302. West Memphis 3 Part 4

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Prosecutors – Episode 302: West Memphis 3 Part 4

Podcast Information:

• Title: The Prosecutors
• Host/Author: PodcastOne
• Description: A true crime podcast offering a unique prosecutorial perspective on some of the most infamous cold cases, including murder, disappearances, and mayhem.
• Episode: 302. West Memphis 3 Part 4
• Release Date: April 22, 2025

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Introduction

In Episode 302 of The Prosecutors, hosts Alice and Brett delve deeper into the complex and controversial West Memphis Three case. As prosecutors with a keen eye for legal intricacies, they aim to dissect the timeline of events, scrutinize evidence, and explore the myriad of theories surrounding the case. Their approach remains steadfastly open-minded, acknowledging the challenges posed by conflicting testimonies and fragmented evidence.

Establishing the Timeline: Day of the Murder

Alice and Brett focus on reconstructing the timeline of the tragic events that led to the murders of the three young boys in West Memphis. They emphasize the significance of understanding the sequence of happenings to discern the truth behind the case.

• Jennifer Bearden's Alibi:

  • Alice notes, “Jennifer Bearden will say that she called Damien back… Damien home at that point” ([05:58]). This statement is crucial as it sets the stage for scrutinizing alibis and questioning timelines.

• Police Response and Environmental Factors:

  • The presence of mosquitoes is highlighted as a pivotal factor in estimating the time of death. Brett elaborates, “Mosquitoes bite living things… the boys are missing… mosquitoes tell you something” ([08:34]).

Key Evidence and Witness Testimonies

The hosts dissect critical testimonies and evidence that have fueled debates over the years.

• Regina Meek's Involvement:

  • Alice discusses Officer Regina Meek’s actions, stating, “She collects no evidence… she thinks these boys are just playing” ([06:11]). Her decisions and observations, including the significant mention of mosquitoes, are analyzed for their impact on the case timeline.

• Terry Hobbs and John Mark Byers' Alibis:

  • Brett addresses the reliability of alibis provided by key suspects, mentioning discrepancies in testimonies that may either clear or cast further doubt on their involvement ([05:58]).

• Ryan Clark's Sighting:

  • A notable moment in the episode is the discussion of Ryan Clark’s sighting of Damien and Domini Tear near the Blue Beacon truck stop. Brett remarks, “If the boys were killed… that cover up is happening right then at this time” ([31:06]).
  • Alice adds context, “If they are correct about the sound o'clock hour… how did the boys get away from eyesight” ([35:04]).

Police Investigation and Procedural Critiques

Alice and Brett critically examine the investigative procedures followed by law enforcement, highlighting both procedural oversights and pivotal actions.

• Handling of the Bojangles Report:

  • Alice defends Regina Meek's handling of a report from Bojangles, explaining the challenges faced in triaging multiple calls ([15:23]).
  • Brett concurs, emphasizing the limitations and pressure on officers during such investigations ([17:34]).

• Impact of Community Searchers:

  • The episode discusses how community members using ATVs and dirt bikes hindered the preservation of the crime scene, making it difficult to distinguish between evidence of the crime and those of the search party ([53:52]).

Notable Quotes with Attribution and Timestamps

• “Mosquitoes bite living things… mosquitoes tell you something” – Brett at [08:34]
• “She collects no evidence… she thinks these boys are just playing” – Alice at [06:11]
• “If the boys were killed… that cover up is happening right then at this time” – Brett at [31:06]
• “We’re here to try and figure it all out” – Brett at [01:06]
• “Now we have three people who are going to be convicted of this crime” – Brett at [04:27]

Insights and Analysis

Alice and Brett provide insightful analysis into how minor details and environmental observations, such as the prevalence of mosquitoes, play a crucial role in legal investigations. They argue that these elements can significantly influence the determination of timelines and, subsequently, the establishment of alibis.

• Castration Evidence:

  • The gruesome detail of one boy being castrated is examined for its implications on suspect identification and the infamy of the case ([60:25]).

• Conflicting Bullet Reports:

  • Discrepancies in police bulletins regarding the state of the victims’ bodies (e.g., all boys having genitals removed versus only one) are highlighted as potential missteps that may influence public perception and investigatory direction ([69:08]).

Challenges and Uncertainties

The hosts acknowledge the numerous unresolved questions and the inherent uncertainties within the case. They discuss the limitations posed by lost evidence and the difficulties in reconciling conflicting testimonies, emphasizing the importance of piecing together the timeline despite these hurdles.

• Unknowable Elements:
  • Alice states, “There are a lot of unknowable in this case,” highlighting the persistent mysteries that continue to surround the West Memphis Three ([71:50]).

Conclusion

Alice and Brett conclude the episode by reaffirming their commitment to unraveling the complexities of the West Memphis Three case. They emphasize the importance of continuing their methodical analysis of the timeline and evidence, while also acknowledging the emotional and psychological toll such cases can take on investigators and those involved.

• Final Thoughts:
  • Brett remarks, “This is a tough one. And we're going to do the best we can,” encapsulating their dedication to seeking justice and truth within the confines of challenging and limited evidence ([73:52]).
  • Alice adds, “We have to move through it, recognizing that there are huge holes that we cannot know,” underscoring the realistic approach they maintain in their investigative narrative ([71:50]).

Looking Ahead

The hosts tease upcoming discussions where they will further explore critical aspects of the case, including the credibility of witness testimonies, the validity of alibis, and potential new theories arising from the examination of the timeline.

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Note: This summary intentionally omits sections of the transcript that pertain to advertisements and non-content dialogue, ensuring a focus on the substantive discussions relevant to the West Memphis Three case.

Transcript

[Alice]

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[Brett]

Is there intelligent alien life? And if so, has the government been covering it up?

[Alice]

All right. UFO sightings the military can't explain, Congressional hearings, Pentagon whistleblower. What does it all mean?

[Brett]

What does it all mean? We are here to try and figure it all out with our new Ancient Aliens podcast. There is a doorway in the universe. Beyond it is the promise of truth. It demands we question everything we have ever been taught. The evidence is all around us. The future is right before our eyes. We are not alone. We have never been alone. Listen to the Ancient Aliens podcast, available wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Brett. And I'm Alice and we are the Prosecutors. Today on the Prosecutors, we continue our look at the timeline in the West Memphis three case. Hello everybody and welcome to this episode of the Prosecutors. I'm Brett and I'm joined as always by my open minded co host Alice.

[Alice]

Hi Brett, that actually is completely accurate here because we are on episode four of West Memphis three and my mind is truly actually still wide open. I think we said this in episode one. I don't know how many episode ones we have at this point, but I went into this case truly not knowing what I thought because so much is reported and we always know that the reporting doesn't always track the evidence. Episode 4 of I Don't Know 400. I'm still pretty open minded. You? I don't know.

[Brett]

We've said we're open minded. We're recording this before we actually have released any episodes. I know there'll be someone who says we have our mind made up from the very beginning, but it's not true. We are very open minded and maybe the most open minded we've ever been in this case because I mean this is a case we're still researching, we're still talking to people, still having people reach out who want to talk about this case. And I am fascinated by this. Really glad to be doing this with you. Thank you so much for joining us. Thank you so much. To those of you who've never listened to us before, thank. I'm sure there's some of you hope you're enjoying this, but we don't want to waste your time. We're here with our patrons and for the last 10 minutes we've been wasting their time. But we're not going to waste your time because you're getting this for free. They're paying for it, so they get all the wasted time. But you guys, y'all are just listening to the episodes and the ads and we're just going to dive right in. Right, Alice?

