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- [00:00]
Alice
For weeks now, New Jersey residents have been plagued by unexplained drones flying overhead.
- [00:05]
Brett
Is there intelligent alien life? And if so, has the government been covering it up?
- [00:10]
Alice
All right, UFO sightings the military can't explain, Congressional hearings, Pentagon whistleblower. What does it all mean?
- [00:18]
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.
- [01:02]
Alice
And I'm Alice.
- [01:04]
Brett
And we are the Prosecutors. Today on the Prosecutors, the investigation heats up in the case of the West Memphis Three. Hello, everybody, and welcome to this episode of the Prosecutors. I'm Brett and I'm joined as always, by my foolish co host, Alice.
- [02:05]
Alice
Brett. Don't worry, guys. You're listening to this probably months later, but today is April Fool's Day. And you know what? I hope everyone had a chuckle and didn't get mad at some fun. Fun chuckles. Did you get any tricks played on you today, Brett? Because I had several tricks played on me.
- [02:21]
Brett
I didn't. I didn't. And I'm kind of sad about it. I mean, I saw various jokes online, but they're always fun. And I just got to say, if you were upset about today's post, then I'm sorry. You're not going to get an actual apology. That's just the way. So I'm sorry that you're upset, but I'm not sorry that we did it.
- [02:45]
Alice
So for those of you who are following, no, we don't do it every year. That's part of the fooling. That's part of the fooling.
- [02:53]
Brett
Catch you. We've been doing this podcast like six years. We've only done three. April Fools.
- [02:58]
Alice
Exactly. You got to figure out there's no rhyme or rhythm when you are least expecting it. Wham. Fooled.
- [03:03]
Brett
When Joe pointed out the Tuesday fell on April 1, it was like, we have to do something.
- [03:07]
Alice
You have to do it. You have to do it. So we've been planning this for a very long time, but we are not so cruel as to have made the entire case a ho, as some were afraid we'd done. We had not gotten all of Patreon in on fooling you guys. We are still doing this case. It's probably 2028 by this point, and we're still doing the case, so we.
- [03:25]
Brett
Are still doing it. But hey, we are moving through the timeline and as I said in the introduction, we are really getting into the meat of it. And what's going to be interesting at this point, we're really going to fly through some things. We're going to mention a whole bunch of names. They're actually not important. They're just people that the police looked at in various times, things that they were told about different people. And one thing I think this should impress upon you is the just amount of information that was dumped on the police. And it's really interesting to see because this happens in a lot of cases, but you often don't see it. You know, we take the Adnan said case. I mean, there's no telling how many tips the police got, but you don't even really look at those because most of them, they just, they don't even like rise to the level of thinking about. But in this case, it is interesting to see sort of all these different tips that come in and what the police are dealing with. And I think that helps shade what ends up happening in this case. So with that said, Alice, why don't we go ahead and start?
- [04:26]
Alice
Sure. So last time we left off with Damien coming in and speaking with the police for the first time on May 10, and there was a lot happening in that interview. A lot of you guys said, why? Why follow these leads that he's giving? So when you get tips, you investigate them. Many tips you can just dispose of, but many of them you do have to follow up on. And if you missed our last episode, you should really go listen to the report on his interview because there is a lot of information that he is telling to the police that really do require follow up. And in fact, the police do follow up, but that's not the only lead they look into. They're looking down every single lead possible. This is one of the most horrific things that could have happened to this town. So the next day, on May 11, the police look into another suspect. This one is Chris Wall. Pam Hobbs had mentioned him as a 19 year old who lived on the corner of East Baldwin and Goodwin. And she said that he liked to hang out with younger kids. Wall is given the same barrage of questions as Damien Echols was. And he's also given a polygraph test, as are many people in this case, as you'll see now, Wall passes the polygraph test and he seems to have an alibi. And so the police eliminate him as a suspect. But we mention this because, you see, this is not honing in on one person, but rather they really are going down multiple leads and they treat them all the same. Same set of questions, same polygraph tactic, shall we say. But as we've said also, these police, they really do put a lot of stock into polygraph. And the fact that Wal seems to have an alibi and passes the polygraph, they pretty much say, okay, this is a dead end here.
- [06:08]
Brett
And if Wall's name is familiar to you, he is the witness who says he saw the kids going into Robin Hood Hills, I think at around 7 o'clock. I forget right now, but he is the one with the latest entrance of the kids into the forest. And he is also someone the police looked at as a possible suspect, as he should.
- [06:26]
Alice
If you are the last person to see anyone who disappears and it ultimately is murdered, you will absolutely be a suspect. So it was correct of them to look into him. But again, Damien Echols and Chris Wall aren't the only ones they're looking into. On that same day, Billy Newell calls the police to let them know that on the Monday before the murder, he had traded a knife to Jason Baldwin for some shirts. This is street trading, I guess. On May 10, he got home from work to find that Jason had returned the knife. Now, Billy says he immediately became suspicious that the knife was used in the murder and he called the police. One thing to note, this knife, it's not like a kitchen knife, it's an Indian kukri. So it's a special type of knife. In other words, it's not just some run of the mill steak knife or kitchen knife or shearing knife, something like that. And I will say whether he has any other sense of why he suspects this knife was used in the murder or not, remember what's happening. This is now public, right? There was a bulletin that night. This is horrific. Everyone is suspicious of everyone else because there hasn't been a suspect who's been arrested. Everyone's looking over their shoulders. Am I next? Are the other children in our neighborhood going to be preyed upon by the serial killer? And so everyone is on a heightened alert here. So I'm actually not surprised that he is suspicious of this knife. Whether this knife has anything to do with it, you know, we'll get more into.
- [07:50]
Brett
I am surprised that he is. I guess I'm not surprised. I just, I think it says something. I'm not sure what it says. Maybe it just says that the level of paranoia was so high in West Memphis at that Time. But it's striking to me that you would hear that 38 year olds were brutally murdered and you would think, I wonder if it was my friend who I traded that knife for shirts with. You know, like that. That is not the first thing that would necessarily jump into my mind. I would just think, oh, he must, he must have missed his shirts. But he's like, apparently thought that Jason was the kind of person who would use a knife to kill 38 year olds. Like I said, that may not mean anything, but as we have said before, Jason is always the person that most people are most skeptical of his involvement in the case because generally speaking, he's just not the kind of person, quote unquote, that would do this. But apparently this person who knew him thought there was at least a moment where he thought, I wonder if Jason's involved in this. I think that's interesting. It's not like it has a ton of weight, but I do think it's interesting.
