West Memphis 3 /// Robinhood Hills Murders

Summary

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True Crime Garage – "West Memphis 3 /// Robinhood Hills Murders"

Date: May 5, 2024
Hosts: Nic and The Captain
Main Theme:
A comprehensive, evidence-driven deep dive into the 1993 Robin Hood Hills murders in West Memphis, Arkansas, covering the initial disappearance, discovery of the victims, early investigation decisions, and the challenges that shaped one of America's most infamous true crime cases.

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Episode Overview

Nic and the Captain return with a dense, fact-focused examination of the tragic "West Memphis 3" case, pledging a fresh, unbiased look at the evidence and timeline and aiming to go beyond the often sensationalist documentaries and books. The episode, serving as the first part of a multi-episode arc, meticulously reconstructs the days around May 5-6, 1993, and tracks how the community and investigators responded to the disappearance and subsequent murder of three eight-year-old boys.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. A Pledge to Objectivity

• The hosts emphasize their decision to avoid preconceptions and approach the case a "piece at a time," setting themselves apart from the well-known documentaries like Paradise Lost and West of Memphis, which often come with their own angles ([06:29–07:33]).
  • Nic: "We put the blindfold on and we’re not seeing this with any preconceived notions of guilt by anybody involved." [06:52]

2. Case Background and Initial Reports

• On the evening of May 5, 1993, three boys—Stevie Branch, Michael Moore, and Christopher Byers—are reported missing in the working-class neighborhood near Robin Hood Hills.

  • First missing persons report: John Mark Byers reports stepson Christopher missing ([08:13]).
    • Christopher Byers: 4’4”, 50 lbs, light brown hair, brown eyes, last seen in blue jeans, dark shoes, long-sleeved white T-shirt ([09:22]).

• Parallel police activity involves a bizarre incident at a Bojangles restaurant:

  • Employee witness reports a “bleeding, possibly disoriented black man” in the women’s bathroom. Officer Meek, distracted by other calls, never enters the restaurant ([09:36–11:16]).

3. Search Efforts Escalate

• Police respond to missing child reports from multiple families:

  • Dana Moore reports her son Michael missing; description and last known details provided ([13:58–15:40]).
  • Pam Hobbs, mother of Stevie Branch, learns of her son’s disappearance when husband Terry Hobbs picks her up from work and mentions he’s missing ([16:58–19:05]).

• The proximity and connections among all three boys and families are noted ([20:40–22:31]).

  • The Captain: “It’s convenient but troublesome. And they're all reported to have been seen with one another.” [20:40]

• Initial search by family, neighbors, police—cut short by darkness. Search resumes the morning of May 6 ([23:21–24:20]).

4. Community Dynamics and Rumors

• Interview with Vicki Hutchison, a local woman suspected of credit card fraud, unexpectedly yields information on the children's activities before disappearance.
  • Her son, Aaron, was friends with the victims and claims he saw one of the boys talking to a “tall black man with yellow teeth and a maroon car.” Report’s credibility questioned due to inconsistencies and Aaron’s age ([25:44–36:55]).

5. Discovery of the Crime Scene

• At 1:30 pm on May 6, a black tennis shoe is found in a creek in Robin Hood Hills, spurring a grim search ([38:52–39:59]).

  • Memorable Moment ([40:00–47:11]):

    • Detective Brian Ridge, described as "brave," crawls through muddy water to recover the bodies.
    • All three boys—Michael Moore, Stevie Branch, Christopher Byers—are found nude, “hogtied” (wrist to ankle with shoelaces), and anchored underwater with sticks. Christopher is found to have been castrated.
    • Clothes are also found weighted underwater and missing items are noted (one sock, two pairs of underwear, the penis of Christopher Byers).

  • Nic: “It’s a very strange way to find a body. It’s almost a strange way to tie somebody up too.” [43:23]

  • Captain: “They might have not found them for days if it wasn’t for that shoe floating.” [46:31]

6. Handling of the Aftermath and Initial Investigation Errors

• Notifications to families are described as devastating ([49:26–50:00]):
  • Terry Hobbs collapses; Pam Hobbs faints upon hearing the news.
• Two-hour delay in notifying the coroner results in potential evidence degradation ([51:07–52:01]).
• Bicycles are recovered from the creek near the crime scene ([53:09–54:46]).

7. Communication Breakdown and Media Leaks

• Chief investigator Gitchell’s intent to withhold crime details (bindings, castration, mutilation) is compromised by a state police radio broadcast intercepted by reporters ([55:48–59:09]).

  • Nic: “This plan of Gitchell’s…was foiled from the beginning because…they overheard…details not released to the press.” [58:08]

8. Early Theories and Collection of Evidence

• Gitchell lays out three theories:

  1. Murderer(s) knew the boys.
  2. Murderer(s) were strangers.
  3. Crime committed by a gang or cult ([60:08–60:17]).
  • Captain: “Because at this time, the evidence isn’t giving them any leads.” [60:31]

• Large cache of evidence sent to crime lab: knives, clothing, hairs, bodily fluids, potential weaponry ([62:06–63:09]).

9. Key Autopsy Insights and Forensic Oddities

• Four of six bindings were the same, suggesting either multiple perpetrators or forced victim compliance ([63:27–65:24]).
• Skin/flesh found in ligatures, potentially not belonging to the boys; African-American hair fragment found in the sheet wrapping one boy ([66:18–66:49]).
• Unanswered questions plague Gitchell and point to investigation slowdowns: time and cause of death, sequence of killings, possible clothing evidence of pre-mortem injury, involvement of persons of interest ([67:21–69:29]).

  • Autopsy suggests possible urine in two stomachs, prompting water sampling from the creek to discern if urine or creek water ([69:35–70:32]).

  • Captain: “But it’s a very intelligent insight, I believe.” [70:22]

10. Lingering Questions and Uncertainties

• Lack of time of death frustrates investigators; this hinders alibi verification ([70:44–71:13]).
• Absence of significant blood at scene hints that the murders possibly happened elsewhere ([73:15–74:28]).
• Only a handful of clues—floating hair, binding styles, "Bojangles man" sighting—keep the case moving ([76:02–76:23]).

