like I said, it is a PDF file. The police department has numbered those pages. For the notes, you'll see at the top of every page there's a number that's circled. That is the number we're going to refer to as the page number, not the PDF page number. So let's start going through this timeline. ⁓ some of these things we already kind of know where it starts off. We know that the boys All the way from episode one, we talked about the fact that Chris Byers was kind of flying independent of the other two kids. Michael Moore showed up in the driveway of Stevie Branch's house, wanting to ride bikes right at after three o'clock. Sometime about three fifteen, three twenty, he showed up there. And he and Stevie Branch got permission from Pam Hobbs to go right around the neighborhood that day. So we know those two are together, and that Chris showed up shortly after, and he's watching Muppet Babies there on the couch with Amanda Hobbs. So We know that the boys aren't necessarily together the entire time, but it's important to keep in mind sometimes they're together, sometimes they're not. And we're gonna try to make special notice of when it's very clear that the boys seem to be coming together and when they're separating again. But it's one thing that's clear is the boys were not together the entire time. So you have to keep that in mind. As we went through the door to door notes, we have put them in chronological order. for time for that day. So the page numbers are gonna jump around because they're talking to different people all over the neighborhood as who saw the boys at different times. So we're gonna talk about them chronologically so that we can f track where the boys went starting after school. And the very first one that we see here coming from the neighborhood is a timestamp for three thirty in the afternoon coming from Robert, also known as R L Fountain. Now this is a name you've heard before because this was the guy that Mark Byers went to for trying to get a flashlight. on that night, and he wasn't able to do so. So this is one of the neighbors of the Byers and the Moore family. He resides at seven twenty North Fourteenth Street, and according to the notes, he saw two of the boys around three thirty on bicycles, and they were going north on North Fourteenth. Those are the door to door notes, page thirty three. He lives about halfway up Fourteenth Street and We could reasonably infer that this is gonna be Michael Moore and Stevie Branch, because they both have bicycles and Christopher Byers doesn't have a bicycle, and we know that Christopher Byers is watching Muppet Babies. So we know that Michael and Stevie are not far away from Michael's home, just as he had told Pam. He We're gonna go and ride bikes over by my house, which is exactly where they're showing up. The next sighting comes from Thelma Roebuck. She lived at eight ⁓ eight Wilson. And on page twenty nine of the door to door notes, she said that she saw boys riding bikes about four PM on Wednesday. So this again is gonna have to be Michael Moore and Stevie Branch. They're the ones on bicycles. And this is actually not that far away from where Robert Fountain had just seen them a half an hour earlier. Remember we talked about this in the first episode. We mentioned that there were an interesting set of cut. And it turns out if you go north on 14th Street from Michael Moore's house, about halfway up the street, not far from where Robert Fountain lives, you can do a cut through straight over, and you're just maybe 200 feet away from where Thelma Roebuck lives. So the kids are probably playing in that system of cutthroughs right there about halfway north on 14th and Wilson. And remember, four o'clock also, Christopher Byers is just now finishing Moppet Baby, so he's still in the southern part of the neighborhood over at Pam Hobb's house. The third sighting here is from a little girl who is Michael Thomas' daughter. They live at twelve ⁓ two Proctor. She is a classmate of Michael Moore, so she knows him very well. She said that she saw him, she spoke to him, and that he was playing with another little boy who she did not name in Compiling all of these notes, it's pretty easy to infer that this is actually a little boy named Trey. And the reason that we know that is because Trey, who often stays with his grandmother, Doris Gately, lives directly across the street at 1110 Little Elton Lane. And she also spoke to the police and she told them that her grandson Trey and Michael Moore played together that day, and that when he left, he didn't say where he was going, but just that they had played that day. Both of those are in the door to door notes on page thirty two. And these are important. One, Michael Moore's by himself. He's not with Steve Branch or Christopher Byers. And two, both of these children know Michael Moore. So this absolutely happened. It's there's no question that Michael was there and that he spoke with and played with these two little kids. Yeah, and the location is kind of interesting because at four o'clock, remember they were up on Wilson and fourteenth, which is just to the north of where Michael Moore And Christopher Byers live. And now he's in a different part of the neighborhood that's actually kind of close to the White House. Not real close, but kind of close to it. So he's up in an area by himself playing with a seven-year-old kid. Not for a very long period of time, it turns out. He's there for probably fifteen, twenty minutes or so. But Michael Moore is by himself. So he's separated from Stevie Branch. And we need to