[Alice]

I guess we're belly flopping right in at this point because we're 10 minutes into recording. But the rest of you have the brilliance of our editor Jason, who's able to cut out all that chit chat that so many of you did despise. Don't worry, Nary a chit chat will happen in these 400 episodes. It's true, there's a lot of chit chat.

[Brett]

So just to recap, we are still doing the timeline. We're on the day of the murder. We've reached a point in time where the murders are either happening or have already occurred. So this is an intense time. It's a time to really pay attention because remember, we have three people who are going to be convicted of this crime. They're going to set up alibis later on. And what happens in this time period is important for both thinking about whether or not they did it and trying to figure out what happened that night.

[Alice]

Exactly. And we've spent, I think, a couple episodes now on the day of the murder and hopefully we'll get through the day today. No promises. We are getting to kind of the twilight hour. The sun is setting. It is not yet dark. It will be dark soon. And the boys have not been sighted for about an hour. At around 8:00, Jennifer Bearden will say that she called Damien back. Remember, Jennifer is one of Damien's girlfriends. She is an alibi. But she says that when she calls him at about the 8 o'clock hour, he's not home. So she calls back around 9:20 and he is home at that point. And she talks to Damien until she needed to get off the phone because of her grandmother. Remember, back in this time again, probably no call waiting. There's one line in the home. If someone's on it, then it can't be used by someone else. Now when she asked Damien where he'd gone because she tried to call him earlier, he said that Jason's mother had taken them somewhere but didn't tell Jennifer where or what they did. Now Jennifer's timeline will come into question.

[Brett]

Later and we're going to do a lot on the alibis and the timelines. So don't worry, we're going to dive into this. But just know these are all times that are very much disputed.

[Alice]

So at some point between 8:08 and 8:29, Regina Meek, the officer, shows up at the Byers residence. She takes the report of the missing kids and Moore tells her that she saw the boys heading towards Robin Hood Hills. And Officer Meek heads that way. By the way, this truly is like a small town because Officer Meek is going to show up just about all over town. I don't know if she's the only officer around that night. I mean, she's at Bojangles. She is like, you know, dealing with small calls, big calls, missing kids, and she's doing the search by herself. But you will see how this is not only such a tight timeline, this feels like there's crisscross of all the same people. And somehow with the crisscross of police and friends and parents, it seems like the boys are there. And somehow in this like amazing crisscross, they simply seep by where the crisscross have holes. It's almost impossible for them to have slipped through. But this entire case, as you listen to the timeline, seems like just how did this murder occur? How did these boys get away from eyesight for long enough to be murdered? And Regina Meek will come up over and over tonight. As you will see now, when Officer Meek walks down to the pipe in Robin Hood Hills, she goes to the pipe across the bayou, probably arriving just as it's getting truly dark. Remember we said that by about 8:30 now, the sun's been setting for about 45 minutes at this point. Twilight has gone, the glow has gone, and now it's about to be dark. And what happens when it gets dark when it's warm outside in the south? Mosquitoes. And that's exactly what she reported seeing this night. The mosquitoes, she said, were tremendous. And there were so many of them, she felt like she was quote, breathing in mosquitoes. Brett and I live in a place that's very like this. It's marshy, it's swampy. And actually, right now, we are recording this in March. It's just beginning to get warm. It truly feel. Feels like you can breathe in mosquitoes. And this is noteworthy, of course, because mosquitoes bite, mosquitoes leave marks. But mosquitoes are attracted to breath. And you have breath when you're breathing. You don't have breath when you're no longer breathing. So this is going to be very important as we try to determine what hour the murders take place.

[Brett]

And I think this is one of those things that really. It's funny, whenever we talk about these cases, there are certain facts that strike you depending on your own life experience. You bring yourself to these cases. Same thing with jurors. Jurors bring themselves to the case. Right. And that's important. If you are from the south, you understand mosquitoes in a way that people don't understand them in other parts of the country, you know, in other parts of the world. You know, I've been to Southeast Asia, and they have mosquitoes just as bad as we do, maybe worse. But in the south, mosquitoes are a part of life that is just. It is such a massive part of your life in this part of the year. Because Alice is right, it's wonderful outside, and you want to be outside. Right now, we're sort of in a happy place. But very soon the mosquitoes are going to become overwhelming. And it just gets to a point where you can't do anything because of the mosquitoes, particularly if you live in a marshy area, if you live near a swamp, if you live in a place where. Like the Ten Mile Bayou. So why is this important? You're thinking, we don't know when this murder occurred. We don't know when the boys were killed. We can't know. But the mosquitoes tell you something. If the boys were still alive at this point, we can assume they're going to be bitten by mosquitoes. Now, not everyone reacts the same way to mosquito bites. I am blessed. Mosquito bites me, it doesn't affect me. I don't get itchy. Nothing, nothing happens to me when a mosquito bites me, right? But most people when they're bitten by a mosquito, it's very bothersome, it's very itchy. It's something that they want to get away from, and it's something that leaves a mark of some sort. The boys, as we're going to see, have no evidence of mosquito bites on them. Alice is right. Mosquitoes bite living things. Once you die, mosquitoes are not going to bite you. Other insects will, but not mosquitoes. So that means one of two things. Either by this point, the 8:00 hour between 8 and 8:30, the boys are either dead or they are going to be dead so soon after this that if they were bitten by mosquitoes, there's not enough time for the reaction to occur that indicates mosquito bites. So I feel like even though we can't say when they are killed, we can say it's sometime right around here because the mosquitoes are so thick that Regina Meek is saying, I'm swallowing them. Just standing at the edge of the bayou, I'm swallowing them. That's a big deal to me.

[Alice]

Absolutely. So Also in this 8 o'clock hour, of course it's going to be contested in terms of what the timeline is, but Terry Hobbs joins John Mark Byers in looking for the boys. So the two dads, two stepdads are out canvassing the neighborhood looking for the missing boys.

[Brett]

I do want to say I said last week there's this question of when Terry Hobbs first went down to Robin Hood Hills. And Jessica of just the facts. True Crime Research pointed out to me that in a Maury povich interview in 1994, which is only a year later, John Mark Byers had said that he saw Terry around the woods at this time. So I said it was many years later that he said that. Turns out that's not true. That's interesting to me. Now look, just like Regina Meeks went down to Robin Hood Hills and didn't go in and didn't see anything. It may well be the case that Terry Hobbs did the same thing. But I want to repent of what I said last time. It is probably not the case that John Mark Byers said that for the first time many years later, as early as a year later, he was saying that he saw Terry down near Robin Hood Hills calling into the woods for his son. Now I will say this, that cuts both ways because on the one hand you can say, well, the fact that he was doing that indicates he knew they were in there, right? Okay, maybe. But it also gives him an alibi around this time. It shows that he wasn't in Robin Hood Hills murdering the kids at this time. And that timeline is going to be very important when we look at alternative suspects later on. So that brings us to 8:42 and a familiar character, the same officer, Regina Meek. Now this is the person who responded to John Mark Byers call for help. At this point, she's gone down to the bayou, seen the mosquitoes, didn't see anything else, and she Leaves because she has a new call. And she pulls into the drive through of the Bojangles restaurant in response to another call. Those of you who don't have Bojangles, I'm sure you've heard of Kentucky Fried Chicken. It's basically Kentucky Fried Chicken. You know we have all these chicken restaurants in the South. So there's Kentucky Fried Chicken, there's. Oh, what's the Louisiana chicken?