- [08:56]
Alice
I think I don't know enough context about what made him suspicious. And oftentimes witnesses are not the best about articulating what causes them to suspect someone for it. And so that's fair. Fair to say he knew Jason and still said, I still, I think this had something to do with the murder. Whereas are certainly people in my life. I'm not sure you'd fall into the category that I would suspect nothing. I'm not going to lie. But there are people in my life where it would never even enter my mind. Right? So it's fair enough to say that he was someone who knew Jason and it was something to be thought of. But I will also note, to play the other side of that coin, everyone's also on heightened alert and we do often see a lot of tip lines being flooded with fault, not false, inaccurate or incorrect tips. Because people are so heightened, they're like, oh my goodness, what if I'm holding the murder weapon? So keep that.
- [09:46]
Brett
And just as an aside, this was not the knife. This knife definitely was not the knife involved in the case, but that's not really the point.
- [09:54]
Alice
So anyways, so the police are hot and heavy in their investigation. That same day, you can see there's a lot going on. This is not a large police department, Right? As we can tell from the night of the murders, there's one police officer who's responding to, you know, a domestic dispute to the Bojangles, potential mental situation with a bloody customer, to missing children, to an egging of a house. So you can see that they're doing a lot of work in a short amount of time because obviously there's pressure to figure out what happened. So also on that same day, the police look into Harold Allison, since he was known to have abused children. Allison stated that he hadn't been to Arkansas in years and declined to come in for questioning and a polygraph. So you can see how they're kind of trying to spread their net as widely as possible. Who could have possibly done this? Who would target eight young children and murder them in such a horrific and sadistic way?
- [10:52]
Brett
I think this also is a testament to the shotgun approach. This investigation, whatever it is, is not organized. So it may be thorough in ways, but it's not organized. Like, it doesn't feel like they are investigating the way you might expect. Typically, an investigation into a murder like this would start very close the victims. So the first thing you would do is eliminate all the family, and then you would move out. It's almost like concentric rings, right? So the family. Then you would eliminate friends of the family, friends of the kids, neighbors, people in the neighborhood. And then you would get to sort of your usual suspects like this. I mean, this is very much a usual suspect type person. Not even. Doesn't even seem like he's in Arkansas, and yet they're looking into him. It's very scattershot, much like the canvassing the neighborhood was kind of scattershot, much like nailing down the alibis was scattershot and nailing down the time when the kids went in the forest. And I say all this because whenever we do this, we're always accused of being, you know, we're so pro police and everything, because usually we disagree with the general attacks on the police. Probably not gonna be much different in this case. I think there's a lot of unfair attacks on the police in this case, but that doesn't mean the police didn't mess up in a way that has made this case much more difficult. And I think the way they've messed up is really in much more bare bones, basic investigative tactics. It is not true, for instance, that they're only focused on Damien Echols, and they're really trying to prove it's him. You can see that that's not true. They're devoting some effort to other people, but the way they're doing it is so just all over the place, and it doesn't seem like they really have any kind of plan.
- [12:33]
Alice
Right. And again, this tends to happen when, like, they're out of their league. Right. This triple, very few Jurisdictions, by the way, usually have to deal with a triple homicide of this nature. So it's not unusual that they don't know what to do. But you're right about the scattershot approach. And this also shows you that they really are investigating all over the place, right? Not just honing in on one person. And here we have yet another example of that. So the next day on May 12, the police speak to Michael Griffin, who. Who says that Michael and David Wren may have killed the boys to get into a cult. Now, Griffin mentions Murray Ferris and Chris Luttrell as the leaders of the cult. We've heard of both of these people earlier as this cult. So this is coming back to that same cult that Damian has also mentioned that he's been a part of.
- [13:23]
Brett
And you got the Wren brothers again, the Wren boys. I'm not sure they're brothers. I think they're brothers and they've come up before as well. And this is the other thing. So I hate to keep coming back to this, but it's such a focus of people in this case. Damian Echel's name is mentioned very early on and he eventually is charged with a crime. So the argument, sort of the backwards looking argument is, see, Damien Echel's tunnel vision. They mentioned him from the beginning and they charged him with a crime. So therefore they were always going to charge him. But there were other people whose names kept coming up in the beginning who were not eventually charged with anything. Michael and David Wren are two of them. Murray Ferris and Chris Luttrell or some others. And. And you see these names come up again and again. And there are people to this day who think maybe some of these other people were involved. Also on May 12, police investigate and eliminate a man named Kenneth Cagle. They also look into Steven Brown, a man who had committed cruelty to children and murder in the past and who lived nearby. So he's, you know, pretty good got to look at. But he apparently had an airtight alibi. And I gotta tell you, this guy. Okay, so they investigate Richard Cummings. Now, Richard Cummings is a local man who lives in the Mayfair apartments. He lives with his mother and he is known to drill holes in the walls so that he can peep on other women in the apartment complex. And the police are obviously interested in him for this reason. Also, when they talk to him, he seems very nervous. He also knows that the boys were beaten and that one of them had been castrated. Cummings works the night shift and said that he had woken up that day around 1pm and he sort of wandered around the block. He acknowledged that he would sometimes walk his dog in the Robin Hood Woods. So you got a guy who's sort of a known sexual offender who was in the area at the time, who has information about the boys who walked around the area and knew the Robin Hood Woods. So there's definitely some things that are interesting about this guy. So the police actually search his home and they find some interesting things. He had a number of knives, a club, and pictures cut from magazines that he kept in a box in his bedroom. These were pictures of female models from clothing catalogs. He also had a number of newspaper articles regarding the murders. So to me, this is one of those guys that I really feel like the police should have done a deep dive on. But for whatever reason, the police sort of eliminate him as a suspect fairly early on, say there's nothing connecting him to the murders, and they keep going. And maybe he has an alibi that I couldn't find. But I will say this about Richard Cummings and about this case in general. If at the end of the day you don't think the West Memphis three did this, then I think probably the people that are focused on the most probably didn't do it either. I think if the West Memphis three didn't do it and you eventually found out who did, I think that person's name would be in these files. It would be someone the police looked at briefly and moved on from. Richard Cummings is a pretty good alternative suspect. I don't see a lot written about him online or anything, but I don't really understand why he was not focused on more given his background.
- [16:54]
Alice
This is somewhat like the Gabby Petito case when she first went missing before she was discovered and there was this all out search for her at the point where people realized they were likely looking for a body rather than Gabby alive. And what did they do? They found a bunch of other bodies that were not Gabby that were unrelated to. A lot of people said, oh my goodness, they found eight bodies, is it? Or 10 bodies. Is this a serial killer who dumps in this area? The answer is no. It's that when you go digging, there are a lot of really interesting things you're going to find. And this includes creepy people as we have seen in this community. Now this is really difficult because you have to figure out what. Who are just creepy people on their own who have nothing to do with the case and who are creepy people who maybe you should look a little closer. And I agree on this one. I don't think he's just a creepy person. There's just way too many intersecting lines between what happens to the boys and him, Especially the fact that, I mean, who could his alibi be? He doesn't seem like he has a really big network. If he's collecting pictures of people in a box, his alibi is probably my guess. I don't know. I haven't seen this anywhere. But I'm guessing his mom, if he lives with his mom or something along those lines, someone who has an interest in probably covering for him is my best bet. But we can't go back in time and do the investigation for them. This is where the timeline has major flaws that we can't do anything about. And time has passed by that likely these holes cannot be fixed. And we point them out to you because I don't want to end this with this is unknowable. But there are some massive holes and massive lines of investigation that we cannot fill in for you. Now.