remember that Stevie Branch has a curfew, which is he has to be home by four thirty. Could we infer that he's left Michael Moore to go and meet his curfew at four thirty? We don't know. We just know that this sighting has Michael Moore separated from Stevie Branch and this is the first time we see that. And Michael Moore's not with Chris either. Chris is at this time between four and four thirty is on his way back to his own house. Right. He's left the Hobbs. Yeah. Yeah. And and this makes sense, right? Michael knows both of these kids, so Stevie has left him. Christopher hasn't found him. He wants to play. So it makes perfect sense that he's gonna go over. These two kids live across the street from each other. He's bound to find one of them at home. And that's where he heads so that he can find somebody else to play with. The next sighting is a little interesting. This comes from Jerry Walker at 722 North Fourteenth Street. He said that he saw Michael Moore calling some black males' names in front of his house. Yeah, this is a really interesting sighting. It's in the door to door notes page three. It doesn't actually give the timing that is mentioned here, but as we put this whole thing together, it's the only time Michael Moore is alone is in the four to four thirty period of time. So we can infer that that's the timing for this as well. And again, Michael Moore is by himself. Well, so all three of those are legit, like which is weird because all three of those that happened between four and four thirty, all of them know Michael Moore personally. Yeah. It's seven twenty two North Fourteenth Street is just north of where he lives. So he's gonna be very familiar with these two kids that he's calling names to. And and you know, they could just be, you know, giving each other a hard time or whatever on the street. Maybe they don't legitimately like each other, who knows? But, you know, Michael Moore is gonna be noted for giving these guys some trouble that day. So the next sighting is really interesting because it's not in the door to door notes. So we've expanded this timeline to include information off the local tip sheet that came in on May the sixth. As well as some information that came into the West Memphis Evening Times on May the seventh. Now May the seventh is interesting because to be in the paper, you have to speak to the newspaper people either on the sixth or very early on the seventh to be able to make the evening times. And in this case, this is a sight by Betty Johnson. She said she and her son saw Stevie Branch ride his bike past her house by himself. And she lived at five thirteen North Sixteenth Street. So this is about halfway up sixteenth Street, which is due north of where Stevie Branch lives. We could infer the timing for this because we know that Stevie Branch is not with Michael Moore between four and four thirty. And here we've got sometime between four and five o'clock, Stevie Branch being by himself just north of his house, but south of where Chris and Michael live. So this is a very interesting sighting that occurred sometime between four o'clock and five o'clock that afternoon. It's the only time that fits because Stevie Branch is going to be well accounted for. Before four o'clock and after five o'clock. We'll be getting to those times here momentarily. So this is a very interesting sighting. Remember, Stevie Branch is supposed to be home at four thirty. And here we have him in that area at that time between four and five. And she doesn't say what direction he's going, but he is supposed to be home at four thirty. So it would make sense that he's heading south toward his house, but we don't know that for sure. But if he was going to try to get home by four thirty, that's the direction he'd go. So that leads us to the issue that at four thirty, Stevie Branch was due to be home and he did not report home. We know he's in the area, we know he's playing with Michael Moore at least up until four o'clock. We know that he's seen just north of his house a couple hundred feet. It's not that far. So there's no record of him arriving home. This is of course a major problem because Pam hasn't seen him since three thirty and he's supposed to be home at four thirty. Right. And she has to leave because she needs to go to work. Yeah, that's right. And so she hasn't left for work yet, but he still does not arrive. This is one of the big mysteries of this timeline. Yeah. Where's Steve? We don't know where he is, other than this one sighting from Betty Johnson and her son. And it's the only sighting of Stevie branch by himself. It's the only one. All right. Next we're gonna go to seven ⁓ nine Wilson and Sheila Dunlap lives there. She said that boys speak with her son at her home and that they are just playing. And she does note that these boys are Christopher and Michael. So again No Stevie. It's just Christopher and Michael. It's at about four thirty. And that is found on page twenty eight of the door to door notes. So this is interesting because this is the very first time that Christopher Byers is identified as being with either Stevie Branch or Michael Moore that day. Remember, he's been trying to follow him down to the Hobbs home when he was watching Muppet Babies and then he went up north back home again to be able to intercept his parents, which he keeps missing them. So this is the very first authentic sighting of Chris and Michael together right at four thirty and they're over on Wilson Street, which is the next street over from fourteenth. So it's up there to the north, not that far