[Alice]

Popeyes. No, is it Popeyes? There's a Popeyes, but there's another Popeyes, Louisiana chicken.

[Brett]

I think that's Popeyes.

[Alice]

Bojangles also says Cajun chicken.

[Brett]

So there's Popeyes, there's Bojangles, which is also Cajun chicken. There's the one that's Texas chicken. Churches, church churches is like Texas chicken, whatever that means.

[Alice]

Was that right? Anyway, you're right.

[Brett]

That's why they have a star. Is there. Anyway, so we have all these chicken restaurants. It's just a fast food chicken place. That's what Bojangles is, right. So Regina makes, she gets a phone call and rather than go into the restaurant, she just drives through the drive thru like she's any other customer, right? And she's told through the window that a bleeding black man had gone into the women's restroom about 30 minutes before she arrived. So around 8:15. And not only did he have blood on his face and what appeared to be a cast on one arm, but he also seemed like he was having some sort of mental issue. Now minutes before she had arrived, the man had left the premises of the Bojangles, but he had left his mark. Blood was smeared on the walls of the women's restroom. Now the problem is Regina Meeks. She never goes into the restroom, she never goes into the restaurant. She never looks to see what's there. She collects no evidence. Basically she takes this report and she does not investigate further. Now I think in defense of her, she's thinking just another night in West Memphis, right? Some guy, he's bleeding for some reason, he's probably high. He goes in the restroom, he makes a mess, but then he leaves. The event is over, no big deal. She clears it and she leaves the scene at 9 o'clock because as Alice said, it seems like she is the only officer on call. There's a report of someone egging a house and so she gets called to respond to that. So she leaves the Bojangles to go investigate the egging.

[Alice]

I know a lot of you, your heads might be exploding right now when you're thinking she can go in with some Sort of a forensic kit to get blood off the wall so that she can test the DNA, et cetera, et cetera. This is all hindsight at the time. Clearly she is the only one, like I think the beat cop in this neighborhood responding to all these calls. And what you're supposed to do is respond to things and you have to prioritize right now because they're saying, well, this man, he seems to have be having a mental issue. What she's probably hearing is, okay, there's blood on him. The mental issue probably indicates that he is having some sort of event. Which is why who goes into a restroom and starts spewing blood everywhere if you're trying to wash it off and not leave a mark? That's not what you think. She's not thinking anything's happened to the boys. She has this missing boys report, but in no way were they thinking that there had been a murder. They're thinking these boys are just playing, you know, well after dark they're going to show up. As most missing children cases actually end up. Nothing nefarious happened. The kids lost track of time, they're at someone's house and they end up showing up. So no instance does she think that there's actually a homicide to be investigated. And because this man has left the danger has left the Bojangles, she has a lot she needs to do that night. And unless she has any another indication that she needs to be doing something further, there hasn't actually been a crime, Right? Bojangles is a public, open to the public restaurant. He's allowed to go in. It's not a crime to go into the restroom of an opposite sex. Creating a mess is not a crime either, you know, so there's all of these things. If you suspected that he was a murderer, you could probably hold him for something. But all of these things kind of in this town around this time, it's not really something you would pursue for purposes of we're gonna find that guy, we're gonna arrest him, hold him overnight, go get a warrant, etc, etc, because he seems to just be kind of a passerby who has left a mess. And the worst thing he did was now they have to clean up all this mess in the bathroom, which unfortunately they do. So I'm saying that in defense of her because she's not being negligent here. They get so many calls like this, they can't possibly do an entire, you know, forensic analysis of the scene when it's not technically a crime scene at this point.

[Brett]

And we're going to talk more about this later. But Alice nails it. And it's so easy in hindsight to say, well, she violated procedure. She should have gotten out of her car. She should have gone inside. She should have taking a report. She should have done X, she should have done Y. It's so easy to say that she's triaging. You know, it's like anybody else is. Like any nurse in an emergency room on a Saturday night. Right? You got to decide what are the big issues? What are the issues. I can kind of let go. She's responding to all these different events. And I think that's right. Number one, to the extent he's a threat, he's gone. Number two, to the extent it's a welfare check, to the extent it's. We're worried about this guy, he's gone. Either way, he's gone. Right. So, you know, on a quiet night when nothing was happening, would she have gone in and written up a report? Probably. But she's coming from one call, she's going to another one. She's sort of stopping there, and it seems like everything has passed by. So now here we are, however many years later. 30, I don't know. I can't do the math. 32 years later, basically 29 years.

[Alice]

30, 30 years. They're about my. They're basically my age, so I'm gonna go with about 30 years.

[Brett]

Yeah, whatever. We're questioning her and her decisions, but she could not know at the time this might be significant because the Bojangles we're talking about is not that far from the crime scene, particularly if you're walking down the interstate. Like I said, we're gonna do more on this. People have tried to retrace these steps and figure this out, but this is essentially the first civilized place you would reach if you walked from the crime scene down the interstate to somewhere else. This is where you'd end up is the Bojangles. And that's where he ended up. And a hair is going to be found later on that appears to belong to a black man. And so you have this incident, the blood and that hair, and it's going to make you think, I wonder if this is connected. The problem is, after Regina Meek left Bojangles did what you would expect Bojangles to do. They cleaned up the women's restroom by the next day. Detective Ridge, who we talked about before, he will show up to Bojangles to take some scrapings of the blood that's left, and he will find blood that's left they didn't quite get. But it's never tested and in fact the evidence was lost. And he will admit this in cross examination in the trials that he messed up, he lost his blood. So there is no physical evidence we can test against Mr. Bojangles, as he has come to be called, and the crime, and Mr. Bojangles will remain sort of this glaring aspect of this case you can never get over. And I'll tell you, when I first started looking at this case, Bojangles haunted me. It was haunted by Butchangles because it just feels like, man, this could be it. This could be the key to everything. But what can you do with that beyond say that? Well, like I said, we're going to talk about it more later. But this was an opportunity, in my opinion, through the fault of no one, except maybe Detective Ridge that was lost. And he's probably just a red herring.

[Alice]

It's probably a red herring. But here is one of the frustrating things about this case. This is now unknowable, right? Like unless somehow we're able to recover what's been lost. But this has gone now. We don't know. And that's partly why I think there will always be people who are, unless they can know every aspect of a case, they're like it's it was faulty or they were wrongfully convicted, X, Y and Z. The thing is, there are always going to be unknowns in every single case. And while this is an incredibly frustrating unknown, it is actually not that unusual to have an unknown like this in a case.

[Brett]

And look, we've talked about this a thousand times. I am a big believer that there will never be a theory that answers all the questions, even if it's correct, even if you know exactly who did it. Think about the cases we looked at. Murdaugh. There are still questions in the Murdaugh case about how exactly the murders went down. Do I have any doubt that Alec Murdaugh killed his family? No, I have none. But there are still questions about that O.J. simpson. I don't care who it is. There are always questions about how exactly it happened. Unless you have every event on camera, you're never going to know. And I think this could be one of those. So Regina Meek leaves. She ends up at 1006 Roy Pew, where the egged house apparently is. Apparently this house is vacant, which is a little weird, but nevertheless, that's where she goes. That's what she's doing. That's where she ends up. And I think she comes back into the story later on.