- [18:38]
Brett
I think one of the things the police were operating under is that these crimes were committed by more than one person, Whether it was a cult or a gang or just a couple guys. I think they really thought, three kids murdered. We need a couple people to do that. And I think now probably, if you talk to the FBI, they would probably say, actually, no, you don't really need more than one person for some kids to control some kids. But I think this guy was a loner. I think they could not imagine him having an accomplice. And so I think they moved on from him. And this is my speculation. I think they moved on him. On from him pretty quickly. And I think that's probably true of several of these people they looked at. So on May 13, they look into Robert Andrus, who was a man from California who had been arrested in the area and had an active warrant from Florida for aggravated child abuse. But he was able to show that he'd been in California the day of the murders. So obviously, he could not have committed them.
- [19:40]
Alice
So continuing their investigation on May 14th. Joanie Brown will later tell police that on this day, her friends Jennifer, Ashley and Whitney Nix told her at the skating rink, remember, that's where everybody hangs out. That a boy named Robert Burch told them. Is your head spinning yet? This is a lot of he said, she said, that he and Damien had killed the boys and that they would kill two more girls. So I think you begin to see the police are really trying to figure out where they need to focus. And this is not uncommon of things that we hear from Witnesses, especially ones who want to be helpful. It's not firsthand. It's not secondhand. It's not even really thirdhand. But she hears from the skating rink where the kids all hang out that Robert Burch and Damien had killed the boys and they were going to kill more people. Joanie would also claim to have seen Damien, Jason and Jesse enter the skating rink and stay there together until it closed. This is interesting because she's putting those three together right now. But Joni later changed her story to say that it was Damien who said he killed the boys, not Robert. Nix told police that she did not hear a confession. So again, this is not firsthand, not even secondhand. It's a little further removed than that.
- [20:52]
Brett
And I think this is a good example of how just because somebody says they heard someone say something doesn't mean it necessarily happened. I mean, don't be offended by this, but this is the most exciting thing that happened in West Memphis in a long time. And everybody was talking about it and everybody was involved in it, and everybody thought Damien was creepy and dangerous. And so I think stories sort of naturally developed here. And like Alice said, I mean, this is hearsay to hearsay to hearsay. The police basically go talk to Whitney Nix, and she says, I never said that. So that breaks that chain. Doesn't seem like they ever talked to Jennifer Ashley, but I don't put a lot of stock in what Joanie Brown says she heard at the skating rink. It won't be the last time the skating rink comes up.
- [21:31]
Alice
Although he didn't remember the exact date on the same day, Jason Crosby, who had known all three boys, that being Damien, Jason, and Jesse, and had all three spend the night at his house at various times, told police that he was at the skating rink when Jason and Damien showed up together. And they were shortly joined by Jesse Misskelley, along with a girl he did not recognize. After skating for a while, Jason joined them at a table they were sitting at. Damian mentioned that the police were hassling him about the murders, but he did not say he committed the crime. So all we have here, really, is that Jason knows all three of them, knows all three of them, to at least be friendly with each other, hang out as the three. But I guess you could say, if given the opportunity to confess, he didn't confess it there at the skating rink.
- [22:21]
Brett
And once again, the level to which they hung out is important because. Harken, back to the Adnan Saad case. One of those questions is just how close was Jesse Misskelley? To the other two. This is not a piece of evidence that directly connects him to the murder, but it puts all three of them together. So it's sort of one of those things that shapes the way the police are viewing the case. So police will interview Robert Burch. Robert Burch is the one that the girl said they overheard saying that he and Damien had killed the boys. Burch told police that he'd heard that the Wrens had committed the crime. The Wrens are back, though. He also said that Jason Baldwin had told him that police thought he and Robert had committed the crime. So he's saying, I heard the Wrens did it, but Jason Baldwin said, the police think I did it with Jason Baldwin. Robert told police that the only friends of Jason's he knew were Jesse Misskelley and Charles Ashley, which is weird because everybody knew that Jason was friends with Damien Echols. Charles Ashley had been with Misskelley the night of the murders up until the police were called at Stephanie dollar. So he'd been running around with Jesse at that time. So at this point, David Wren is brought in, he is polygraphed, and he passes. Police do take hair samples from David. He's an early suspect, but subsequent investigations would confirm David's alibi. So the Wrens, who were the focus of a lot of speculation early on, start to fall away. Now, Robert himself, Robert Burch, he didn't really have an alibi for the night of the murders. He had gotten home from work at around 4:10 and couldn't really account for his time after that. Okay, so then on May 14, police interview Charles Carter, who is a known sex offender in the area. But he has an airtight alibi on May 15th. So Jesse Misskelley. Why were the police interested in Jesse Misskelley? Well, Jesse interjects himself into this case fairly early on. And what's interesting about this is how does this cut? Because one of the things we're going to get to the point at some point where Jesse is going to confess to this crime, he's going to go to the police. And it's been said the reason he went to the police in the first place was because he wanted some of the reward money. And that is somewhat bolstered by the story I'm about to tell you. On the other side, this could be Jesse Mescali attempting to put blame on someone else. But in any event, on May 15, David Sims, Dennis Carter, and Jesse Misskelley tell the police that they saw a man chasing some boys across a railroad track in the area of the Robin Hood Woods. And they identify this person as Tracy Laxton. And so this is something the police are going to look into. But this is Jesse's first entry into this case, is when he contacts the police on his own.
- [25:21]
Alice
So the next day, on May 16, Brandy Wilson tells police that she was at Skate World when Jason and Damien, along with their girlfriends, were there. Now, she says she overheard Damien talking about what they had done to the three boys and Jason was laughing. Now, okay, Brandi was 12 years old at this time, so take it with a grain of salt. But Brandi did describe this as happening on a Friday and said Damien was wearing what she described as a devil sign necklace. And in fact, Damien and Jason were at Skate world on Friday, May 7, and Damien had gone to the mall earlier that day with Chris Littrell. He would later tell police, remember, that he'd purchased that pentagram pendant at the mall on May 8th. Though this obviously could be Damien misremembering the exact date or alternatively, intentionally delaying the date of the purchase. But I want to go back to this Skate World and Brandy overhearing. So she is young, she's 12. Although old enough to be Damien's girlfriend or one of his many girlfriends. Not that she is just he likes young girls. Those of you who grew up in the 80s and 90s, if you ever went to a skate park, which I had spent time at, they're loud, there's music playing. You have like disco balls and there's music and there's obviously people talking and there's the sound of skates and everything. So she's not saying that she's part of this conversation. She's saying she overhears it. Now, I'm just gonna play this out. It very well may be that she heard exactly what she heard. And they were laughing about how they murdered the boys. That's very possible. It's also possible that they are talking about the murders and laughing about how the boys died. Because honestly, Damien is. He likes to push people's buttons, right? I can see boys, 18 year olds, 17 year olds, basically being, you know, a bunch of hotshots, talking about the biggest gossip in town or something like that and laughing about it. So take it all with a grain of Salt because she's 12 and she's overhearing this at the skate park. But we also know of Damien to say explosive things. And I think it's very possible that she may have heard exactly what she's reporting, but it may not be exactly what's Being said, if that makes sense.