away from where Chris lives. So clearly these two guys have gotten together and that makes sense because we know that Michael Moore was calling these black males a little bit north to his house, calling them names in the four to four thirty time period. And so that implies that he's headed south towards his house. That's where he's gonna run into Chris. And so they're gonna interact for a short period of time. But again, Stevie Branch is not identified. This kind of goes along with that Betty Johnson sighting we just described where he was by himself. So we have no accounting at four thirty for the exact location of Stevie Branch. We don't have a direct accounting of him any time except for that one sighting by Betty Johnson. The Next sighting is actually a couple doors down from Sheila Dunlap. This is at 704 Wilson, and this is the home of Phoebe Burnett. Burnett says he saw the boys after school walking down Wilson. And this is on page 29 of the door-to-door notes. Now, this is one of those vague sightings that you kind of don't know what to do with until you put the things in order and you look at the map and you see the location. And Sheila Dunlap is a neighbor. She knows these boys. She knows Christopher and Michael. She names them. And so we can infer that perhaps this is Christopher and Michael that ⁓ Burnett also saw because it's a couple doors down. We don't know for sure, but we're gonna put it in here in our timeline. It's in the right area. We know they were just seen by someone that knows them, but it might not be our boys. Yeah, I put this in the camp of highly probable. You know, my Chris Byers lives right around the corner. I'm sure that They're in that area all the time. Michael Moore is certainly in that area all the time because his sister's best friend lives right next door to seven ⁓ four Wilson at Kim Williams' house. So saying they saw the boys after school walking down Wilson, the walking part is another issue because Christopher Byers doesn't have a bicycle, so he's got to walk or he's got to ride on the handlebars with Michael Moore. Sheila Dunlop doesn't say they're riding bikes, doesn't mean that they didn't have a bike with them, but said that they're just playing. So this indicates the same thing that we have two kids, they're playing in that area and it's kind of a casual time. They're very close to both of their homes. So it's possible they ditched a bike and a skateboard at one of their houses and are just running around the neighborhood. Yeah. When I was a kid and I'd be riding a bike and I'd go to a friend's house and they didn't have a bike or whatever, I just kinda park the bike and play with my friend and I think that's what's happened. You know, Chris is kinda anchored to his house until his parents get home. We know that he's gonna finally run into his mom and dad at five thirty that evening. But at four o'clock he doesn't know when he's gonna run into them. He's trying to hang out in the area until he runs into them and he just keeps missing them. So this is probably Chris and Michael Moore together. But I would put this in the very highly probable category of sightings. Next we're gonna move over to seven ⁓ eight North Fourteenth Street. Jimmy Elmore is the resident there and In the door to door notes on page three, he notes that he saw Chris there early and Michael was muddy. So clearly he knows the boys, says them by name, and they've been playing. Michael's already muddy, and we don't have a specific time on that one either. But when you put all of these sightings together, the location gives an indication as well as the fact that it's Michael Moore and Christopher Byers together and they're only together for a certain period of time. So you can kind of estimate when this sighting occurred. Yeah, the same thing with Burnett and Sheila Dunlap. This is very close to where both Christopher and Michael Moore live. This is walking distance. Doesn't say they're riding bikes. It just says that they were there and that Michael was muddy. The next sighting that is really interesting is on page one forty seven of the door to door notes. That's Lakeha Freeman. She lived at seven ⁓ three North Fourteenth Street. This is Chris Byers's next door neighbor. She lived literally the next house over. She's eight years old, same age as Chris played with Christopher Byers on a skateboard that day. And this event most likely occurred at around five o'clock ish, because here we've got Chris no longer playing with Michael Moore. Michael Moore, we're gonna find out, has moved on and found another playmate at about five o'clock. And so Christopher is there, he's hanging out by his house. Lakeha is over there riding the skateboard, probably hanging out in the front yard with him, just killing time up until Mark Byers and Melissa Byers get home at about five twenty. So sometime probably between Four fifty and five twenty is when this event happened. Lakeha doesn't actually give a time, but we know that this is probably the best time to slot it in for Christopher Byers to be by himself and playing on a skateboard and being home at the same time. Interesting if you'll recall from a previous episode where we talked about a neighbor seeing Christopher ditch his skateboard in the road where it was later found and hop on Stevie's bike with him to head up 14th Street. This is the neighbor. This is Lakeha Freeman. It's the same little girl. And so she knows Christopher really well, plays with him all the time, and seems like she's always out playing in her yard and she's frequently playing with