[Alice]

Guys, I know I've said this before but when we got started making this podcast and spending time researching these cases, true crime is not exactly easy for sleep. I honestly didn't think it would affect my sleep as much as it has. After we finish recording, I'm usually amped and up for another hour or so. And I realized that this podcast cast is really keeping me up at night because I'm just downright scared. While after spending nights of tossing and turning not getting good sleep, I knew this was not sustainable. That's why I'm so excited to share something that's made a real difference in my life. Beam's Dream Powder Beams is a healthy nighttime blend packed with science backed ingredients shown to improve sleep so you can wake up refreshed and ready to take on the day. Whether that's going to work or solving a cold case. Dream is made with a powerful blend of all natural ingredients. Reishi, magnesium, L theanine, Apigenin and Melatonin. It's designed to help you fall asleep, stay asleep and wake up feeling amazing.

[Brett]

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[Alice]

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[Brett]

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[Alice]

Yeah, absolutely. As we enter into the next hour, we will tell you a lot of things within the timeline that may or may not have anything to do with this case. But because we don't know when the kids were murdered, we don't know when the COVID up happened, we don't know a lot of things, we insert them into the timeline should they become relevant for some theories. And this is Our whole point is to lay out all of the evidence for you. If we were prosecuting this case, there's going to be certain things in here that just don't fit into any sort of prosecution narrative, and you probably would leave it out. But because we're truly trying to figure out what's happening, we're going to have insertions of things within the timeline that take it with a grain of salt. It may not all fit into a perfect story. Like Brett said, there will be questions. And some of these facts may have nothing to do with the three boys here. Someone is questioning. What do you mean, cover up? I'm not talking about police covering up things or some larger conspiracy. Quite literally covering up the tracks because the boys were thrown into the water and staked down so that they wouldn't float up. We know this based on how they are ultimately found. So when I say cover up, I mean not just killing the boys where they are and running. There was some attempt to make it difficult to find them, and in fact, they were successful. The boys are not found this night, though it seems clear that they are dead this night and they are found a day later. Let's go into the 9 o'clock hour. Now it is dark. Ryan Clark goes with some friends to look for Chris Byers. This is like a community event, not like a search party with, you know, national professional search parties. These are just local neighbors. And this is a fellow kid in the neighborhood who is coming to look for Chris Myers. Now, Ryan and some friends, they go into Robin Hood Hills from the dead end side of the neighborhood. Remember, the neighborhood butts up into this. It's barely a forest, really, when you look at the aerial view. Now, Ryan did this because he thought that Chris always played on the neighborhood side of the pipe as he was afraid to go across it. When they were in the woods near the bayou, they heard what sounded like five loud splashes in the water. They also heard what sounded like something moving through the brush. Ryan called out and asked if anyone was there. Remember, at this point, they're just thinking the boys are out playing. Maybe they got stuck, maybe it's dark now, they can't find their way home. And so he calls out, but nobody responds back. And so now the kids, they start getting scared and they run out of the woods, which, frankly, is exactly what I would do. And once they regroup outside of the woods, they went down to the pipe and they crossed it. They searched the other side of the woods. So this is the side that they think that Chris Was too scared to cross. They don't actually think he should be on this side. But they run out, they're scared, they regroup. They're like, you know what, let's go back in. That was silly of us to be scared. Let's go back in and search again. So this time they cross the pipes and they're searching for about 30 minutes before leaving and going home. But while they're near the pipe, they heard what they described as a gunshot. They did not see bikes at this point, which means that the killer had already put them in the bayou. Now, this is really interesting because with crossing the pipes, if the bikes were still there where they were spotted earlier, you would assume that they would come across the bikes. If they haven't, then these two bikes would have been thrown into the bayou. At this point where they are later found, there are two bikes. We know there are three boys, three bodies. And they said that they heard five splashes. Could it have been boy, Boy, boy, bike, bike?

[Brett]

And look, you know, we're talking about timelines and trying to establish timelines. We've already said mosquitoes make you think the boys were dead sometime shortly after 8:00. It's 9:00 now, and Ryan is hearing these splashes. This cover up, this the murder, and the covering up of the murder had to have happened in a very quick timeline. We're talking an hour, right? So if you assume the boys are killed sometime early in the 8 o'clock hour, maybe a little bit earlier, and then you hear Ryan Clark and his friends talk about this and talk about the splashes, and you think about the bikes and you think about the bodies, it really feels like they are right there when this is happening, right there when this cover up is occurring. And if that's true, then essentially this is done by 9:00, 9:15 maybe, because after that initial sort of fear and they hear what they describe as a gunshot, they then go kind of into the woods, they go past the pipe bridge because remember, they're searching on the other side of the pipe bridge because they don't think, they don't think their brother, Ryan doesn't think his brother would go across the pipe. We know now that he did and he was killed and his body was disposed of across the pipe. They don't go over there. The bikes were either on the neighborhood side of the pipe or the boys had walked the bikes across the pipe, but left them sort of close to the pipe because the bikes end up in the water beneath the pipe, essentially so it seems like whoever did this took the bikes and just threw them in the bayou underneath the pipe bridge or near the pipe bridge. That seems like that's what happened. So this cover up is happening right then at this time. So after about 9, 15 or so, it's done. And the people who did this would have been leaving the woods. Now why is this important? If Ryan is right, then John Mark Byers didn't do it. Terry Hobbs didn't do it. Because they are all accounted for at this point. For it to be Terry Hobbs or John Mark Byers, this has to be a red herring. It has to be what they heard is what they heard. But it isn't important because it all had to have occurred earlier. If they're right, then those very popular suspects go away altogether. We've already basically ruled out John Mark Byers, but Terry Hobbs is still viable. But he's not viable. If you believe this, if this is part of the COVID up of the murders, it's not him. Now are they correct? I don't know. They will not be the only people to mention a gunshot or multiple gunshots. People heard this. Obviously the boys were not shot. There's guns are not involved in this case. But people heard gunshots, including them. I don't know what that means. I can't explain that. But this is a really important part of this story.

[Alice]

Yeah, I will know one thing. We know the location of this neighborhood in Robin Hood Hills is close to a truck stop, is close to an interstate. When people are. I would be searching the woods, pitch black. Any loud noise is oftentimes described as a gunshot, whether it is in fact a gunshot or not. So I think it's noteworthy that they heard something loud. They describe it as a gunshot, might have been a gunshot. It could have been than a pipe hitting something like that. So I do think it's noteworthy that they hear it. I wouldn't be thrown off by the fact that it's a gunshot just because I find that most people describe loud sudden noises that they are not expecting as gunshots. And again, if they are correct about the sound o'clock hour and what they hear and the brush again, that whole crisscrossing of the neighborhood, this would have happened almost under their nose. If they were close enough to hear splashes, if they were close enough to hear brush moving, that means the killer heard Ryan and the friends calling out for the missing boys that they were there.

[Brett]

I don't want to dwell on this, but I feel like this is something people don't talk about enough. This case, one of the reasons to me it's so striking is it is a testament to how horrific murder can be and how it really can happen right under your nose. These woods are small. They're tiny. And there's so many people around while this is happening, this horrific thing is happening in these woods right underneath the noses of so many people. And it's just. I don't know, it's just. It's right there. And anyone could have seen something that solved this case forever, but none of them did. And that is striking to me.