- [27:33]
Brett
So one thing that's interesting about this human memory and how flawed it is, especially over time. So I tried to get in touch with Brandi Wilson to see about this story and exactly what Damien said. I couldn't get in touch with Brandy Wilson, but I got in touch with her mom, who was in the room during the police discussion with Brandi about what happened. And her mom has no recollection of this ever happening. And I was like, you don't remember going to the police station with your daughter to talk about whether or not she overheard a triple murderer describing the murder? And she's like, nope, don't remember it all. Which I thought was kind of fascinating. Brandy now lives in, like, South America, so not gonna be getting in touch with her. But nevertheless, yeah, her mom didn't remember at all. This is what's crazy. Her mom remembers the day of the murder seeing two backpackers, one of them with the largest orange backpack she ever saw, walking down the interstate near the Robin Hood Hills. She remembers that to this day and remembers reporting that to the police, but does not remember this occurring with her daughter. So what are you gonna do?
- [28:43]
Alice
Here's the thing then. So I wonder if the conversation was something more innocuous than what it is now reported. I wonder if it were more, I saw them together and I overheard them talking and they were laughing. Honestly, I would remember going to the police with my 12 year old daughter, but it has been a long time. And if it were just something as. Did you see them together? I saw them together. So I wonder if it was something more innocuous than what it has turned out to be now. I don't know. That's really interesting that she would not remember something like this.
- [29:13]
Brett
Well, so we have the transcribed interview from Brandy Wilson. I mean, as you said, she's 12 or 13, right? It is very, very, very hard to follow because she basically says that, you know, Jason's there, Domini's there, Damien's there, and she's sitting there and Damien's sitting next to her. And so she can. She can overhear what's said. And I was just listening and he said that he had something to do with these three boys. And him and Jason just started giggling and laughing. And so the police are like, so what exactly did he say? And she never can get to it. And the police keep trying to bring her back to like, so what exactly did he say? And supposedly he was saying this to Domini and Jason. So I think you're probably right. I think it's very vague, and I.
- [30:08]
Alice
Will say it's easier to read than I can imagine it would be to listen, because we can hone in on the parts that are like, oh, this is an important line. But having been in these types of interviews where the witness is just swirling around like, what's really important. Not on purpose, because she's 12 and because she wasn't part of the conversation, she's only overhearing. I can imagine her mom. All her mom hears, because her mom hears her talk all the time is like, what? You are at the skate park and a bunch of guys are giggling.
- [30:35]
Brett
So.
- [30:36]
Alice
And that's what the mom hears. But what the police hear are they're giggling because. And then they impart their own investigation into the words of what Brandy is not saying. That's what I'm thinking may have happened here.
- [30:49]
Brett
So mom is in the room, even though she doesn't remember this, and the police officer says, did you tell your mother what you heard? And she says, yes, so. And it's Allan, by the way, Detective Allen. So he now turns to the mom, and this is what she says. Well, the girls did say something about it that night that we came home, but they didn't nothing the kids or nothing like that. Just like there was some weird boys there and a couple of other things went on. But no, I know we all really didn't talk about it or nothing until Mr. Bray called. So I think you pretty much put your finger on it.
- [31:23]
Alice
This is where interpretation really matters a lot. This is why we say go to the sources, right? This is why rule of evidence matters in the court of law. Because people tend to interpret or read into statements all the time. Not because the police are malicious, because they're thinking about the murders, and they may have other knowledge that Brandi doesn't have. And they may be reading more into this than is actually there. But the fact that Brandy's mom has now heard this twice the night of, even if she can't remember it, and with Detective Allen, and now, however many years later, she can't remember at all. And I think it probably fell more into the. I heard them giggling. It's like, when do you not giggle when you're 12 or 17 or 18? This is a small lesson in a lot of these. He said, she said, or I overheard things. We don't have anything that we can, like, really put our money on yet. Yet. Okay. So the next day, on May 17, in Oceanside, California, far away, obviously from West Memphis, police pick up Christopher Morgan, who's 19, and Brian Holland, who's 20. And they're doing this for West Memphis Police. Now, the Oceanside Police Department are told that Morgan had lived next door to one of the victims and the two had left town shortly after the murders. Morgan tells the OPD that he didn't actually know any of the boys, even though he lived close to them. But on this point, he was inconsistent. He also said he had been to Stevie Branch's house, but only with a friend who knew the family. But he also said he'd once driven an ice cream truck and had met all the boys and he knew where they lived in relation to his friend Lisa. So obviously, the reason they're looking into him is if you're leaving suddenly, it could be suspicious because you may be trying to flee the scene, flee detection, etc, and two things could be happening here. He may really not know those boys despite living next to them. I'm guilty of that. I don't know all of my neighbors very well. But the other things he talks about is inconsistent with completely not knowing someone. Right. He's like, I met them when I was in an ice cream truck. Doesn't sound like that. Sounds kind of creepy when you're investigating a triple homicide. And he says, in fact, I've been to Stevie Branch's house, but not because I was invited or I was there for myself. I was just there with a friend. Those things can all be true, and you can still not know someone very well. But we're trying to understand really, to what extent he knew them. And I will say those are kind of inconsistent with completely not knowing someone, especially when you know where all three of them live.