Christopher. She's an important witness to Christopher's behavior and what he was doing that day. And she kept a sharp eye on Christopher. You could tell that she's a very good friend of his. Next we're gonna go to Bruce Jackson, who is at seven sixteen holiday. And he saw two of the boys playing in the yard with a large dog. This is described as happening a couple of minutes after five PM and this is on page twenty-four of the door-to-door note. Yeah, so we have two kids. It's kind of vague who they are, but pretty soon here we're going to be able to make a pretty good assumption as to who these two kids are. One of them certainly is going to be Michael Moore. The question is who is the other kid going to be? And we're going to see that in some of the notes coming up specifically for five fifteen. We'll come to those here in a moment. The Next two sightings we're gonna put together because they both happened in the same spot, which is Mayfair Apartments. A woman by the name of Katherine Fleming and then another woman by the name of Jamie or Jamie. It's spelled J A ⁓ I E, so you guys can decide if you think that's Jamie or Jamie. In the door to door notes, the police officers wrote J A ⁓ I E as though she said her name was Jamie. So I don't know, so Jamie or Jamie. They are at nine seventy four West McCullough, which is the Mayfair apartments in apartments number fifty five and eighty-nine. One says saw the three boys riding bicycles in the area, and the other one says saw these boys early that evening. These door to door notes were taken on May the seventh. So the day after the discovery. These boys had obviously gone missing on the fifth. On the sixth, the Their pictures are all over the place. Everyone's seeing them on the news, in the newspaper, because they're missing. And then of course they're found on the sixth. And so it is constant news coverage of this horrible discovery. They are saying that they saw these specific boys at Mayfair apartments at around 5 p.m. One says around 5 p.m. The other says early that evening. This is Completely on the opposite side of the neighborhood from all of the other legitimate sightings, right, Paul? Yeah, it's even further away than the White House. Yeah. So do you think this is a legitimate sighting at that time at five o'clock, or they have it confused or are they just saying that they saw something that they didn't see? Well, it for me it's a question of evidence. So ⁓ Catherine Fleming in particular says she saw three boys riding bicycles, quote, in the area at about five PM. So three boys riding bicycles, we know that Christopher Byers doesn't have a bicycle, so he would have to be up on the handlebars or on the back of somebody else's bike riding with it. And the other thing is is Christopher Byers, we know is playing with Lakeha Freeman right around this time, riding a skateboard. So this doesn't make a whole lot of sense. This would suggest that somehow Michael Moore, Christopher Byers, and Stevie Branch all got together, decided to run on the two bikes all the way to Mayfair Apartments. And then come back from Mayfair apartments and then rapidly drop Chris off and then as we're gonna find in the next couple of notes, they're just gonna retreat back into the local neighborhood again as if they didn't go all the way to Mayfair apartments. Doesn't ring authentic to me. And they don't name the boys. There's no specifics about two bikes, an a skateboard or just two bikes or anything like that. These residents clearly don't know the boys personally. Like I said, they probably have seen pictures of them. On the news because they were plastered everywhere for a couple of days when they were searching for the boys and then after the discovery. So I don't feel like this is an authentic sighting personally. Yeah, I would actually refer to this as a doubtful sighting at this point. But it's an example of a doubtful sighting where you get really kind of excited because you're saying, Well, these three boys are up there in the area. This could be an important lead. We should go and look at these notes and find out what they saw or what the timing is and all of this. And the reality is it it doesn't jive with what we're about to find out in terms of what the boys are doing. It's just completely discordant with what we know about the timeline. On the map, what we would say is it's an outlier. It does not fit with all of the other data points. Aaron Yeah, that's right. So I would put this in the bucket of doubtful, possibly spurious. So if you want to look at Kathryn Fleming and Jamie Johnson, they're in the door to door notes, pages one hundred one, one thirty two, and page six. It turns out both of these ladies were interviewed more than once, so they appear twice in the notes. All right. Then we're gonna move back ⁓ over toward where the boys live and we're gonna go to eight twenty four Holiday Drive. That is the home of Christy Blanchard. She said that she saw two boys, one wearing a scout shirt and the other a white shirt, and they were riding bikes. And this time is approximately five fifteen in the door to door notes on page twenty eight. So Christy Blanchard At 824 Holiday Drive lives not that far away from Bruce Jackson at 716 Holiday. The timing is very similar, and so we can infer that the two boys are probably the same two boys that Bruce Jackson saw. And so the description is one wearing a scout shirt. We know who that is. Everybody in town knows who this is. This is Michael Moore. And the other a white shirt. This is a description, of course, of Stevie