[Alice]

Yeah, absolutely. Like I said, the way I think about this case is just all these crisscrosses. And of course, there's these tiny little holes, and they really are tiny based on the timeline and based on the number of people who see things firsthand. And yet we know there are holes. And somehow the boys or killers are completely in these pockets of holes that are just so far unknowable. Okay, so now around 9:19, this is so interesting because there are so many parents at play here. And we know, we've heard of Terry Hobbs. Terry Hobbs is stepfather of Stevie. Terry Hobbs and Stevie's sister Amanda go to pick up Pam, who is at work. Terry goes inside and uses the phone to call the police and report Stephie missing. Now, what's really interesting about this and people fixate on this fact because it is kind of strange, though. He's going in to call Stevie in as missing to the police. He neglects to tell Pam, Stevie's mother, that Stevie is missing. It's actually Amanda who's waiting in the car who tells Pam. When Pam shows up. And this is so heartbreaking. Pam's finishing her shift. She comes into the car being picked up by her family, and she has two pieces of candy in her hand. One for Stevie, one for Amanda, for her kids. And only at that point does she find out from Amanda that Stevie's actually missing. Some have speculated that Terry made the phone call from the restaurant to prevent the police from coming to his house. That's actually probably not the case at all. The Hobbs didn't have a home phone, so he couldn't have made the call from his house. And by the way, if he's a suspect, they're gonna go to his house. So calling from the restaurant doesn't really throw them, quote unquote, off the scent so much.

[Brett]

And I will say this, and I don't know Terry, not defending Terry, but I am a man who grew up in the south, and I Think there's this, this notion that it's weird he didn't tell Pam first. But I can imagine for Terry that is going to be such a difficult thing to. And this is hard to describe, but telling her that he has not found her son and then in fact her son is missing and in fact he's calling the police to report him missing is such a difficult thing to do and outside his comfort zone that it isn't surprising to me that he sort of walks right past her, calls the police, tells the police and then has to deal with it. And I don't know if I'm explaining that well, but it just doesn't surprise me particularly thinking back to 1993 in sort of even more so the male in the south, they're not talking about their feelings, right? Like engaging in something that's going to be deeply traumatic would have been difficult for him. So I don't necessarily find this unusual.

[Alice]

And also imagine he, if he didn't do this, he's probably deeply worried. And knowing this conversation isn't going to be a short one, it's not going to be, hey Pam, Stevie's missing, I'm gonna go call the cops. It's probably going to be a scene, it's probably going to be a fight. It's probably going to be like wailing and gnashing of teeth from Pam, completely understandably. And he may be thinking, I gotta report this first. Like I don't have 30 minutes, I gotta do this. And then there's no way she can't find out. This is all going to happen after the fact. Like it's almost like going into go mode. I had to do this checkoff list, this checkoff list and there's no way he'd be able to get to the phone. I wouldn't let him pass me if that were my child in order to let him go report it. So I know it is strange, but also I imagine myself in that position. Man or not, that is probably one of the toughest conversations. It's one of those conversations that before you open your mouth, the other person probably knows something terrible is going to come out of your mouth. So at 9:24, same officer Regina Meeks, she's apparently done with her house egging investigation. There wasn't much to investigate. It was an abandoned house. She doesn't find anything else. She responds to the missing persons report filed by Michael Moore's mother, Dana. So at this point, she's gotten all the calls this night, I think in this neighborhood and at 9:24 she gets. She's now responding to the missing person's call. Remember she had gone up to Robin Hood Hills about an hour earlier, not really seen anything, breathed in all those mosquitoes and then got called away to something else. Now at this point all three boys are getting called in missing. It's looking much more like something is bad. This is not just the boys forgot what time it is and they, you know, are coming home late and look.

[Brett]

This is a missed opportunity. It's something that John Mark Byers is going to complain about at this point. You have three boys who have been reported missing. Probably an all out search was appropriate, but doesn't seem like that happened now. Searches occurred, but it was members of the community and we're going to talk about that later. They probably messed up a lot of stuff. People talk about how there's very little physical evidence in this case. Well, I think part of that is there were so many people going through those woods looking for the kids. But we'll talk about that later. Okay. It's 9:30 and one of the most important events is going to occur. So mark this in your mind. So we're going to talk about this a lot. So at 9:30, Darlene Hollingsworth, you may remember her, she is someone who reports later on to seeing the boys. Her report is pretty inaccurate based on what everybody's wearing and everything else. But she says she saw the boys riding their bikes, she almost hit them in their car, she yelled at them, etc. Etc. So Narlene Hollingsworth, her husband, two sons, two daughters and a family friend who was the youngest son's girlfriend, pile into their Ford Escort station wagon to go pick up a friend from who I think is also a relative from the laundromat. And I'll say this, we're going to talk about the Hollingsworths a lot. Their family tree. We could spend five episodes trying to break down their family tree. Like Narlene's husband is her ex husband's brother for instance. So she's got people who are her ex son in laws that's now her nephew. She's related to everybody. Hollingsworths are related to everybody. It's very confusing. Just know this family is gonna play a big role in this entire story. So they're the entire family, as one was want to do back in 1993 when you didn't have the Internet. They climb into the station wagon. You know, the kids love station wagons. I don't know if you had a station wagon Alex, the seats that face out the back, exactly.

[Alice]

The best thing ever.

[Brett]

So all the kids are piling in the back, totally unsafe. Everybody's gonna die if there's a wreck. But like 27 people would be in these cars, right? And that's what happened here. So they all pile into the station wagon. They're gonna go pick up their relative, Dixie, Great name at the Laundromat. So they head down there, and as they're driving to the Laundromat, they're on the service road, running by the Blue Beacon and running by the Robin Hood Hills. And as they're going, they're driving down the road, and all of a sudden their headlights shine on two people. And those two people, according to Narlene, she immediately recognizes, is Domini Tear and Damien Eccles. And they see them coming out of the woods near the Blue Beacon truck stop. And they are heading towards Lakeshore Estates. Remember, Damien would often travel through the neighborhood, through Robin Hood Hills, going north to Lakeshore. And it was up in that direction that Domini lived. And Damien would often stay with her. So they see these two people heading that direction, and they're on this south service road and it's right there, the Blue Beacon and this Love truck stop right on the edge where the murders occurred. And they will say, and many of them will either give statements or will testify in the various trials that both of them looked muddy. And Darlene is actually upset about this. And she doesn't like the fact that Domini and Damien are out that late. Now her husband will say, don't worry about it. I see him out all the time. And at some point Darlene says, well, we need to pick him up. And her husband's like, well, where are you going to put Damien? You gonna let him sit in one of the kids laps? And she's like, no, actually, no, let's just keep going. So they go on to the Laundromat. But this sighting will become absolutely critical because what time is this? 9:30. Remember we had splashes in the 9:00 hour. And now at 9:30 you have someone claiming to see Damien. And somewhat unexpectedly, given that we know how this goes, Domini leaving the area of the murders, heading home, and they are muddy. You can see why this is important. And we're going to talk extensively about the sighting and whether or not it is credible. This is one of the things that people focus on extensively when talking about this case. So guys, it's getting warmer. This cold. Winter months are ending. But that doesn't mean I don't still enjoy a cozy night at home. And what better way to have one of those nights than the perfect glass of wine? And that's why I'm a member of First Leaf. With First Leaf, not only do I get to enjoy personalized wines just for me, but I get to have fantastic bottles on hand to share with friends and family. First Leaf is great at picking out wines based on my preferences. They're also my go to for special occasion wines like sparkling wines. And getting started with First Leaf is so easy. I just answered a few quick questions about my wine preferences on their site and they put together an amazing assortment of top notch wines just for me. It all gets delivered right to my door. Told you this before, I like drinking wines but I don't know anything about them. But using the process that First Leaf has, I was able to let them know I'm adventurous. I want stuff from all over the world. That's what I'm looking for and that's what they delivered. I got some great Argentine wine, some Spanish wines, some South African wines, and it even got some cava. It's the kind of things that I wouldn't normally pick up. That's why I love First Leaf. They are always introducing me to new and exciting wines to try.