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Nic: "We're taking a car into the garage, we're going to dismantle it... look at it piece by piece... and see if it runs." ([06:52])
• Captain: "There's a lot of hearsay in this case and there's a lot of character assassination... what we're focusing on is the facts." ([07:24])
• Nic: (On how the boys were found) "It's not apparent whether that means that they were pulled off of the boys or if the boys had removed them themselves." ([49:18])
• Nic: (On evidence handling) “This blood evidence that they collected was never tested and the reason why... it was lost by the detectives." ([13:34])

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Important Timestamps

• Intro & Bias Pledge: 03:04–07:33
• Missing Reports Begin: 08:13–15:40
• Bojangles Restaurant Incident: 09:36–13:58
• Neighbourhood Dynamics & Search: 20:40–24:20
• Vicki Hutchison Interview & “Strange Man” Sighting: 25:44–36:55
• Discovery of Bodies: 38:52–47:11
• Notify Families & Handling of Bodies: 49:26–52:01
• Sequence of Bicycle Discoveries: 53:09–54:46
• Media Leak, Gitchell’s Frustration: 55:48–59:09
• Gitchell’s Three-Pronged Approach: 60:08–60:31
• Forensic Reports & Problems: 63:27–66:49
• Crime Lab Questions & Investigation Frustrations: 67:21–74:28

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Next Episode Preview

Nic and the Captain will dig deeper into the primary suspects—including family members—the cult/gang theory, and the community’s “satanic panic.” The show promises further timeline analysis, details of alibis, and assessment of whether the initial bias-free approach sheds new light on the complex, still-controversial case.

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Tone:
Respectful, methodical, at times conversational and colloquial—deliberately focused on facts and transparency, often pausing to question assumptions or debunk rumors.

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For Listeners

This episode provides a fact-rich, careful reconstruction of the Robin Hood Hills murders—valuable for true crime newcomers and veterans. It’s especially useful for listeners wanting to go beyond headlines and documentaries to understand the depth, complexity, and confusion of the early West Memphis 3 investigation.

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Memorable Sign-off:
"Be good, be kind and don’t litter." [77:59]

Transcript

[Narrator/Advertiser]

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[Nick]

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[Captain]

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Picture this. It's the end of a long week. You're unwinding in the tub, listening to your favorite true crime podcast and then chronic hives come back again in the middle of the episode. What a wet blanket looks like another spell of itchy, swollen, red or skin colored hives. If you have chronic spontaneous urticaria or csu, there may be a different treatment option. Worried about your chronic hives interrupting our next episode? Learn [e-mail] Garage SA.

[Religious/Spiritual Speaker]

Foreign.

[Nick]

Welcome to True Crime Garage. Wherever you are, whatever you are doing, thanks for listening. I'm your host Nick and with me as always manning the controls, my friend and yours, the Captain.

[Captain]

Thank you, thank you, thank you. It's good to be seen and it's good to see you.

[Nick]

Good to see you Captain. We got a jam packed show for you this week so let's get straight to the beer and get straight to the case. This week we're drinking Reverberation by Memphis Made Brewing Company, Memphis, Tennessee Garage grade 3 1/2 out of 5 bottle caps. This is a Belgian style coffee stout collaboration that they did with Memphis based Reverb Coffee Company. They used freshly roasted dark Sumat coffee which perfectly blends the accents with the stout's natural coffee flavors.

[Captain]

Summary It's a tasty treat.

[Nick]

Yes it is Captain. And this week's beer is brought to us by some very good friends of the Garage. We have Erica in Portland, Oregon, Robert in Alberta, Canada and Rachel in Londonbury, New Hampshire. So thank you all for buying the beer this week and if you want to pitch in and buy us around for next week's show, go to truecrimegarage.com and click on the donate button.

[Captain]

And this is our big Season two finale. So we want to thank everybody that has purchased T shirts, signed up on the mailing list, added us on social media. If it wasn't for you guys, we'd just be talking to ourselves.

[Nick]

Yeah, thanks for a great Season two. We hope you've enjoyed it and we got a great case for you tonight that's going to spill over into next week. So without further ado, gather around, grab a chair and grab a beer or two and let's talk some true crime.

[Religious/Spiritual Speaker]

I believe the Lord's gonna direct me, guide me and lead me and we're gonna give the glory to him.

[Nick]

There's a voice calling me from an

[Religious/Spiritual Speaker]

or rugged tree and it whispers draw

[Nick]

closer to me Leave this world.

[Religious/Spiritual Speaker]

West Memphis. West Memphis. The police in West Memphis, Arkansas confirmed today that three young boys were brutally murdered. The bodies of Weaver Elementary School second graders Stephen Branch, Christopher Myers and Michael Moore were pulled from a shallow creek earlier today. There are rumors that the boys may have been sexually mutilated. The police say that they do not yet have any suspects in the case. The missing 8 year old boys were discovered in an area known as Robin Hood Hills, A secluded patch of woods behind the Blue Beacon truck wash along Interstate 40 in West Memphis. Imagine all the evil that you could think of of how someone could be murdered. And that's how these three children are. No family should have to go through these. Unfortunately. It's going to happen again somewhere. Another town, Another town. It's going to happen again, I'm sure. A lot of bad people out there in the world. I see no reason, I see no motive for why these three little boys were murdered. One had to have murdered the three boys. Even Branch Branch Christian. For Myers, Hundreds of people killed in the name of religion. It is a motivating force. It gives people who want to do evil, want to commit murders a reason to do what they're doing.

[Nick]

Real quick, Captain, I want to give a little disclaimer here. Okay. So this is a huge case, this is a whale of a tale. Now we all know that there's plenty of movies, there's plenty of books about this case.

[Captain]

Uh huh.

[Nick]

And we wanted to approach this a little bit differently because I've always felt that a lot of the movies and a lot of the books regarding this case, they claim that they're going to go into it, you know, no bias, right? Exactly. That John Mark Byers is not guilty, that Terry Hobbs is not guilty, that the West Memphis three are not guilty or they, they are guilty.

[Captain]

Right.

[Nick]

You know that they're going to go into it and point fingers. And so what we're going to try to do here Captain, is what we did was we put the blindfold on and we're not seeing this with any preconceived notions of guilt by anybody involved. And we're just going to look and examine at how this thing went down and the timeline and the people involved. We're taking a car into the garage, we're going to dismantle it, we're going to take it apart, we're going to look at it piece by piece. We're going to put it back together again and see if it runs.