Branch. So here we have confirmed between Christy Blanchard at 515 and Bruce Jackson. at a few minutes after five o'clock playing with the dog near his house, we have Michael Moore and Stevie Branch back together again. And Chris Byers is gone. He's not with them anymore. So Christopher Byers has been playing with Michael Moore at about four thirty, probably up until about four forty five, four fifty, something like that. At some point in that period of time, Christopher walks home. Michael Moore gets back on his bike, is with Stevie Branch, and they are now back up on holiday playing with this dog. riding around in the area. So they have reintercepted. Here we've got the reemergence of Stevie Branch onto the timeline again and we know exactly where he is and who he's with and where he's at. Right. And we know that Christopher is next door with Lakeha and he is with his skateboard. And this is when Mark and Melissa are going to arrive home after Mark has picked Melissa up from work in Memphis. Mark leaves to pick Ryan up from court and finds Christopher riding on his stomach, on his skateboard, going south on fourteenth Street. This is at about five twenty five. Yeah, so this is interesting because now we know where Chris has been this whole time. Remember he's getting spanked because he's not been where he was supposed to be the entire afternoon, except for when he was home the whole time, was kind of between four and right up to about five twenty. He's kind of hanging around his house, but he keeps missing his dad. over and over and over again and he winds up getting in trouble for it right around five twenty to five thirty that night. So this is interesting because we now know that Christopher Byers is by himself. He's now cleaning up trash under the carport. And Michael Moore and Stevie Branch are riding their bikes together in the northern part of the neighborhood up near Holiday and Wilson in that area. But by five forty five they make an appearance in a completely different part of the neighborhood. The two of them they're spotted over at twelve hundred WE CAT. This is where Lila Bailey lives, and she says that the boys stopped by her grandma's house at twelve ⁓ two W.E. Cat. And that's in the door-to-door notes on page twenty-seven. So next door at twelve ⁓ two W. E. Cat, this is where Alan Bailey Jr. is, and Alan Bailey Jr. is somebody who knows Michael Moore and Stevie Branch and Christopher Byers. He speaks to Michael Moore and Stevie Branch and reports that they are in a hurry and say they're going to pick Christopher Byers up. He also reports that Stevie Branch wouldn't talk. What's really interesting also about Alan Bailey on page one hundred twenty four when he's talking about this in the door to door notes, he says that both kids have backpacks and this is a claim that is unique to the Bailey clan at this time. We don't see anybody else say this, that there was backpacks involved. They're the first ones to do so. Yeah, so Alan is a fourth grader, goes to school with the boys, but he's l a little bit older. He says specifically that they have green backpacks and he added that Steve had on red shorts with tennis shoes. It's a very interesting description and like you said, matches no one else. Yeah. They are not seen with backpacks by anybody, and certainly Stevie is not wearing shorts that day. As we described earlier, he's wearing jeans and he's wearing a white t shirt. So this is very unique to the Bailey clan, but they're gonna stick to this. Another odd sighting by the Bailey clan was reported on May 7th in 1993 in the Western Memphis Evening Times where Sheila Bailey says that she saw Christopher Byers and one of the other boys on bikes. Now, the problem we have with this is that we know that Sheila Bailey couldn't have seen Christopher Byers on a bike with one other boy because Christopher Byers wasn't on a bike that day. He was on a skateboard or he was riding on the handlebars. So if there were two kids out there, which is what she reported seeing. Then one of those boys was certainly not Christopher Byers. Almost certainly mistaking Stevie Branch for Christopher Byers that day. She also notes that she was taking her son to ball practice and that they had to be there at 545. The next major timeline note is when Melissa Byers sees Christopher Byers for the very last time. That occurred about 550 that afternoon. So Christopher Byers, remember, was cleaning up trash and he decides he's out of here. And we know that he's gonna wind up with his three friends and it's gonna be at about five fifty when this occurs. After Christopher leaves his home, he ends up finding Stevie and Michael and they are next seen at eighteen ⁓ nine North Fourteenth Street. This is a sighting by Patty Smith. This is Brit Smith's mom. Brit Smith is one of Ryan Clark's closest friends and she helped. search on the night of May fifth along with the boys. She would report that she saw the boys going south on Fourteenth Street before six PM. And this is on page one forty five in the door to door notes. Yeah. So Patty Smith is a very important sighting because she knows Christopher Byers personally. And so if she's saying that she sees them going south b on fourteenth street before six PM, then this is a very authentic sighting of these boys in the area. What's also important is a very crucial marginal note that we think is extremely significant in the case. That marginal note just simply says Jamie Clark on South Macaulay. Jamie Clark is a very close friend of both Ryan Clark and Britt Smith. So she goes to school