- [33:57]
Brett
It only gets worse. So Morgan says the trip to California had been planned for months. So that would, you know, that takes the sting out of they left a few days after the murders and that they had left on May 10. And Holland would generally tell the same story. There's a problem with this. Despite claiming to have planned the trip for months, Morgan did not tell his sister that they were coming because he, quote, wanted to surprise her. I mean, maybe. Right. Both men were given a polygraph by Marshall Gaines, who was a former polygrapher for the LAPD and former chairman of the California association of Polygraph Examiners. So you would think if there's anybody who's actually going to be able to do this would be him. On all relevant questions, he found the two men to be deceptive. So you know how this goes. We do the initial interview, talk to him for a little While do the polygraph, tell them they failed. Now we bring him in for the second interview where we're really going to put the screws on. And during the second interview of Morgan, he became more and more nervous. At one point when he was alone in the room, he sort of paced about it before placing a tissue over the cameras so he couldn't be seen. Shortly after this he loses it. And this is how it's described in the report. Morgan became very hostile, saying, what do you want me to do to lie to you? I'm going to lie. I'm going to lie. I killed them and all that other bullshit. I don't know how he did it, which I see him as talking about the other person. I quickly asked him, the officer who's right in the report. I quickly asked him who did it. He stated I don't know. Whoever the f Killed them. I then asked him, how do you think it happened? He said I don't know. They were just 10ft apart from each other in the swamp, in the ditch. I don't know how they killed them. Now what's interesting about this is remember one of the boys is found a little bit aways away, more than 10ft from the other boys. So they were, they were separated, but anyways he keeps going. I then asked, how do you know they were found 10ft apart? Morgan responded, because it was in the newspaper. Now it was not in the newspaper. That part was not a newspaper by the way. But anyways, it should be noted at this point in the interview there was tissue over the video camera. Morgan was standing on a chair with both of his arms extended wall to wall in a very hostile dominant position. Morgan said spontaneously, well, maybe I freaked out. Then I blacked out and killed the three little boys and then effed them up the ass or something. I asked, maybe you blacked out. Morgan said, maybe I could have. There's no telling what happened. Morgan then asked, do you have a hypnotist? I again stated, maybe you did black out. And then he responded, well, maybe. I asked him if it was possible he could have done it. He immediately responded no. Morgan added, I've never hurt anyone intentionally. Ask maybe there's two sides to you. Morgan responded, maybe I'm Chris and Hyde. So I mean definitely suspicious.
- [36:51]
Alice
You basically read that interrogation. I can't follow it.
- [36:56]
Brett
Like I. Oh yeah, he's.
- [36:58]
Alice
I mean he, he confesses and he doesn't confess and it doesn't make sense. And he talks about they and then himself and then I will say based on the way that we chit chat. I think a great tactic if I'm ever interrogated is just to talk stream of consciousness because no one will be able to figure out what's going on. And I. I really can't figure this out. Just like in Brandy's interview as well. A lot of these witnesses, it's like, what is happening. Like people speak in stream of consciousness often. And also in Morgan's case, there's something else going on, obviously, like mentally, there's. Whether it's extreme duress, stress, what have you, or guilt, there's obviously a lot going on that is making him very difficult to understand.
- [37:37]
Brett
Yeah, I mean, I will say this. Jessica just mentioned this in the chat. One thing, it was almost like, you know, Chinese water torture where they drop the water on your head until it drives you crazy. And this is almost like that, but with the officer talking. So the interviewer just never stops talking. He never shuts up. He's just. There's no point where he sort of sits back and says, why don't you tell me what happened? He's just constantly asking questions. And I kind of feel like that he drives Morgan crazy. This never his never ending stream of consciousness, as you were saying. So I don't know, it's hard to say obviously what exactly is going on here, but this is not what one would call a coherent confession. Even in a case where there are some weird confessions, this one is pretty out there.
- [38:23]
Alice
So remember, Morgan is picked up along with Holland. So Holland is also questioned, but he's far more calm than Morgan. I don't think it takes a lot to be calmer than what Morgan was worked up to be. And he denied any involvement in the murder. He said he knew the boys were bound. He said he indicated by taking his left hand to his left ankle, then his right hand to his right ankle, showing the binding positions, and then changed both hands to the center of his legs, demonstrating someone being tied. So interestingly enough, as you remember, people often say that the boys were hogtied, but it wasn't hogtied. It was this. Left hand to left foot, right hand to right foot, then bound together. And interestingly, that's how Holland describes them being bound. Although I don't think at this point that particular fact of how they were bound was made public. So it goes without saying that the police were very interested in these two characters. And Detective Gitchell's notes reflect that he believed they knew a lot more than they were telling. He also noted that Brian Holland was the weaker of the two, which is somewhat surprising because he writes, chris Morgan, quote, seems to be psycho. And he later noted that OPD describes him as crazy and that he was easily set off, as you can tell from this interrogation, that he was easily set off. Now, police believed them both to be gay, which increased their suspicion because obviously that was outside of the mainstream at the time. And we do know that these boys, there were allegations that they had been violated and certainly there was sexual mutilation. So there's an absolute interest. This is why they've been looking at other suspects who had criminal histories. They had abused other children because of the way these boys were treated. This wasn't just like a rage murder. There was much more going on here.
- [40:20]
Brett
You know, obviously these two are very interesting. They're going to come up again at some point. The defense attorneys are actually going to want to bring them in and put them and call them to the trial to make them testify. Their attorneys indicated that if required to do that, they would plead the fifth. And the one thing you can't do in a trial is you can't call someone that you know is going to plead the fifth. And, you know, you may think that's weird, but you just can't do that. So they end up not being called. Now, one of the reasons that the police eventually lost interest in them and the judge wasn't that interested in them either, is it turned out they had a pretty good alibi for that night, or at least they had an alibi. They were out of the area. They'd gone to some bars, I think, in Memphis that night. Like I said, we're going to talk about them a little bit later. But the police are very interested them initially, and then that is going to sort of wane as they continue with this investigation.
- [41:19]
Alice
Wendy Holm, of what Memphis, Tennessee, would tell the police that she spent the whole day with the two men and that they'd started at the Mississippi river, gone to one of their houses, and then went clubbing at the Red Square in Memphis until 2 or 3am now, this is pretty good of an alibi. So the police do eventually clear them, but they're going to come back up later, as Brett noted, because, I mean, you can see why there's a lot of smoke there and why, if I'm the defense, I definitely want to latch onto them as the some other guy did it, because they're very interesting. But this also shows you that those who are, I don't know, mentally predisposed to being pushed over the edge, as Morgan Was he's been described by the police as being kind of on the edge and able to be pushed over the edge. You have a bad interrogator or good, some may call that good if you get a confession out of it. Except that I don't think it's a coherent confession. You can get a lot of noise. And let's say that Holland and Morgan have nothing to do with this case. You still have to deal with what they say because it's interesting and it's a lot of noise and it's a lot of smoke, certainly. But the police have to keep moving on. If they don't have more, if they are alibis and they're able to be cleared, they continue to investigate. And this is giving you an insight, by the way, into these types of cases. We saw it in real time, sort of, because we were not privy to the entire file. But we saw this with, like, the Delphi murder investigation. It is very tough work going down all of these investigative leads and coming to dead ends. And you eventually have to clear someone or leave it open. But you can't leave everything open indefinitely or you never circle in onto the truth. So I note this because there are a lot of interesting characters in this case. There are a lot of interesting characters in all investigations, and we're naming all of them to show what the police did, but also because, of course, we're trying to make sure that we have the right people in mind here.