[Alice]

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[Brett]

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[Alice]

And this is obviously, if this is the right time, the right hour, and they are actually seeing Domini and Damien, it's incredibly important. But as we also know, Damien doesn't have a car, and he's often with Domini, and they, like, walk and roam the area. So, I mean, this is incredibly, incredibly interesting. I mean, what if they had stopped? What if they had stopped and they'd gotten in or they had spoken to them? Maybe seen them up close? Maybe instead of mud, they saw blood? I mean, there's just so many, many ifs, because we have this clown car of people, so many witnesses potentially, and another kind of lost opportunity of more information. But again, at the time, it's kind of like, how would they possibly know that this would be important?

[Brett]

And look, we're going to talk about this a lot. We're trying to get through the timeline, so forgive me for not spending a lot of time on this, but Gnarlene is related to Dominique in some roundabout way, because, like I said, the Hollingsworth clan is hard to unravel. She knows Dominique, and she will say she held her when she was a baby, right? She will say she knew this was Dominique. 100%. What's interesting about that, this is a problem for the prosecution, because the prosecution doesn't think Domini's there. They think Jason is there. Right? So they actually are going to try and paint this as the Hollingsworths were right about Damien, but they got Domini wrong. They actually saw Jason and mistook him for Domini. We'll talk about that later. But that's interesting for a couple reasons. Number one, because that's obviously somewhat of a weakness for the prosecution, but many people are going to paint this as a false statement that everyone in the Hollingsworth clan is lying. But I will just go ahead and roll this out there for you to think about until we get to this to discuss later. If the Hollingsworths were lying, if they were trying to correct, collect reward, if that's what they were doing, why would they say it was Domini and not Jason? Why wouldn't they say, we saw Damien and Jason? Which fits perfectly for what the state wants, but they never say that. They never change their statement that they saw Damien and Domini coming out of those woods that night. Like I said, this is a very important point and we will come back to it later. So that's at 9:30. Sometime between 9 and 10:30, Damien will talk on the phone to some girls. We've mentioned them before and we're going to talk about them more later. When exactly he did that and who exactly he talked to is going to be important for his alibi. So between 10 and 11pm Nancy Garrett, who lives on Proctor, report that she hears five, count them, five gunshots. So I think this is interesting because you have the boys who are looking for our 8 year old victims saying they heard a gunshot. Later on you're going to hear someone saying she heard five gunshots. And I think that helps if you believe the gunshots are probably unrelated or there's something else. I think the fact that she hears five gunshots between 10 and 11 tells you maybe gunshots weren't that unusual in the neighborhood. Probably not significant. At around midnight, Heather Cleat will talk to Jason and Damien on a three way call. And I think we can say for certain that by midnight both boys are back home, they're talking on the phone and whatever has happened, if they're involved in it or not, is over.

[Alice]

So this brings us past the midnight hour into May 6th. The boys are still missing. There's been kind of some neighborhood searches, but not anything formal, not by like, you know, this is not a national search party coming in yet. So at 6am Todd Moore, who's Michael's dad, he's a trucker and he returns from work and that's when he first finds out that Michael is missing. Not unusual. Cell phones were not a thing at this point. If he's cross country driving, he doesn't know anything until he arrives. Whenever you have kids missing, of course the parents are going to be suspects. Here we have Michael's dad, John. Mark Byers is his stepfather there when the boys go missing. But Michael's father himself is out of town, doesn't even know that this is all going on for 12 hours or so. Now several witnesses had seen what looked like two sets of bike tracks heading into the woods, which sports with what we know about the boys. We know that they had two bikes and one of the boys was probably riding on the back of another bike. So they become a focus of the search. Neighbors and searchers use dirt bikes and ATVs to zip around these woods. Up and down the banks. I can completely see this by the way, in this area, people have ATVs. They're going to whip them out the first chance they get. They probably will where we live as well. Brett, this is not good for preserv observing the crime scene because any bike tracks, any sort of evidence that may be left behind is going to get ripped up by the ATVs that are zipping up and down these banks. And especially remember this 10 Mile Bayou, it only really fills up with water when it's rained, which means the ground around is going to be marshier than normal. And when it's marshy or when it's kind of soggy, it's more prone to being reworked whenever new tire tracks go over them. So here we have these ATVs and God knows other dirt bikes just rolling around looking for these boys, creating their own tracks. And the police, of course, are going to realize this is a crime scene later. So when they're trying to suss out what is actually the crime scene, what are the tracks from the crime scene, it's really difficult to figure out what is evidence of the crime and what's just part of the search party.

[Brett]

And at some point they're going to find a footprint near where the boys are found. They're going to take a cast of that. They're never able to match it to anybody. And this is a piece of evidence people point to. In defense of the West Memphis three. The problem is there are so many people in those woods. I mean, this is the ultimate. And you don't hear about this a lot. People don't talk about this. The whole like dirt bikes and ATVs and three wheelers and everything else. I mean, you want to know why everything was destroyed and torn up. Have you ever seen somebody riding a dirt bike through. Through a muddy area? Yeah, I mean, they had no hope of finding any actual evidence of the people who did this at the scene. Because you had people who didn't know that was the scene because the boys are under the water at this point. And the killers made a pretty concerted effort to cover up where the actual murder scene was. So it was just totally destroyed.

[Alice]

Yeah, absolutely. Now, one searcher, Tim Cotton, would say that the area north of the pipe smelled like blood. And that's like blood curdling kind of description. If that is in fact what he smelled, it's very possible. Right. We know that a lot of blood was probably washed off at some point because, you know, not a lot of blood was found. But the manner in which the boys were murdered would have resulted in a lot of blood. And just to think about this area, this also shows you how dense the this area is. Right? This is not like a widespread area. This is a very small area. And especially with kind of this mosquito infested marshy area, that kind of humidity is like a blanket. The atmosphere feels like a blanket. So smells do stagnate and they sit. So if there was blood, I can imagine that in fact they did smell blood. But what, what a just chilling description of what the air smelled like at 1:30pm Steve Jones is a juvenile correction officer with Crittenden county and he's in the Robin Hood woods when he sees a shoe floating in a diversion ditch. When he sees this shoe, he becomes concerned that maybe the boys drowned, maybe they slipped off a pipe. Kind of strange for all three to slip, but maybe one slipped and then the others were trying to help them and instead they all fell into the water and somehow drowned. He meets with Detective Brian Ridge at a place called the Devil's Den. And this ditch is bordered by 8ft drops. That's dry except when the rain swells, as had happened recently as we've been discussing. He tells Detective Ridge, hey, I see this shoe down there. This doesn't look good. Maybe one of them fell in there or they all fell in there. So Ridge would try and slide down this ridge with these eight foot drops to recover the shoe. But, but instead of like a controlled climb down, this really is just a drop. He basically falls and tumbles down the side of this ridge and he slips, falls into the water. That was not his intent. He wanted to like controlled walk down and try to reach for the shoe, but essentially slips, falls all the way down and fortuitously falls into the water. And it's fortuitous because this is where he makes a tragic discovery.