with them and this seems to be a call to them, hey, you really need to go and talk to Jamie Clark. She's got some information. Unfortunately, nowhere in the door to door notes is Jamie Clark ever mentioned again. Yeah, as we alluded to at the beginning There were certain parts of the neighborhood that were canvassed and there were others that were not. Jamie lived in the part of the neighborhood that was not canvassed by the police in these door to door notes. So she was never spoken to during this time. Turns out she's quasi neighbor of Stevie Branch. She lives about three or four doors down f from there to the east. So yeah, she wasn't canvassed, but she's an interesting person and we'll have to return to her at a future time. Next, we'll go over to thirteen ⁓ nine Goodwin Avenue. This is the home of Deborah O'Tinger. She reports that she saw all three boys with two bikes cutting through her yard and entering Robin Hood Hills. This was actually in the commercial appeal newspaper on May the seventh. Yeah, so this is the same Deborah O'Tinger who was reporting the devil worshiping happening in Robin Hood Hills to Officer Massingale when he was doing crowd control after the boys were found. This is also the same Deborah O'Tinger who spoke to Diane Hester on May sixth that evening. So Deborah O'Tinger is repeating this, but she's not just saying it to the police. She's now saying it to the commercial appeal for the entire world to hear. She lives right across the street from Devil's Den. Yeah, and she does have a timestamp for this. She said that ⁓ her husband had gotten home and also saw the boys and that they left at six PM and that the boys had gone into the woods at that time. So this would have been in the minutes just before six o'clock. So between that five fifty and six o'clock period of time. And the next sighting is Valerie Walker. She says that she sees boys riding their bikes in the area of thirteen ⁓ seven Goodwin, which is where she lives. This is at the door to door notes, page forty one. Now Valerie Walker is Deborah O'Tinger's next door neighbor. So undoubtedly they're seeing the same thing at the same time. Even though she doesn't name the boys or give description, it's very, very probable that these are the same boys. So These two signings together also create an authentication of the sight that Deborah O'Tinger and or Valerie Walker is giving. You if you have two people seeing the same thing and reporting it, you could say, Yeah, we could take that to the bank. That probably happened. Absolutely. So we'll move into the six o'clock hour and Joe Garner, his name is misspelled in the door-to-door notes, spelled as Gardner, and this is on page one hundred seven. He knows the boys and he said that he saw the boys on North 14th. He actually lives at 710 Macaulay Circle, but he saw them on North 14th. So Joe Garner is interesting. We'll be bringing him back up in the case, but Joe Garner is the guy that Christopher Byers said that Stevie Branch lived next to when he was trying to indicate that Stevie Branch lived in a safe place for him to go and visit and to play it. When he lied to Mark and about where Stevie lived. He lived next to this guy. Yeah, and the buyers clearly know the Garners. They're friends with both Christopher and with Ryan. So Joe Garner knows the boys. He gives an authentic sighting of them being on North Fourteenth. This is in that same area where Valerie Walker, Deborah O'Tinger are these kids are kind of buzzing around that area that we call Devil's Den at this point. Even though Joe Garner knows these boys, he does not say who he saw. So we don't know if there are two of them or three of them. He said he just saw the boys and he we know he knew them, so he's pointing out these are the boys that went missing that were later found murdered, but we don't know who exactly he saw. Yeah, 'cause it before five fifty it could have been two boys and after five fifty it could have been three boys. And it's right around six o'clock. That kind of indicates three, 'cause that's what he's saying that six o'clock is when he saw them. But he's right both ways. The question is just how many? And that unfortunately that's because the notes are vague. Next we're gonna go to an eight year old boy at seven thirteen Wilson. His name is Jason. I'm gonna spell his last name. It's G-O-B-B-E-L-L. It's gobble, gobble, we're not sure. And he reported that he saw two boys on bikes around six PM. So we're gonna infer that this is Stevie Branch and Michael Moore, since it's two boys on bikes. And this is on page eight in the notes. Yes. So there's a major issue with Jason's time, which is that we've got two bikes and two boys at around six PM. First, he's eight years old. So you're asking for a time estimate from an eight year old. The other issue that we have here is that after five fifty, it's three boys together. So we know that it's gotta be sometime before five fifty. So the six o'clock is very much a a guesstimate on their behalf. Well, at what point does this really work? Well, at five forty five, that's the Alan Bailey sighting. So you gotta go prior to that and you're really looking at sometime between five fifteen and five thirty. It had to have been in that ballpark. This is one of those instances where you look at the time, you go, I don't know if we could go with the six o'clock. It just doesn't match because we have contradictory data elsewhere, which seems to be more robust. And it does seem to match with other sightings in that area that other people are gonna give. Right. Let's move