[Captain]

There's a lot of hearsay in this case and there's a lot of character assassination in this case. What we're focusing on is the facts, what we know for sure.

[Nick]

And I'm sure some people are familiar with the documentaries and the books that were involved with this case. I mean we have the Paradise Lost trilogy, we have the west of Memphis documentary, we have books like the Devil's Untying, the Knot Abomination. I mean the list goes on and on and on. And every couple years we, we find out there's, there's a new book or there's a new movie about this case.

[Captain]

And if you watch those or you read those, you only get a piece. You only get a kind of a sneak peek into this case. You can, but there's so much information out there where you can actually dive into the actual reports and the actual timelines that were taken by law enforcement.

[Nick]

We're going to start off by discussing some of the police reports that were given May 5, 1993 in West Memphis, Arkansas. This was a Wednesday. The full moon rise. At 7:41pm There's a missing person's report that needs to be responded to. Officer Meeks arrives at the home of John Mark Byers at 8pm and now he's complaining that his son has gone missing. He says that his, his son might be a missing person. That the last time that he had seen him he was cleaning the yard at 5:30pm his son's name is Christopher Byers. Now he would go on to explain to the officer that Christopher was on Ritalin for hyperactivity and at this date he had not taken his medication that day. Mr. Byers said that his stepson Christopher was Last seen at 6pm by Dana Moore, who is the neighbor. And Christopher was playing with her son, Michael Moore, who is also believed to be missing.

[Captain]

Christopher Byers was 4ft 4 inches tall, roughly 50 pounds, light brown hair and brown eyes. He was last seen wearing blue jeans, dark shoes and a long sleeve white T shirt.

[Nick]

And after taking the complaint, Officer Meek would go on to respond to another call. Now this call took place at the Bojangles restaurant. This is a chicken restaurant. Now she arrives and goes to the window and she takes this report through the window. And the report is the manager is stating that about 30 minutes before the officer had arrived that a bleeding black man had entered the restaurant and went into the women's Restroom. Now, he had blood on his face and appeared to have been mentally disturbed or mentally disoriented. And he had wandered away from the restaurant just a few minutes before Officer Meek could arrive. Now, employees would go on and they would find blood smeared on the bathroom walls.

[Captain]

There has been some speculation about this individual having a sling on one of his arms.

[Nick]

Yeah. And that is apparent because of a follow up police report that was conducted the second day, this would be May 6, where Detective Sergeant Allen and Detective Ridge went to the Bojangles restaurant and they just, they talked with a Marty King. Now, Marty King is the manager at the Bojangles restaurant.

[Captain]

And the reason why they got the call was once the boys were found, the manager believed that there was some kind of connection between the man that he saw in the restaurant.

[Nick]

Yeah, the Bojangles restaurant was not terribly far from the Robin Hood Hills woods and.

[Captain]

Right. That's why he called the cops out to collect evidence.

[Nick]

And we do, before I get into the second police report, we do have to mention that Officer Meek did not enter when she arrived on May 5. She did not enter the restaurant at all. She took the report through the window and she didn't go into the restaurant. She did not go into the women's restroom to investigate. They had other calls to tend to that evening and, and she, she left before she could further investigate. Now after, like you said, after the boys have been found, now we got to go back and revisit this thing. Right. So now they send a detective, two detectives to the Bojangles restaurant. They meet with the manager. The manager is going to further give further detail on this story. Now what he says is that the black male entered the restaurant on the evening of May 5th and he was found in the ladies room and appeared to have been bleeding from the arm. The manager stated that the man was about five' eleven, thin, he was dirty, he was in his late twenties. And they found a pair of sunglasses that were left on the toilet which is suspected to have been left by the black male. Now the subject that we're talking about, he had a blue cast type brace on his arm that had white Velcro on it. The black man appeared to be mentally disoriented, maybe intoxicated. And again, he reminded police that when they placed the call the night before and Officer Meek arrived, that the, the black man in question had left on foot and he was walking east towards the back dumpster. The manager also stated that the black man's clothing was a denim sleeveless shirt with black shoes that Looked like they were tennis shoes and black, thin warm up pants. Now the two detectives that arrived the day after on the 6th, they would go and they would took blood scrapings from the north wall inside the women's bathroom above the toilet. They took blood scrapings from the inside of a door of the stall door to the bathroom. And they also took evidence from the entrance hall to the bathroom as well in the sitting area of the restaurant.

[Captain]

This blood evidence that they collected was never tested and the reason why it was never tested was it was lost by the detectives.

[Nick]

Yeah. And some of the blood that would have been there the night before was cleaned up by the employees. So there was, there was less. And also the sunglasses that were reported to have been left on the toilet

[Captain]

were never recovered, possibly thrown away.

[Nick]

Back to May 5th. The evening of May 5th, Officer Meek is at the Bojangles restaurant taking her report when she receives another call. Now this is a disturbance call regarding a criminal mischief complaint. She leaves the scene. This is probably why she never went into the restaurant, never went into the restroom. And she went to take this other call, this criminal mischief complaint about somebody throwing eggs. After taking the report about somebody throwing eggs, Officer Meek continues on and she's responding to another call. This time she arrives at the home of Dana Moore at 9:24pm this was called, the complaint was called in by the mother, Dana. And when she arrives, she talks with the mother and she says that she observed her son. Her son is missing at this point. Now remember earlier Mr. Byers had said that he believed that his son was with Michael Moore. This is the mother of Michael Moore and she's saying at 9:24pm that her son is missing and he was last seen riding bicycles with his friends Stevie Branch and Christopher Byers. She had lost sight of the boys. They ventured on further out of her sight and when she lost sight of the boys, she sent her daughter dawn to find them. The boys couldn't be found. And she described her son Michael as approximately 4 foot tall, 60 pounds with brown hair and blue eyes. And he was last seen wearing blue pants, a blue Boy Scouts of America shirt, orange and blue Boy Scout hat and tennis shoes.

[Captain]

And both of these boys that are missing are eight years old?