[Brett]

Yeah, I mean it's hard to even imagine this, but it's almost cinematic in the way this happens. Like tragically, horrifically cinematic. It's 1:45pm you have Sergeant Mike Allen, who's there, Steve Jones and Detective Brian Rich. And Brian Rich has fallen into the water and essentially he lands on top of the body of Michael Moore. He stands up after he falls into this water and he notices that his foot does not sink into the mud as he would expect it to. And that's because he is standing on something solid. And when he raises his foot out of sort of this muddy water, a body, this pale white body rises up in the water to the surface and it is the body of Michael Moore. And at that point, they know they have something far worse than an accident, far worse than a drowning. This is a murder. Immediately, Detective Gary Gitchell is notified. He calls dispatch to open a case, which they do. And that case is 930-506-66. At 256, the second body is located. So basically, you have these detectives crawling through the water on their hands and knees, assuming they're going to find something else. There's one body that's been submerged, basically pressed down into the water with a stick. They're sort of crawling along the ditch bank and they're coming upon these other sticks driven into the mud. But those sticks don't have bodies underneath them. They have clothing wrapped around them. Shirts, underwear, pants, that sort of thing. All clothing belonging to the boys. But around 25ft south of the first body, they find Stevie Branch. And this is also where they will find the impartial shoe print on the bank directly across from where the body is found, which is why they take the plaster cast. But once again, hard to say, because you could have stood on that ditch bank, looked out over it and had no idea that beneath that water were dead bodies.

[Alice]

And in fact, we knew that a lot of the searchers were right around this area. They were on this bank. They reported being right around here. So we know that people were searching this area, and that's why it was so fortuitous that Detective Ridge quite literally fell into the water. None of these searchers jumped into the water. There was no reason to think to do that, because if the boys had fallen in by accident, you would think they'd float up.

[Brett]

It's one of those things. You think about how close it was. They would not have concealed these bodies forever because eventually that ditch bank, there wouldn't have been water there anymore. It's a temporary thing. At some point, they were going to find those bodies. But it could have been much later. If that shoe had not been floating there, had he not fallen exactly where he'd fallen, if he'd have reached down and grabbed the shoe, who knows right what they would have found when they found it. But it's purely because he fell in where he did that he found that first body, and it leads to the other ones.

[Alice]

And by the way, I mean, law enforcement officers try to train for everything. You can't possibly train for a situation like this. A lot of due credit to him. He could have just said, all right, let's wait. You know, first of all, this is One of the most horrific things I can ever imagine, quite literally falling onto a victim's body. And that's how you discover it. And odds are the other boys are going to be very nearby. He could have easily said, all right, let's bring in cranes, let's dam this out, and then let's drain it. And we're gonna find a bunch of things which they ultimately do. He doesn't do that. He is there. He's in the moment. It seems clear at this point that the boys are dead. So he's not looking for survivors, but he gets on his hands and knees to search for them. Because it's an incredibly human thing to do, but also one that he didn't. I don't know. I don't know that I could have done it, is basically what I'm saying, because the tragedy of what he knows he's about to find is right in front of him.

[Brett]

And let me just say this. These officers are going to be demonized. You know, they're going to be accused of framing people and everything else. I mean, this is such a human moment, because they make mistakes here, too. There's a point where the bodies are in the water and they just. They can't stand that anymore. And they actually carry the bodies to the bank. That was probably a mistake, because once they do that, decomposition begins and it becomes accelerated. There are flies, larvae, all sorts of things that confuse the time of death. And it's a problem. It takes a while for the corner to get there. I mean, this is an impossible situation that they're dealing with, and they've been criticized for a lot of things they did. But it's hard, if you really think about it, to be too critical of the decisions they made at this point. So three minutes later. So remember, this is important. Remember this, because this is significant. First body, Michael Moore essentially fall on it. 25ft south of that first body, sometimes described as 30ft south of that first body, they find Stevie Branch. Only five feet from that is Christopher Byers. So Christopher Byers and Stevie Branch are found very near to each other in this water, relatively. Michael Moore, he has a long way away. 10 yards, 30ft. He's a good distance. That will become important later. We're going to talk a lot about that. But they find Christopher Byers, and when they find him, this is already shocking, but it is going to become even more shocking. It appears that Christopher has essentially been castrated. His genital area has been severely abused. And we're going to talk about that a lot. Unfortunately, that's going to be one of those difficult discussions we're going to have. They now are 100% sure that what they have is a horrific murder. These boys, their bodies are not only found, but they're also bound. And they're bound in an incredibly unusual way. It's been described as hogtied, but I don't even think that's accurate. Left hand to left ankle, right hand to right ankle. They are tied with shoelaces taken from their own shoes. So there is no question that this is a horrific, brutal murder and that someone has taken very specific steps to try and cover up that crime. The police are going to make the Blue Beacon their staging area and they will come in actually from that side to avoid contaminating the crime scene, though, frankly, that's already happened. It is too late. The crime scene is wholly contaminated by 3:55 West Memphis utility. They are there, they are pumping out the creek and blocking it with sandbags because they know there's evidence in that water and they want to find it all.

[Alice]

Yeah, I, I want to go back to what you said about removing the boys. Remember, you know, there are protocols obviously when you come across a crime scene, but this is just so horrendous. I don't think anything quite prepares you to see young, young children, not only murdered, but treated in such a horrific manner. And they're still just young kids, right? I mean, they're still just eight year old boys at this point. They're naked in the water. There's nothing, of course that Detective Ridge can do for them in terms of saving their lives. But we see this, we saw this in the JonBenet case, right? When JonBenet was found by her father brought upstairs, what did her mother do? Throw herself on top of the body? Because there are just things that, that should not be little children. This should not ever happen to little children. I can imagine on a human level how difficult it would have been to just maintain where they are and not take them out of this horrific situation which was the water. Now, that afternoon, Vicki Hutchinson shows up at the Marion Police station. She's reporting there because she's been accused of petty theft from the truck stop where she works. She brought her son Aaron with her and Aaron was described as best friends with the boys. And an officer, Donald Bray, spoke to Aaron while his mother was in another room dealing with this like petty theft check issue that she had. Bray would say that Aaron told him things about the murder that he could not have known, including that the boys were drowned and that they were hogtied. We mentioned how technically they were not hogtied, but if you didn't know specifically, it's kind of close enough, right? In terms of. I think hogtied is actually hands to hands, legs to legs, and then hands and legs together or something like that. But what an unusual thing. At this afternoon, the boys had really just been discovered. There hasn't been a press conference about the state of which they were found. Now, Aaron would eventually give several interviews to the police, but as he is a young boy, each of his stories to the police become wilder and wilder. It becomes more fantastical and. And it's really hard to know if you can believe anything he says, not because he means to lie, but because he's a young boy. And this is probably the most traumatic and exciting thing that has possibly happened in this town and in their lives. And he knows these boys. Well, take that for what it's worth. But we do have potentially someone knowing information about the murders before they become public, and that's obviously very significant if true. Meanwhile, Steve Jones tells Officer James Sudbury that the crimes appear to have occult overtones and that there is only one person he can think of who might be involved. Damien Echols. Really quick, note the timeline. I know a lot of people have questioned, did the police create or make this case number ending in 666 because they had this narrative that they wanted to fit the occult. They already had their eyes on Damien, and then they wanted to make this all about the occult. So then they changed the number and it should have been like 665, but instead they made it case number 666. Note that they opened the case and the case number was 666. Several hours, maybe a day before the occult or Damien Echols was mentioned by any witnesses or by anyone reporting anything at this point. So I do think the timeline is interesting here. So that night, the police put out a bulletin over the police radio, which of course, the press was monitoring, especially of a case with a triple murder of young children. And the police say over the police radio, this department has a case of three male juveniles being abducted. They were found with their hands tied behind their backs and their genitals had been removed with a sharp, sharp instrument. Their bodies had been dropped in a remote area. Any department with a case similar to this, please advise this department. Attention Inspector Gitchell. All information appreciated. Note when this particular statement is put out the night of May 6th. Why is this important? If you've been following the timeline, you note that there are certain errors about the state of the boy's bodies in this statement. One that really jumps out is it just says their genitals had been removed. That's actually not what happened. We know that only one of the boys genitals had been removed. This is an error, whether intentional or unintentional. But this is going to be important because now this information is out there. Now, as far as the public is concerned, all of the boys had been mutilated in their genital area.