to sixteen ⁓ two Goodwin. And Michael Smith is the resident there. His daughter reported that she saw boys on bikes at the entrance to Robin Hood just west of Fourteenth on Goodwin. And this is on page one twenty six in the door to door notes. Yeah, this is completely consistent with what we're seeing from Valerie Walker and Deborah O'Tinger, which is the boys are buzzing around that area at the entrance to Robin Hood. And so we can infer that the boys that she's seeing is the three boys Michael, Christopher, And Stevie. Here's another sighting that may or may not be our victims. This comes from Lanny Busby at eight seventeen North Fourteenth Street. He reported that he saw some kids playing while he was working in his yard and paid no attention to them. And that's on page thirty three in the door to door notes. We've included it because of the location. It's very possible that it's our boys, but we don't know. Yeah, we know the boys were in the area at the time, and it's completely reasonable to infer that it's likely them. And in fact, Pat Thomas at eight thirteen, he lives Two doors down away from Lanny. Pat Thomas sees some boys at 14th and McColly. We don't know which boys. It's vague. We don't really have details here. But we know that the boys are in the area at the time. And so it's reasonable that these boys or some boys, as they're describing it in a vague sense, is in fact our boys in this case. Right. And that's on page one hundred five. Next, we're gonna move on to Ben Crafton. He's fifteen and he lived at seven ⁓ seven Wilson. He told the police that he saw Stevie Branch and Michael Moore, so he knows them by name. He saw them on bikes with Kim Williams, who is a neighbor, in front of his house at six PM. And this is on page eight of the door to door notes. Yeah, what's really interesting about Kim Williams is this is where Don Moore was that day. Kim Williams is Don Moore's best friend. So Ben Crafton seeing Stevie Branch and Michael Moore on bikes with Kim Williams kind of implies that Don Moore is probably also in the area. And in fact, Michael Moore and Don Moore are probably interacting as brother and sister, probably having conversations, talking about family business or talking about playing or whatever it is that they're talking about. So there's a reason for them to be over there and Ben Crafton is gonna take notice of this and say that it's at six o'clock. Of course, much like the Jason Gobel sighting that we described earlier, this is probably something that happens sometime between five fifteen and five thirty. Yeah. We've brought this up numerous times already in our podcast. Time is hard for everybody. You know, the the police round times, these witnesses round times. And it's really just takes putting together a string of events to try to infer what time is correct. And that's what we've done. You may disagree with us, but that's that's the best we can do is trying to put all these together based on the sightings of the people around them. Yeah. Those are the principles we're dealing with. We pretty much accept The data that we're given to the best of our ability, but every once in a while there's a massive contradiction where you just say that's just not possible. In the case of Ben Crafton, he could not have seen two boys together at six o'clock. It had to have been before five fifty. And we know at five fifty the boys are nowhere near Ben Crafton. They're up by the Bailey's house. You know, we've got three witnesses up there for that. So Ben Crafton is probably, you know, guesstimating around six o'clock, but he's probably a little late on that guesstimate. It's probably closer to five fifteen to five fifteen. Forty five in that range there. And in fact, we can narrow it down and we will in upcoming episodes. At this time, we are a little bit after six sometime, and we're gonna move on to a sighting by a woman named Cindy Rico. This actually came in on a tip sheet on May the sixth, and she reported that she saw three boys. On two bikes, riding near the drainage ditch to her right as she is driving eastbound on the South Service Road. So she's about a quarter mile away from the blue beacon off to the east of there, which is Devil's Den. She's looking at where the ten mile bayou and the Devil's Den ditch come together. And she sees the boys over there. From a distance. From a distance. That's what she claims to see. Yeah. Well, if they're over by the tree line, the one interesting thing about that is there is a little bridge. That goes from that treeline, it goes across Devil's Den and takes you back into the Devil's Den, the entrance to where the concrete chute is over there. So it's entirely possible that that's where she saw them at, if she did see them over there. So Cindy Rico seeing the three boys on two bikes, this came in on a tip sheet. She'd actually called the West Memphis PD on May the 6th that evening. She's one of the very first tips to West Memphis PD, and she says that she saw this. So and that she also saw several interstate workers as well in the area. The reports at the time and talking to people that lived there at that time is that the service roads were being used a lot because there was a large amount of construction on the I forty, I fifty five interchange and it was slowing a lot of traffic down. So people were jumping onto the South Service Road because traffic was moving kind of slow. And so she's claiming to be one of those people that was kind of crawling along the service road, turned south onto North Eighteenth Street to get down into the