[Nick]

So far, yes. All two boys that have been reported missing are eight years old. Now the, the complaint by Dana Moore states that they were riding bicycles with their other friend. Stevie Branch is eight as well. Shortly after Officer Meek arrives to take the missing persons report from the Moore household, a second officer is responding to again another missing Persons call. Now, this officer arrives at the Catfish island restaurant. We got to discuss this a little bit because this is a much different call, in my opinion, than the first two calls that we've already discussed. Okay, so in this situation, we have Pam Hobbs. She's working at the Catfish island restaurant. Okay. Now, her husband, Terry Hobbs, he's the stepfather of Stevie Branch, he arrives to pick up Pam Hobbs from work. Okay. So she's getting off work. And he arrives approximately. It must have been about 9:20 to 9:25, because the police call comes in and a police officer is dispatched shortly after that and responds to this call just after 9:24pm And Terry Hobbs isn't

[Captain]

alone when he goes to pick up Pam Hobbs. He is with their daughter Amanda.

[Nick]

Yeah, you're exactly right. And what happened is, see, Pam Hobbs, she had a dwi, so she's no longer driving. She doesn't have a driver's license at this time. So Terry Hobbs would typically drive her to work, which he did on the day of May 5, and then he would come back and pick her up. Okay, so at this point, Terry Hobbs arrives with older daughter Amanda, and they go to pick up Pam Hobbs. Now, Pam says that it was a. That the pickup was a little weird because when Terry enters the restaurant that he came in, and without talking to her, without telling her what he was doing, he goes over to the payphone and places a phone call. He doesn't explain to her who he is calling. Now, Pam comes out of the restaurant and she specifically says that she expected to see her son and her daughter in Terry's truck. They were all gonna ride home together

[Captain]

because it's like 9:20.

[Nick]

Yeah.

[Captain]

And we got an 8 year old and we're not gonna leave children at home alone.

[Nick]

Exactly. So she comes out of the restaurant and she says that, you know, they have those little gumball machines or whatever that she purposely, you know, bought a couple pieces of candy. She was going to give one to Amanda and one to Stevie. Yeah, she gets into the truck. There's no Stevie. Now, Terry gets into the truck with her and he says, you know, Stevie's still missing. We haven't been able to find him. Me and Amanda, we've been together the entire time that you've been at work. And we've been out looking for Stevie. Now his friends are missing as well. I've just called the cops from the payphone. So the police arrive. Now, this is Officer Moore. He arrives and he's going to take the complaint from Pam Hobbs. Now, she would State that her son left home after school and she hasn't seen him since. She also stated that Dana Moore stated that she had saw Steve with her son Michael Moore and Christopher Byers around

[Captain]

6pm now it's 1993. It's not that abnormal for 8 year old boys to just go off and play, maybe go to one friend's house for a little bit, go to another one's. Maybe you tell your parents where you're at, maybe you don't, you just ride around the neighborhood. It's not until it's about dinner time that your parents would actually start worrying about you.

[Nick]

I see what you're saying. I mean this is a time kids go out and play after school. You know, you get together with your buddies, you go ride bikes, you're on skateboards or whatever, you, you're gone for a while and you're gone maybe longer than you anticipated to be gone or longer than your parents told you that you could be out and playing with your friends. This situation might be a little bit different though, you know, now we're talking about, like you said, 9:30 ish PM it's dark. We've already established that the, the moon came up before 8pm that night.

[Captain]

So just because the moon is out before 8 o' clock doesn't mean it's dark before 8 o'. Clock. But we could obviously assume that at 92920 when this report is taking place, it is dark now.

[Nick]

And that's what has given her cause for concern.

[Captain]

Definitely.

[Nick]

And before, you know, as stated, she didn't know until Terry had told her just minutes before that her son was still missing. When the officer is there and she's giving the report, she would go on to describe her son Stevie as 4 foot 2 inches tall, approximately 60 pounds. He's got blonde hair and blue eyes and he was last seen wearing blue jeans and a white T shirt and he was riding his 20 inch black Renegade bicycle.

[Captain]

Now what's convenient for the police department is the three reports of the missing children. They're all in the same neighborhood, they all live around each other. Do you want to describe that neighborhood for us?

[Nick]

Yeah, it's convenient but troublesome. And they're all reported to have been seen with one another. Now this neighborhood is, it's situated between a very busy freeway. The Interstate 40 freeway is to the north of the neighborhood and to the south of the neighborhood we have the Ten Mile Bayou. We have the two boys, Chris Byers and Michael Moore. They live basically next door to one another and just Less than about a quarter of a mile south of their home is the home of Stevie Branch. Now to the north of all of their homes, about a half mile north of the Michael Moore's home and Christopher Byers home, we have what is known as the Robin Hood Hills. This is a woods that is on the outskirt of the neighborhood there.

[Captain]

And this section of woods is roughly 4 acres.

[Nick]

We have some reports where the boys were seen heading towards that direction. Now these woods were considered an area that parents didn't want their kids playing in the woods. But we all know we were all kids once if there was a wood

[Captain]

somewhere, if there was, I wasn't.

[Nick]

You, you've just been. I've been 30, came out this way. And if there were about 30, if there were woods or if there was a creek or if there was something to something that would lead to an adventure, especially when you're 8, 9, 10 years old, you're going into those woods and you're going to go play. And so it was a little suspected that once they were seen going north that maybe the boys had ventured into these woods.

[Captain]

These woods are located right by the Blue Beacon truck wash, which, so it's not just a car wash, it's more for washing semis and stuff like that.

[Nick]

Yeah, there's a service road that runs right off of that Interstate 40. And this is where the truck wash is. And now one thing we got to keep in mind here with the west Memphis town is that a lot of their money that they generate comes from being located right by this freeway. This freeway is one of the most traveled freeways in the United States. So they get a lot of truckers that are going to stop, they're going to wash their car or, I'm sorry, wash their truck. But there's also truck stops and there's these restaurants where the truckers would go into and spend their money to get a meal or to fill up their tank, wash their truck.

[Captain]

So it's a big part of their economy.

[Nick]

By 9:30pm it's well established that we have three missing boys all from the same neighborhood. Multiple family members of these missing boys are out searching for their children, for their stepchildren. And they would go, you know, they would drive up and down the streets of the neighborhood, ask neighbor neighbors if they had seen anybody, if they had seen the boys there. And some of them even ventured into the truck wash and ventured into the wooded area. And by after midnight, most of them start to give up their search. You know, it's getting way into to the late of the night. They cannot find the boys. And unfortunately, there's not much hope. But, but what they do is they wake up the next morning.

[Captain]

Well, also, it's, it's so dark that you can't see anything. You're. You're hoping this is just a misunderstanding, that maybe they went to somebody's house that they didn't know about. And we can't do much tonight, so we'll deal with it in the morning.