- [43:13]
Brett
So the police continue to look. May 18, they look into Anthony Barnes, but they discover he has an airtight alibi. May 25, they look into Charles Craig, but they also quickly eliminate him as a suspect. On the 26th, it seems like they may have had a break in the case. William Jones tells the police that Damien got drunk and told him that he had killed the boys, cut them and molested them. Damien told him that he had sex in the rear with them. The next day, Damien found William. So he gets drunk. He tells him this. Then the next day he finds him and tells him none of that was true. He was just drunk. So that sounds really good. And the police and the prosecution are looking forward to using William Jones in a coming trial. Gonna have him testify. It would turn out. I'll say this with a caveat, but it would turn out that Jones just really didn't like Damien and he had made the whole conversation up. Prosecutors would not discover this until Jesse Misskelley's trial, the very eve of trial. And it really upset them. I think Jones was supposed to be One of the last witnesses in that case. Now, here's the thing. I say that with a caveat. Ron Lacks was a private investigator who worked for the defense. And if there is one person, you know, you always hear about the police and the prosecutors as strong armoring witnesses. They're forcing them to say what they want them to say, to recant what they don't want them to say, et cetera, et cetera. Right. Ron Lacks was a world class investigator and he was very good at talking to witnesses, convincing them to admit they had been lying. So if you've seen Paradise Lost, that moment where it's after Ms. Kelly's trial and the prosecution is talking to the family and they're telling them, if Ms. Kelly doesn't testify, this is what we have. And they go through and they mention the softball girls, and one of the parents actually makes an offhand comment. I can't remember what exactly what he says. But they haven't convinced them not to testify yet or something like that. And one of the prosecutors kind of laughs. Well, that's what he's talking about. So William Jones was one of the people that Ron Lags talked to and convinced not to testify. That doesn't mean that William Jones isn't telling the truth here, that he didn't like Damien and he made it up. But this was something that started to kind of dog the prosecution at some point with people recanting on their stories after they spoke to Ron lacks. So on May 27, based on a tip, the police interview Jeffrey Looney. They ask him about a number of potential suspects, including Damien Eccles. He is cleared after a polygraph and his alibi is confirmed. He also mentions Stephen Skaggs of his own volition when asked if he knows anyone crazy enough to do this. Police had previously received a tip about Skaggs, but they had cleared him at that time. And this mention by Jeffrey Looney was not enough to reopen that investigation.
- [46:13]
Alice
All of these people are pointing fingers at each other, by the way, and it's interesting to see what relationship they have within each other as well. But on that same day, May 27, Aaron Hutchinson's mom, Vicky, brings him into the police station, where he tells the cops a rather unbelievable story about a number of men who haunted the Robin Hood woods. And he thought maybe these men could have killed the boys. Now, Aaron's story is wild, and it gets wilder each time he speaks to the police. And we'll talk about what he says in more detail later. But at the time, Vicki is telling police that she began her own investigation into the murders, which brought her into contact with Damien Echols through her friend Jesse Misskelley. Note, she's not just saying, I have information. She's saying, I'm investigating this basically, like, alongside you guys. And her connection is Jesse Misskelley. So she tells police that Jesse and Damien took her to a nest spot some distance from West Memphis, and the police will plant a recording device in her home. Because she basically says, put me in, coach. I'm going to be undercover for you guys. And they take her up on it, and she's basically wants to, like, lured Damien into a confession. So they give her this recording device in her home. She gets Damien to come over to her house, and she does this by basically putting out a bunch of books on witchcraft on her, like, coffee table, to, I guess, lure him in, to attract him. So instead of she got from the library that she got from the library she didn't buy. So there's like. There's like, the barcode. This is like, I don't know if you're in a white van and, like, trying to offer candy to kids, I guess she's like, he likes the occult. I want him to talk about how the occult made him do this. So she puts these library books of witchcraft on her, you know, living room table and has Damien come over. And I guess the plan was to see if he would confess to her, but the recording picks up nothing but noise in the room. So this is not your typical undercover, shall I say. Typically, we have, like, people go undercover to do a drug buy, not so much a witchcraft confession. So Vicki is an interesting person that we will obviously talk more about a lot more about later.
- [48:37]
Brett
You may recall Vicki has those credit card fraud charges. That's why she's talking to the police. And her son was supposedly, and I think this is accurate, very good friends with the three boys who were murdered and was often with them. And Vicki will say that he wanted to go with him that day, but she wouldn't let him go. But Aaron will also tell a very lurid tale about what happened that day. And the Aaron Hutchinson angle to this case, which we'll talk about more, is disturbing because he's basically another victim here now. He's a mental victim. The mental damage done to him by this is pretty significant. But you can understand why the police had to question him based on what his mom's saying. Based on what he's saying. Vicki's doing this whole thing. She actually. She didn't have a library card, so One of the police officers gave her his so she could go check out the books, these witchcraft books. So, and Damien will later say that this crazy lady, he didn't know why Jesse wanted him to talk to her. He didn't know why he was there. I buy all that, frankly. I think this was probably a very strange interaction with Vicki, who by the way, is a grown woman with a child who for some reason, much like Damien, is hanging out with a much younger person, Jesse Misskelley. And she will continue to do that. He was her friend, she said, and she really helps put the nail in his coffin.
- [50:04]
Alice
There are more interesting characters who are going to enter this investigation. Fast forward to June 2nd. A report is made of an incident in which Aaron Hutchinson is shown a photo spread of suspects to see if he recognizes any of them. The photos are of Frankie Knight, Jerry Nearns, Murray Ferris, L.G. hollingsworth, Tracy Laxton, James Martin and Michael Letter. None of the West Memphis three who are convicted are listed as in the lineup. However, the Transcript from the May 27 interview includes a time when a lineup is shown to Aaron. And the names aren't given in the transcript, but they appear to be numbered 1 through 10. Seven names are listed above that I just said. So it's unclear who the other three are, though it is possible that it is the West Memphis three. So that night, Jesse spends the night at Vicki Hutchinson's home. Again, I had to like look back on all the ages, like, why is this teenager spending the night at like a woman's house who has a. An 8 year old child, but he spends the night there? And Vicky told him she had a prowler the night before and she was afraid, which is why she asked Jesse to stay the night with her to provide protection.