neighborhood and that she saw the boys in the field out there by the ⁓ Ten Mile Bayou diversion channel and where Devil's Den Ditch come together. And she doesn't actually give an exact time. She'll say six to six thirty, but best guess is about six fifteen. We'll talk about her in better detail later on. So the next sighting is a really interesting one. This is Harold Richard, also known as Rich Joyce. He lived at sixteen ⁓ five Goodwin Avenue. He knew the boys by name and saw them at fourteenth and Barton. This is in the door to door notes, page one hundred thirteen. There's no Time included in his sighting. However, we can infer that this had to have occurred at either five fifty or at six thirty because the three boys were together and at fourteenth in Barton only at five fifty when Christopher left with his two friends on fourteenth Street and headed north, and when they were seen again by Data Moore at six thirty, again heading north on fourteenth Street. Do you think there's a time that's more plausible for this sighting? I strongly favor the six thirty siding on this because he lived up at sixteen ⁓ five Goodwin, which is not that far from Devil's Den. And had he been home at about five fifty when the boys were up there playing, he would have said, I saw them at that time. We can eliminate where he lives because if they were up in Devil's Den when he was home, he would have said I saw them up there at five fifty. And he doesn't say that. He sees them at six thirty. He specifically says he saw them at fourteenth and Barton. So yeah. Yeah. And only he and Dana Moore ever make that claim. Next we'll move to Jeff Martin's He lives at 719 Wilson, and he said that he saw all three on bikes headed toward Robin Hood, and this is on page eight of the door-to-door notes. The Martins one is a big one. Jeff Martins, all three bikes, six thirty PM headed towards Robin Hood area. The last really critical sighting on the list is gonna be that of Nicholas Almeida, who's the son of John and Susan Almeida. And he lived over at eleven nineteen Goodwin Circle, which is really close to Devil's Den. And he said he sees boys. And that's the door to door notes on page one hundred and thirty three. This sighting seems really vague because it says that he saw the boys, but we've actually spoken to Nicholas and he confirms this sight. He knew the boys. He was a friend of Ryan Clark's and had actually helped search for the boys. So this is an authentic sighting. He is one of the last people to see the boys before they disappeared on May the fifth. If not. the last person to see them alive. He may very well have been, yes. Yeah. So at this point, there's no other authentic sightings in the door to door notes of the three boys. They disappear off the record at this point. And we do start seeing notes about searchers, which we've covered before, but the door to door notes abruptly end with the boys playing in the area and then at six thirty they go up into Devil's Den and they just disappear. And we know what becomes of them. There are definitely extended periods of time where Christopher Byers is by himself. There are times where Michael Moore is by himself. There are periods of times where Michael Moore and Christopher Byers are together, but Steve Branch is not with them. There's a big period of time where nobody knows where Stevie Branch is at all. And that has always been a mystery in this case as to where he's been between four and five o'clock. And what brought them all together at five fifty? We heard the Baileys say that Michael Moore and Stevie Branch wanted to go get Christopher. How do they know to do that? Why were they talking about doing that? How do they know that Christopher was available? Was there some type of other communication? You know, we just have these little pinpricks of time that we can look at the day of those children. And the degree to which they were interacting is not fully understood or fully known. But one thing is very clear. They seem to be playing absolutely normally up until at least six o'clock. And after six o'clock they disappear up into Devil's Den and they're never seen again. And that will always be a mystery as to what happened. There are a sufficient number of of sightings of the boys that can be authenticated in those door to door notes and tip sheets and the newspaper and that sort of thing that we can roughly figure out where they are most of the time between coming home from school and disappearing shortly after six thirty. Except for during that four to five o'clock hour, we really don't know where Stevie was. We have the Betty Johnson sighting of him going in front of her house and she and her son seeing him and other than that we don't really know where he was during that time. And that leads me to another thing. We haven't mentioned this on the podcast before. We do have an email address for this podcast that you can send in tips if you know someone, if you are someone who was around in West Memphis in 1993 and you have information that you think is relevant, please let us know. You can contact us on Facebook. You can contact us on X If you're not on either of those platforms or you don't want to contact us that way, you can email us. ⁓ the email is justiceforchris93 at gmail.com. That's J-U-S-T-I-C-E F-O-R-C-H-R-I-S 93 at gmail.com. If you want to join the discussion, we strongly encourage you to contribute to the case by following Crooked Tree Pod on Facebook, on X, or to follow us on YouTube. Next time on Crooked Tree. 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.