[Nick]

And these family members as well as law enforcement would continue on the search the following morning. Now, the police department would get help from other local law enforcement agencies in their searches. So we have a smaller police department that is going to get a lot of help from, from bigger police departments. And we even have the Memphis. The city of Memphis in Tennessee sends over a helicopter to search the following.

[Captain]

Because again, this is west of Memphis.

[Nick]

Yeah, we have the Memphis Police Department providing the helicopter for, for the search the following morning, as well as the Crittenden County Sheriff's Department assisting with officers and boots on the ground. Here's one thing that's interesting. Camden, on the morning of May 6, this is an appointment that was already scheduled, right? Okay. We have a woman named Vicki Hutchison. She's a. Approximately early 30s, and she has an appointment to speak with an officer. His name is Don Bray. Now, this is. This interview would be conducted when the kids were still missing. So she arrives to this interview, and the reason for the interview is that a local truck stop where Vicki Hutchison works, there was a suspected credit card fraud situation.

[Captain]

Okay.

[Nick]

After being asked by the truck stop owners to interview this woman, he has scheduled this interview.

[Captain]

Now, she's a suspect in this.

[Nick]

She's a suspect for this because there was a $200 overrun on a credit card.

[Captain]

Mm.

[Nick]

Now, the owners of the truck stop, they suspected that their new employee, Vicki, she was working at the time, right? And this is something that hadn't happened recently or hadn't happened before. And they believe that she should be suspected of this $200 overrun on this credit card.

[Captain]

Right.

[Nick]

This credit card belonged to a customer.

[Captain]

So we could assume that they maybe questioned her about it, but they didn't feel so confident in what the answers they got, so they turn it over to the police department.

[Nick]

So the interview starts, right? And Vicki shows up, and she shows up with her 8 year old son, Aaron. Now, the officer is a little perturbed by this because he's thinking, couldn't you find a better way for this to go down? That maybe somebody should Be watching your son. Maybe you shouldn't be bringing him to a police interview where. Where you're a suspect in a potential fraud.

[Captain]

Yeah. Maybe the officer didn't think that she was taking it serious enough.

[Nick]

Well, she explains to the officer, after they start talking about the credit card incident, she explains to the officer that I brought my son Aaron with me because he's 8 years old and he goes to school with the boys that are missing. Yeah, I've heard these kids are missing. And that he is very good. He's best friends with Michael Moore and Christopher Byers. Now, Vicki would tell the officer that on the previous day, the previous afternoon, that the buyer's boy had came over to the house with Michael Moore and had asked Vicki if her son Aaron could go with them to the woods.

[Captain]

Yeah.

[Nick]

And now most of the Robin Hood Hill. Robin Hood Hills. Most of the parents didn't want their kids playing in these woods like we talked about. Right. And a big reason for this, because it is located so close to all those trucking places.

[Captain]

Right.

[Nick]

That they were worried about people passing through, people that they couldn't trust, people that they didn't know, people not from the area, just being around their children who might be playing in the woods or playing on the outskirts of the woods.

[Captain]

So anybody that they'd run into from those truck stops would have an easy way in and an easy way out.

[Nick]

Yeah. It's one of the busiest freeways in the United States. So during this interview, after Officer Bray starts discussing the missing boys with Vicki and with her son Aaron, he decides to phone the local police department and say, hey, I might have. I might have somebody that might have some information in this case, this boy was asked to go with the other boys to the woods, and his mom said, no, you can't go.

[Captain]

Sounds like a great way to deflect.

[Nick]

So the. The officer is then told, this is in the early afternoon on May 6, that, thank you for the call, but we have just found the bodies of the three boys. He hangs up the phone and he decides, you know what? I'm going to continue this interview with the son, Aaron.

[Religious/Spiritual Speaker]

Foreign.

[Narrator/Advertiser]

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[Nick]

Aaron would go on on to tell Officer Bray that in the past he had gone to the woods with the boys and on one occasion Michael Moore had even gone swimming in the ditch. There was a ditch, a drainage ditch that had run off of the ten mile bayou and it was basically like a big creek.

[Captain]

Right.

[Nick]

And in some locations it was quite, it was quite deep. You know, it would get as, maybe as deep as four foot, five foot.

[Captain]

Yeah. And definitely enough for an eight year old to swim in.

[Nick]

Yeah. And it was at some points, you know, it was thin and other points that there was more distance between the two shores. But he had said that on more than one occasion he had gone into the woods with the boys and that they had actually had a clubhouse in the woods and they would go there often. Aaron would go on to tell Officer Bray that the day before, just after school, he had seen Michael Moore talking with a black man. This man was described as tall and that the man had been sent, he said he had been sent by Michael Moore's mom to pick him up after school. The man was black, he was tall, he had yellow teeth and he had writing on his T shirt and he was driving a maroon car. Well, this was very interesting to the officer, because Aaron Hutchison would have known. He knew these boys, he went to school with them, he lived in the neighborhood with them. He would easily be able to identify Michael Moore. His description of the man is specific. You know, he's giving specific details.

[Captain]

Right.

[Nick]

The problem with this report is that Michael Moore's mom said, no, I didn't send anybody to pick up my son.

[Captain]

Right.

[Nick]

And second of all, we live right by the school. He just walks home. And Michael was reported as having come home straight after school. So this report's a little weird. We have this strange.

[Captain]

But it's coming from an 8 year old.

[Nick]

We have this strange person that's, that's seen by this 8 year old that knew Michael Moore, knew Christopher Byers and reports that he saw this strange man. However, there's not a lot of weight to it because he's 8 years old. He's 8 years old. And Michael Moore came straight home after school.

[Captain]

Not a lot of validity to this story.

[Nick]

A quick, friendly garage reminder. This show is for adults, not for children. If your kids, your kids shouldn't listen to the show, if they're in the car with you or in the room with you, don't do it. This, this is about to get pretty graphic. And this is the stuff that nightmares are made of. So you've been warned. All right, now we're going to venture into the woods and what took place in the afternoon of May 6. The officers, all the law enforcement agencies that have band together and they're looking for these three missing boys. They would find them in the early afternoon on the 6th. Now, they had looked for them quite a bit that morning and they spent a lot of that time combing damn near every inch of the woods in the wooded area.