- [51:25]
Brett
And you know, Vicki, I mean, it's almost like Judas or something. Like she that night, he stays with her the next day, he's going to be brought in for questioning on June 3rd. And so the police, you know, she said this to him about the whole Damon Echols thing. They also have Jesse making this statement about seeing the guy at the railroad track. So at some point they're going to talk to him and they bring him in for questioning. They talk to his dad, his dad gives his approval because Jesse's under 18, all that jazz. So they process Jesse for the interview at 10am and so between 10:30 and 11am he is read and waives his Miranda rights and his father gives permission for the police to question him. So between 10:30 and 12:30, Jesse will take a polygraph and we're going to go into a lot of detail about this entire incident, but right now I'm just giving you sort of how it went. He takes a polygraph and Bill Durham, the officer administrating it, finds that he is deceptive on all relevant questions. At some point between 12:40 and 1:30, the reporting differs. Gitchell and Allen begin to question him. By 2:40, Jesse has implicated Damien Echols and Jason Baldwin in the murders. The recorded interview began then and concluded at 3:18pm after this, the three will be arrested. Now, it's worth noting that the Innocence Project describes this as a 12 hour interrogation. This appears to have originated with a hyperbolic statement from Jesse's father that no one ever bothered to check. The total interview doesn't even last that long and only some subset of that interview is the interrogation itself. So he actually talks to him three or so hours. We're going to get into the exact length of time and how significant that is. Later we talk about this in detail. But this is the moment Jesse Misskelley confesses. And after that the police, they have what they need. Now the investigation is over. They know who did it and they're going to arrest all three of them. And from that point forward, the investigation is very much about continuing to gather evidence against who will become The West Memphis 3. Damien Echols, Jason Baldwin and Jesse Misskelley. On June 7, Sherry Gilbert tells police that two days after the boys were found, her nephew William Jones, who you may recall, told her that Damien Echols, Jason Baldwin and a third unknown person had killed the boys. I mean, pretty significant. But Jones, you may recall, will later tell police that he made up the story and he will do this after a visit from Ron Lacks. I have tried to find this guy because this is a guy I'd like to talk to. I've now been successful in finding him. William Jones, if you're listening, would really like to know exactly what happened here because if his story were true, I mean, you can see why the prosecution wanted to call him. You know, if he's saying Damien told me that he and two other people did this, one of whom was Jason Baldwin, that's a pretty significant thing. Two days after the murders, but he recants. He never has testified to this and sort of just disappears into the ether. Alright guys, we're going to stop for now. We are closing in on the end of the timeline. We might even get through it next episode. And once we finish the timeline, then we're going to start diving into a lot of the details that we're glossing over at this point because we are glossing over a lot of stuff because we're trying to get through what happened and we're six episodes in and still going. So there has to be some glossing. Don't worry. We're going to talk about all the things that you want to talk about, all the things you're screaming at your radio. We will discuss before we finish with this. Interested to hear what you think so far. Shoot us an email. Prosecutors podmail.com prosecutors pod for all your social media, the gallery's hopping talking about this case. Join the conversation there. If you want the episodes early and ad free, you can join Patreon if you want to. You can even watch us record these episodes live. So take advantage of that if you are interested. Well, do you have time for a question or what?
- [55:24]
Alice
Let's do it.
- [55:25]
Brett
Yes, let's do it. Okay. One person wants us to run against Tommy Turval. I don't know if you saw that.
- [55:31]
Alice
As a joint ticket.
- [55:33]
Brett
I guess. I guess you know Brent Alice for governor, right?
- [55:36]
Alice
Yeah. Braless. I don't think you have two governors, so there you go. You can like sign with the right hand and I'll just like wave with the left.
- [55:45]
Brett
If we were married, you could be the first first lady or whatever, right?
- [55:49]
Alice
We're not married. For those of you still confused, I'm.
- [55:53]
Brett
Always interested by the questions that folks like to ask. Okay, so this person would like to know how they want to know how we balance attempting to be popular and successful with controversy.
- [56:08]
Alice
I know the exact answer we both.
- [56:09]
Brett
Have and connections to people who are controversial. That's what they want to know. And some my four meanies you can.
- [56:16]
Alice
Answer for yourself, but I think I know what you're going to say. So our friends are our friends because they're nice people. We don't distance ourselves or draw ourselves closer to people because we perceive them to be controversial or powerful. We are friends with people because we like them. So that's number one. So if you are a good person, we like you. If you aren't a good person, we probably won't like you. So number one, I don't rank my friends based on the power I perceive I get from them or how much shunning I will get in the public square. Number two, we have never, never tried to be successful. As you can tell, we ramble on and on and we do cases that people like and don't like. So I would say I truly do this Podcast because we have way too many other things. Those of you who are joining us new, we have full time jobs, so many children between us now, and, you know, spouses and other life commitments that this is truly, like, fun for me. So I don't do this to pursue, like, to be popular. If anything, it just makes people hate us more. But I do this because I get to do something really fun at the end of the day with my best friend.
- [57:27]
Brett
No, that's nice. Yeah, no, I mean, that's exactly right. I don't care what other people think. And no, I mean, I don't. Have we been successful? Yes, we've been very blessed. And this, this has been more successful than I think either one of us could have imagined. But one thing we've always been committed to is if it's successful, it will be because you wonderful people enjoy us talking about these cases. We're not going to seek popularity or more listeners by coming to a conclusion or by cutting out someone people don't like. That's not going to happen. And if that loses us listeners, that's fine. I mean, would we have more listeners if we said Adnan was innocent and that Karen Reed is a martyr? Probably. Would I be able to live with myself? No, because neither of those.
- [58:16]
Alice
Would I keep doing it? No, because then I would, like, what's the point? I literally, every minute, both of us, like, current state, right now I have a baby monitor while I record and you literally have a newborn sitting next to you. Every minute that I don't spend with my kids better count. And this counts. That's what I mean. This absolutely counts. But it wouldn't count if I did it for any other purpose than that. I truly enjoy thinking critically about these cases, correcting misinformation. And if that's popular or not, like, so be it. But at least I can, you know, look at myself and be like, oh, yeah, I read that as it was. And by the way, both of us, I think, have, like, lived our whole lives like this, and this is what you will find. I think we learned this from Taylor Swift, sometimes for doing the exact same thing. Some people will love you, and then the next year everyone will hate you. But you may be the exact same person. And that's why you cannot live for the masses. Because, I mean, that's not truth and that's not enduring.
- [59:18]
Brett
I mean, look, there were people who loved our Adnan coverage and hated our coverage of the Bone Valley case. You know, they thought Leo Schofield was absolutely guilty and just couldn't believe that we would dare to suggest that he wasn't guilty. I mean, I just don't care. And then, you know, I'll give you one example, because I. I see the Karen Reid people all the time. One person said they loved our podcast until the last episode of Karen Reed, and they couldn't listen anymore. And what you're saying, when you say that, what you're saying is you don't actually want us to tell you what we think. You want us to lie to you so that you'll be happy. I'm not going to do that. And like I said, that's always been our promise to you. We're going to tell you what we think. The unvarnished truth. Not for profit or popularity or anything. So for us, it is really easy, like Al said, to balance that, because it's not a balance. We like who we like. You know, I don't care if you like the murder sheet or not. I like the murder sheet. And we're going to keep talking about the murder sheet, and they're going to keep being on our show. That's just the way it is. And you can either accept that or you can move on. And either one's fine because it's your time, too, and your time is super valuable, and you should only be doing something you enjoy if you know, and so make those choices for yourself. But for us, it's the truth or nothing.