[Brett]

Yes. This will be hugely important because this is reported far and wide. This becomes a national story and a huge story across Arkansas. And Alice is right. This goes out. Gary Gitchell is angry that this went out, but there's an opportunity here because the misinformation is something they can use later on. We've talked about holdback evidence. It's kind of the opposite of holdback evidence. This is, we put the evidence out there, but it's wrong evidence. So if you have someone who comes in and says, I did it, or I was with a bunch of people who did it, we castrated all the kids, you know that person is lying. But if you have someone who shows up and says, I was with two other people who committed this crime and they castrated one person and I'm going to tell you who that person was. If you have an individual like that, that's the kind of confession that you say that sounds like maybe somebody who was actually there. And that is going to become incredibly important later on when we talk about the confession in this case. So we are now through the murders and the finding of the bodies. From this point forward, we're talking about the investigation. We're going to go through the timeline of the investigation and then, as I've said before, we're going to back up and we're going to talk in detail about a lot of these important things that happened. You guys have made it through four episodes. Congratulations. You probably only got another 16 to go before we reach the conclusion. But this case, it's a huge case. It is a famous case. It is an important case, and we're going to give it everything it deserves. And I get it. If you're not in it for the long haul, we'll see you in October. I love October. That's probably when this will be over. Congratulations. You can take a break. But if you're with us through this, I think this is going to be one of those cases we all talk about in our coverage of this case will bind us all together. We'll all get shirts. It'll be amazing. So I hope you're enjoying this. It's worth it. And I think every aspect of this case is so fascinating and I hope you guys are finding that as well. Let us know what you're thinking. Shoot us an email prosecutors pod gmail.com@projectspot for our social media. Join us on the gallery where we're discussing this case or join Patreon where you can hear us record these episodes early. Or if you don't want to watch them recorded, you will always get them early and ad free before they reach the public. Well, Alice, before we sign off for today, do you have anything else you want to add?

[Alice]

As you can see, we always say the timeline is everything. And by the time we get through timeline, a lot of questions are cleared up. There are still a lot of questions here. A lot of these things are still going to be unknowable. But I think the timeline that we have thus far, as faulty as it may be, as we've already stated, because there are certain things that just couldn't have happened at the same time. People misremember things. The timeline is based on contested testimonies. We know that. But even with a faulty timeline, things are becoming clear in terms of when this may have happened and who we can rule out. We still don't know based on this timeline who is ruled in. But I think there's beginning to be some sort of a who cannot have had done this. And I just continually go back to this. I it's almost impossible that this murder occurred in the manner that it did, but it did. And that's why I think has fascinated so many people for so long. And it will continue to fascinate because there will continue to be questions. And we're telling you now we're not holding back anything. There will be questions that are unanswered and that is going to be the reality of this case. And we have to come to our theories and our conclusions despite the fact that there are complete holes. We are called to do this every day in our lives as well, not just in these types of cases. And so this is unsatisfactory in that we're not going to be able to pull out some great piece of information on episode 15, like no one knew this before. We're not an investigative podcast. And that investigation, I think has long sailed because that evidence is gone by this point. So keep that in mind. Don't be frustrated by it. Accept it as a reality of the case file here and we have to move through it, recognizing that there are huge holes that we cannot know. But the things that we do know, we actually can make a lot of very intelligent guesses of what is possibly true and what cannot be true. So with that said, like, please keep coming back, don't be frustrated, but also keep in mind that there's a lot of unknowable in this case.

[Brett]

Yeah. And look, would this case be as famous as it is if that weren't true? There are mistakes the police made, lots of them. This investigation, I think, should probably have been turned over to the state police. It never was. And so you had this local police department, for whatever reason, trying to take the lead on this, getting some assistance from the FBI, some assistance from the state police, but trying to do this when they probably weren't really able. I mean, this case was so much bigger than they could ever have imagined. And that's why it's famous and that's why it's unsatisfying. Because if we could find satisfying answers, we wouldn't be talking about it. Right. I mean, that's the problem. The catch 22. So we're going to go through this. We're going to try and reach some sort of truth. But this is tough. This is a tough one. And we're going to do the best we can. But we hope you guys will be with us every step of the way, and we will continue that March next week. But until then, I'm Brett.

[Alice]

And I'm Alice.

[Brett]

And we are the prosecut. I mean, it could just be a backfire. I mean, look, they're right on the interstate. They're right next to the blue Beacon Truck wash. Maybe it doesn't mean anything. And, yeah, I mean, look, I hear gunshots all the time, but you can tell when it's close. I mean, I feel like if you say I heard gunshots, you mean I heard gunshots Close. You know, like, close enough to be frightening. Some people said they heard three or four gunshots. There's gunshots, like left and right. But it's late at this point. We're in the night time. Could just be typical urban environment. I don't. I feel like the gunshots aren't related personally or car backfires. Whatever they are, I feel like they're not related. Maybe they didn't want to have dead bodies in their car. Car. Jessica, I know you drive around with dead bodies all the time, but some of us are a little freaked out by that. Cats. Cats don't sound like gunshots. Come on cats sound like gunshots. Get it? Oh, cars. Okay, okay, that makes more sense. Sorry. Trying to imagine a cat making a gunshot noise. So Jessica, while we're on the topic, what do you stream all the movies and shows you love for free on Pluto tv? Say Wetna Showtime. That means drama is free with heart wrenching stories from love and basketball power and Greenleaf. In this family we live by the spirit and laughter is free with gut busting comedies like Pee and Peele, the Neighborhood, Everybody Hates Chris and Boomerang. Watch all the hits all for free from all your favorite favorite devices.

[Alice]

Oh my God, I love it.

[Brett]

Feel the free Pluto TV stream now. Pay Never.

[Alice]

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