[Captain]

Like I said before, the woods was about 4 acres. But the first part, it seemed like the most populated part or the most, the part that people would spend the most time at would be the front part of the woods, not so much the back part.

[Nick]

Yeah. So what you have here is you have basically a tree line that. I don't know how deep the tree line was. But then the woods itself is divided by the ten Mile Bayou diversion, which is to, to make sure that it doesn't flood the area.

[Captain]

Basically a giant pipe.

[Nick]

Well, but, but the water that runs underneath of it, they, they're diverting the water elsewhere.

[Religious/Spiritual Speaker]

Right.

[Nick]

So that the main water source doesn't flood. And so this divides the woods. Now the, the tree line that we just discussed is closest to the neighborhood where the boys lived. Now, if you cross over that pipe and cross over the diversion ditch, the water that runs there, you're in the part is what. What the neighborhood people would refer to as Old Robin Hood.

[Captain]

Okay.

[Nick]

So they are combing both sides of this wooded area for most of the morning and nothing is discovered. Now they're just about ready to leave the area. Law enforcement is just about ready to leave the woods when one officer, Steve Jones, he's a Crittenden county juvie officer, he is basically the last man left in the woods. And there is a creek that runs off of that diversion that we had discussed. And he's looking down in the creek, just about ready to leave the woods, when he spots a tennis shoe. And this is a black laceless tennis shoe. This is at 1:30pm now, the officers, he calls over other officers to come over and view this tennis shoe, clearly a child's shoe. And they're talking and they wonder how they could have missed this because they've combed this area all morning long. However, it's. It's just now spotted and they've decided we have to search this creek.

[Narrator/Advertiser]

Yeah.

[Nick]

So what happens?

[Captain]

Talking about chilling, right?

[Nick]

Yeah.

[Captain]

And you're the police officer, you're going, we just found this shoe. Now we gotta go into this water.

[Nick]

Well, what's even more chilling. Yeah. Somebody has to volunteer to go into the water. Because now if anybody has seen pictures of this water, it's the best I can describe it is a milky, like when they show pictures of it from above, it just looks milky, like you couldn't. You couldn't look deep into the water.

[Captain]

Yeah. I mean, it kind of looks like chocolate milk.

[Nick]

Yeah.

[Captain]

Because it's, it's so muddy, too.

[Nick]

It's very muddy and it's kind of dirty. And so a very brave man, Detective Brian Ridge, he decides that he is going to go into the water and see if he can find any more clothing or maybe worse. Now what happens is that he gets in the water and what he's got to do, because you can't see into

[Captain]

this water, you got to feel around.

[Nick]

He's got to get down on all fours and he's got to kind of crawl along the bottom and feel out with his hands to see if he can feel it.

[Captain]

Some of these spots of this water are going to be four feet deep, Right. Three to four feet deep. So some of it, he has to submerge his whole body in water.

[Nick]

Yeah. And the area that they are in at the moment is about two to three foot deep.

[Captain]

Okay. So it's not as deep as the deepest parts, but he's going to be

[Nick]

able to keep his head above water. But his. Most of his body is going to be submerged.

[Captain]

Right.

[Nick]

And his arms are. Are out in front of him, and he's feeling around. And now the bottom of. We. We should point out that the bottom of this creek, you know, like the captain said, the water is very muddy is the best way to describe it. And so the bottom of the. The water floor there is your. Your feet, your knees would kind of stick in it. You know, you, you. You get like a suction cup, Right. So he's feeling around, and he's in the water for about 10 to 15 minutes when he feels something and he pulls this object up.

[Captain]

Okay.

[Nick]

He pulls this object up, up. And it is a. It's one of the bodies. It's. It's a body of Michael Moore. And the first thing that he notices is that Michael is nude and that his. He's hog tied.

[Captain]

Right.

[Nick]

It's been referred to as hog tied, but actually he's tied with his right hand tied to his right ankle by a shoelace, and his left hand is tied to his left ankle by a second shoelace.

[Captain]

And typically, the way you'd hog tie somebody is you would tie their right arm to their left leg behind their back, left arm to the right leg behind their back. And so really, if you take your right arm and your right leg and you tie them behind your back, there's not a lot keeping them behind your back. If you struggled enough, you probably could cut loose, right?

[Nick]

Yeah. And the best way to describe Michael Moore and the way that he's found is that if. If you were on your knees and your feet were behind you and you put your. Your hands down to grab your ankles.

[Captain]

Yeah.

[Nick]

And then tie the ankle to the wrist.

[Captain]

Okay.

[Nick]

Would be the best way to describe. It's a very strange way to find a body. It's a. It's almost a strange way to tie somebody up, too. The. So that's the first thing. First thing that's noticed is that Michael is nude and that he is tied in that manner. And he seems to have been beaten quite a bit about the head and face area. They pull the body out of the water, and now Detective Brian Ridge has to get back down on all fours and continue searching, hoping not to find another child.

[Captain]

Right. But we have two other boys missing,

[Nick]

so they continue their search. Because if one boy is found in the water, it's very likely you might find the other two in There as well.

[Captain]

Correct.

[Nick]

So he's crawling along, and he again finds another body. This time, he pulls up the body, and this would end up being identified as the body of Stevie Branch. Now, he again is nude, just like Michael Moore, and he's tied in the same manner as Michael Moore, with his right hand to his right ankle and his left hand to his left ankle and bound by shoelaces. Now, with him, they notice that there's something a little bit different. So again, there are lacerations to the face and neck, as with what they quickly saw with Michael Moore. However, with Stevie Branch, it appears that he has either been bit or bitten multiple times in his face, which, I mean, this is a terribly disturbing image already, but it's getting more disturbing as we go. They pull the body out, and then again, detective Brian Ridge continues to search the creek. He shortly then finds a third body. And this would be identified as the body as Christopher Byers. Again, when he pulls the body up, they notice that Christopher is nude and

[Captain]

he's bound the same way.

[Nick]

Exactly. He's bound exactly the same way. Right ankle to right wrist. Left ankle to left wrist. And when they pull him up, he comes up face down. And when they turn him over, they're even more disturbed at what they see. It appears that Christopher Byers has been castrated. They put the body on the side of the. Of the bank, and they continue to search. Okay, so what do they find? They found the boys. All three of them are tied. They're all tied with shoelaces.