- [60:35]
Alice
This will be. This is not meant to be, like, because the person who asked this question. Great question. I think that is a very valid question that a lot of people, not just in podcasting but in life, think that they have to balance, right? They think they have to choose, like, who they hang out with or who they associate themselves with. And first of all, that's an exhausting way to live. So I encourage you not to do that. But also, like, I don't know that that seems like an unfun way to do something that should be fun, right? It's not that we don't care what you think. It's that we take it into account. And one thing that I think, a lot of us, I know I'm guilty of this, and this podcast has helped me change. It's okay to have opinions. That's what an opinion is. It's yours. It doesn't mean you have to thrust it on someone else. It doesn't mean that anyone who disagrees with you is a moron or stupid or unworthy of having a debate with or having a conversation with, but it is okay. To have an opinion and to defend it vigorously. Right. And that is actually, at the end of the day, what I think people are most offended about, especially with me. I don't know. Women can't have opinions. They get really mad when we express opinions forcefully. Sometimes I'm not so sure. My opinion's like, I'm a little lukewarm about this, and I'll let you know. But sometimes I'm like, no, I feel very strongly about this. This is wrong, or this is right, or this is truth or whatnot. And I'll let you know. And we have always committed saying, we love disagreement. You don't have to agree with us. In fact, if you agreed with us 100% of the time, maybe you're not critically thinking, because I know I'm not right all the time. I think I'm right all the time, but I'm not right all the time.
- [62:14]
Brett
What Alice said, stop it.
- [62:16]
Alice
But this is me encouraging, especially ladies. We love to be people pleasers. I fall into this camp. I was afraid to express my opinion about anything in life for a long time. How many times was I asked, what do you want for dinner? I don't know. Whatever you want. No, like, if you want steak, have steak. If you don't want steak, don't have it. So I think a lot of things that I had to overcome that actually our 1 stars absolutely hate about us, me specifically, is having an opinion.
- [62:46]
Brett
And look, I think Alice is the absolute truth, and the proof's in the pudding. If you go back and listen to our earlier episodes, Alice was always great, but I think you've really come out of your shell from where you were in the beginning to where you are now. I mean, I think we both have, but you really have. I mean, you have really grown into this whole role. And I think part of it is exactly what you're saying.
- [63:11]
Alice
Yeah, and I'll say it wasn't just podcast Alice. It was Alice in life too. Right. Like, it's not having people walk all over you. It's realizing that you have a voice and it's worthy of being heard. And there's a difference between being heard and shoving it down someone's throat. And I think I had to recognize that those are two different things because our current world and our current media conflates the two. So we think that when someone expresses an opinion vociferously, that means they're beating you over the head with it, because guess what? A lot, lot of people, a lot of irresponsible podcasters, A lot of irresponsible media talking heads do that, but that is not properly expressing your opinion. And if you want to be a good lawyer, if you want to be a good podcaster, if you want to be a good communicator in your life, you have to be able to differentiate the beating over someone's head with an opinion and forcing them to agree with you versus using your fantastic reasoning to get people to naturally agree with you because you are so winsome and so good in your rational thinking skills. Those are two different things. So having strong opinions does not mean beating someone over the head and forcing them to agree with you. And if you can do the first one, well, I think that does lead to a happier you because you could express what you really think, but then you don't have to worry about all the things that you were asking about in terms of what you have to balance. So this is, like, greater than the podcast. This is your life, right?
- [64:39]
Brett
Amen, Alice. This is why you're the best. There you go. Look, this has been fun, and I always enjoy doing this with you, Alice. I mean, this is great. Look, we were talking about this. Like, when we're talking at the very beginning, it's April Fool's Day. We did not. Our annual. But every now and then, we'll do a little April Fool's thing. And like Alice was saying, like, the number of people who are just joyless, sad people who cannot get any joy out of anything, it just makes me sad. Because we do this podcast because we enjoy it. We have a lot of fun doing this podcast. That's why we do it.
- [65:15]
Alice
I mean, can I. Can we tell you the secret about the April Fool's episode? We intended to record for 20 minutes, and we talked for over an hour. No notes, no outline, no notes. Someone was like, did you map out where you were going to go with your crazy talk? And I was like, not even a little. But, boy, did we have fun.
- [65:33]
Brett
Look, this is. I'm not even kidding about this. It's gonna sound like I'm kidding about this, but given we both had some more kids, I actually think if we did a third podcast where we just did that, I think it might actually be kind of successful.
- [65:46]
Alice
But I will say just once a week, and you guys have to figure it out if you haven't listened to the April Fool's episode. I listened to it today and I cackled and I knew what I said, and I still laugh so hard. But here's the fun part. You get to figure out how much of it is true and how much of it is us pulling your leg? That's the fun. That's the fun.
- [66:05]
Brett
I know that turtles don't have gills. What are you talking about?
- [66:07]
Alice
They don't.
- [66:08]
Brett
So I learned. So I actually looked this up today because I totally didn't know. I'm still surprised by this. So sea turtles have to go up for air, which just doesn't fit with the whole thing because they were in there.
- [66:19]
Alice
They use the heck out of me. They're not amphibians. I know that they're in the car.
- [66:23]
Brett
Current for, you know, Australian thing, in the current for forever.
- [66:27]
Alice
They. They are in the current, but apparently.
- [66:29]
Brett
They can last on one breath for two hours if they're not.
- [66:33]
Alice
But two hours doesn't seem that long if you have to go dive so deep to get food. Oh, look at us going. Look at us going. We can do a whole nother episode like this, guys.
- [66:41]
Brett
It's true. It's true.
- [66:42]
Alice
All right. This has been fun, guys.
- [66:45]
Brett
This has been fun. As always. We will be back next week with more on the West Memphis three. Going to be saying that for while yet. Thank you guys for sticking through it with us so far. Hope you're enjoying it. But until next week, I'm Brett.
- [67:00]
Alice
And I'm Alice.
- [67:02]
Brett
And we are the prosecutors. Today on the prosecutors trial is back in session in Canton, Massachusetts. It's the crime that shocked the nation. Seven adults, four teenagers, and a dog conspired to murder Boston police officer John O'Keefe and to frame his girlfriend Karen Reed for the murder. Murder. Now Karen's life is on the line as we hold our breath. Will justice be done or one innocent woman go to prison? Okay, you ready?
- [67:51]
Alice
Yeah, I'm ready.
- [67:52]
Brett
Okay, here we go.
- [67:53]
Alice
Here we go.
- [67:54]
Brett
Actually, you know what? I can't do it. That case so much, I hate it so much.
- [67:58]
Alice
I hate it so much. I can't even hear you saying innocent woman. Little cards, and they're really into money. They, like, steal my money all the time. And so I wrote this card, and it was like, congratulations, you won a hundred dollars. And it's, like taped shut, and it says, open to call. You know, open. And so they both opened it. Obviously inside it said, april fools. And so. So number two, Squanto came up to me and said, mama, I am so sad. Why are you sad, buddy? And he goes, I thought I won a hundred dollars.
- [69:50]
Brett
Sa.