[Medical/Legal Disclaimer Voice]

Right.

[Captain]

They're all three nude.

[Nick]

And what else they would find is that they would find the clothing for these boys. What they were able to determine is that somebody had taken sticks and they had basically anchored the boys into the water. And again, this water is muddy, it's murky, it's milky. Because all the boys were still underwater. You could search the area and not see them.

[Medical/Legal Disclaimer Voice]

Right.

[Captain]

They might have not found them for days if it wasn't for that shoe floating.

[Nick]

And the reason why is they were all pinned down with these sticks.

[Captain]

Yeah.

[Nick]

That. That anchored them into the water.

[Captain]

And there was some speculation that maybe the sticks were even sharpened.

[Nick]

A couple of them appear that they might have been sharpened. Some of them look like they were just broken off, and others look like they may have somebody have taken the time to sharpen them a bit to stick them deeper into the mud and keep the bodies in. Now, not only did they anchor down the bodies, but they had also anchored down the clothing that was not on the boys.

[Captain]

Right. They wrap it around the sticks and then put it down in the mud.

[Nick]

Some of the clothing was pinned under sticks, some of it was wrapped around sticks and none of it was visible.

[Captain]

But they didn't find all three sets of clothes. Right. There wasn't complete sets of clothes.

[Nick]

Well, after they pull all the bodies out, after they pull out all the clothing that they can find, they are trying to determine what is missing from the scene. Now there are a few items that are missing from the scene. There's four. They find all the other clothing. However, they're missing one sock, two pairs of underwear, and they're also missing the, the, the penis of Christopher Byers. He's been castrated. And the best way to describe this castration is that the scrotum has been removed, the penis shaft has been cut and the head of the penis is missing. And they do not find these items in the water.

[Captain]

So we didn't find all the pairs of clothes or all the items of clothes that you would expect to find. But they're also eight year old boys. So it's very possible that one of them wasn't wearing underwear, maybe didn't have both socks on. We're not really for sure.

[Nick]

It's a possibility, but I think most of the parents believe that they would have been fully dressed. The, the other thing that detectives and that the police were really kind of fascinated by was the state of some of the clothing. They found two pairs of the pants, Two pairs of pants that were buttoned and zipped up.

[Captain]

Right.

[Nick]

But they were completely inside out, which is kind of a strange way to have found these items.

[Captain]

Yeah. But if you helped, you know, anybody that has again dealt with little boys and had raised little boys, you'd know that if you, if they took off their pants, sometimes they'd pull them off completely inside out. And like the button would stay button, the zipper would stay zipped.

[Nick]

Yeah. It's not apparent whether that means that they were pulled off of the boys or if the boys had removed them themselves.

[Captain]

Right.

[Nick]

The parents of the missing children are near and they are waiting behind the, you know, the evidence line. The, the police tape, you know, you cannot cross this area. And Detective Gitchell now he was in charge of the search. So he comes out of the woods after they've located these bodies and he's going to go up to, he has the unfortunate situation where he's got to deliver the message to the parents. Yeah.

[Captain]

And you're not just making a phone call here, you're having to tell him face to face.

[Nick]

And he tells Terry Hobbs and Pam Hobbs first that yes, we found the boys and, and they're deceased, they're dead. And, and they appear to have been murdered. And Terry Hobbs collapses. He, you know, he falls over and he's crying and Pam Hobbs, she faints at hearing this news. Getchell goes over and he also discusses the findings with John Mark Byers, the father of the stepfather of Christopher Byers. And yeah, he had the unfortunate situation of delivering this news. The bodies were found around approximately 1:45pm they were pulled from the water. As we had just said. The coroner's office was not called for approximately two hours. So at 3:20pm the coroner's office receives a call from the West Memphis Police Department that stated that they had found the three boys and that they needed the coroner to come to the blue beacon truck wash to pick up the bodies.

[Captain]

Yeah, and protocol, I guess, is if you find bodies in water that sometimes you want the coroner to be the ones to take the bodies out of the water.

[Nick]

Yeah, in this situation too. There's something else going on here. Okay, so it's May, it's in Arkansas. For people that aren't familiar with the United States, Arkansas can be a warmer state, especially in the month of May. The, the approximate temperature of the water was suspected to be 60 degrees, which would be better to maintain whatever evidence or whatever you could with the body. And once they pulled them out, you know, they're decomposing right away, they started decomposing faster. Right. And the, the temperature that day in the woods was approximately 80 degrees. So we're talking a 20 degree difference.

[Captain]

And you got bugs, insects and, and all kind of things.

[Nick]

And the coroner shows up about two hours after the first bodies pulled out of the water to retrieve the bodies and maybe any evidence that would go along with those bodies. Now because the wood is, the woods is so dense, you know, you can, you couldn't drive a vehicle into the woods. So what they had to do was they, they had a hearse and the hearse pulled up to that blue beacon truck wash and they had to back in up to the tree line. And the officers wrapped the bodies along with the coroner's approval. They wrapped the bodies in a sheet, placed them in body bags, individual body

[Captain]

bags, and they carry them out, carried

[Nick]

them out of the woods. Police OFFICER yeah, these, these police officers are, are beaten down mentally, physically, emotionally. It's hot out, they're sweating and some of them, well, all of them are seeing some of the worst sites that they will ever see in their Careers or their lifetime. After having found the bodies, finding the clothing, police and law enforcement found the two missing bicycles as well.

[Captain]

Well, there should be maybe three.

[Nick]

Yeah, we should report here and we'll get more. What we're going to do is episode two. We're going to get way into the families and weigh into their movements and what was going on in the neighborhood at the time of the disappearance. But part of that is that Christopher Byers was not on a bicycle. The other two boys were on bicycles. Christopher Byers started off that afternoon, that evening on a skateboard. And at some point he ended up doubling up on a bicycle with one of the other boys.

[Captain]

Typically what would happen because she couldn't keep up on the. On the skateboard. So you just be like, I'm gonna ride with you tandem.

[Nick]

The boys bodies are found in the water in the woods, and the bikes are found. The two bikes are found in the water in the woods as well.

[Captain]

How far away from the bodies do you know?

[Nick]

I believe it was approximately 50ft or so.

[Captain]

It's pretty good distance.

[Nick]

Yeah, well, it's hard to. It's hard to say, I believe, because, you know, looking at the map, is that 50 foot by water, is that 50 foot by woods? Is it 50 foot by a trail? You know what I mean? I don't know exactly.

[Captain]

Well, 50ft or fifth is 50ft whether you're in water or you're on land.

[Nick]

Right. 50 foot is exactly. It is. 50 foot is an exact mark. But what I'm getting at is how was that determined by law enforcement? Because. Because where the bikes were positioned in comparison to the bodies, you could get. You could, one could argue you might be able to get to them faster via water than you would.

[Captain]

That'd be closer if you're actually in

[Nick]

the water and it wouldn't be significant. But I just wonder about that investigator Gitchell. He has to now talk to the media. Right? So not only do we have the victims, families and neighborhood people standing around outside of the crime scene tape waiting to hear if they found the bodies, but we also have the news media because by this point, not only was this the biggest case in the city, this was the biggest case in the state and arguably in the nation. We had had three boys that were seen together the night before. All have gone missing. They're reported missing in the state of Arkansas the next morning on the news as well as other outlets as well. So now people are starting to flock to the area and try to figure out what's going on with this Investigation, they find the bodies. Gitchell has to deliver the disturbing news to the parents and now he has to address the media. Yeah, so he addresses the media and he's pretty vague on what they have found. Basically he's saying, we have found.

[Captain]

It's an open case. So why would you just say, hey,

[Nick]

we got all this evidence, we found the boys. We don't know much at this time.

[Captain]

We.

[Nick]

We are investigating all leads. What was once a missing person's case, this is now a homicide case. The only thing, the only thing he could say for certain was because how the bodies were found, it was obvious that, that this was a homicide, multiple homicide. So Gitchell rounds up his men and there's some talk between him and the state police agency. The state police agency wants to know, does Gary Gitchell want to have assistance from the state police? He says, no, this is a local matter and we're going to handle this here. We thank you for your assistance in

[Captain]

the search, which I think is just arrogant. And I think at this moment you humble yourself and you take any assistance you can get and you use all the resources you can.

[Nick]

Well, arrogant or not, this would come back to bite Gitchell and the investigation in the ass. And it's not Gitchell's fault. This would end up being the fault of the state police agency. What Gitchell wanted to do was he wanted. He wanted to not release any information on how the bodies were tied or the damage that he visibly saw right away.

[Captain]

Right to the private parts.

[Nick]

Right. So we don't want the media, we don't want the general population to know how they were tied. We don't want them to know about the castration. We don't want them to know about the potential bite marks on Stevie Branch's face.

[Religious/Spiritual Speaker]

Right.

[Nick]

We don't want them to know much about this other than this is a homicide investigation. The reason being, and Gitchell's absolutely right, is that when we are eventually going to be questioning people regarding the. Regarding the potential abduction and the murders of these boys. Now we need to hold to our vest how they were killed and what was done to the bodies so that when we are questioning these suspects, we can eliminate who knows what's going on and what. Who doesn't know what's going on.

[Captain]

Well, and it's a possible castration and it's a possible bite to the face.

[Nick]

Well, this, this plan of Gitchell's, which I thought was decent, was a good, good plan, was foiled from the beginning because what ended up happening was later that night on, on May 6, the reporters from the Memphis Commercial Appeal, that's the local newspaper or the area newspaper, they were using the newsroom's police scanner. And by using that police scanner, they overheard, they picked up a broadcast from the Arkansas State Police which contained details not released to the press by Gitchell. So the next day, the front day, the front page of the news the next day contained details about the murders and it stated things about how the bodies were found, how the boys were tied and that all three were sexually mutilated.

[Captain]

Right.

[Nick]

Which was technically incorrectly reported.

[Captain]

Right.

[Nick]

But they got these details from that broadcast. Well, that puts a big problem in Gitchell's plan because now he cannot use that information to, to decipher who is, who could be involved and who was just somebody that, that. That's being thrown under the bus or somebody. Sometimes we've seen, Captain, that people.

[Captain]

False confessions.

[Nick]

Yeah. Or they inject themselves into an investigation.

[Captain]

Yeah.

[Nick]

So now, now we got some problems here. From, from the get go of this investigation, Kitchell would round up his men and they were going under a strategy. It was kind of a three pronged approach to the investigation that the murders of these three boys were either A, by somebody that knew the boys, knew one or all of the boys, B, by somebody that didn't know any of the boys, someone unknown to the families and the boys.

[Captain]

Right.

[Nick]

Or C, that it was a murders carried out by a gang or maybe a culture by a group of people.

[Captain]

Right.

[Nick]

So that was their going, that was going to be their strategy. We're going to investigate the triple homicide using these three aspects of the case, that it was either somebody they knew, somebody they didn't know, or it was a gang of people.

[Captain]

Because at this time, the evidence isn't giving them any leads.

[Nick]

The only evidence that they had at this point was that one of the officers had pointed out to the investigators that he thought that the way that the boys were tied was very similar to the way that, that U.S. soldiers that were captured in the Vietnam War were tied by the, by the Vietcong

[Captain]

because they'd have them bend down and then.

[Nick]

And they would tie one hand to one. One ankle, one hand to the other ankle. And it was kind. Again, this is not, this is not a way that you typically find people when you find these victims of these crimes.

[Religious/Spiritual Speaker]

Right.

[Nick]

And so it was pointed out that this could have been maybe the work of a Vietnam vet, that somebody that would have seen this before and maybe for whatever reason is Using that tactic. So their first lead that they end up using and that they end up going off of is that they start searching the local and area hospitals. Now what they are looking to find is a former Vietnam vet who's been checked into the hospital that is suffering from injuries to his penis because they believe all of the boys to have been sexually molested or sexually assaulted at the time of their deaths.

[Captain]

That's what they believe. But they don't have proof of that.

[Narrator/Advertiser]

Correct.

[Nick]

They're just going off of what they've seen. Between the time that the bodies were pulled from the water and carried away by the coroner.

[Captain]

Right.

[Nick]

In the weeks that immediately followed the murders, the police department submitted hundreds of items to the criminal investigation, to the evidence lab, to the crime lab for evaluation. Among These items were 18 knives, three wooden sticks, one tire billy. That's the, you know, with the. The truck drivers come out with the little. The small billy club and they thump the tires.

[Captain]

Uh huh.

[Nick]

So one tire billy, how many knives did you say? 18 knives.

[Medical/Legal Disclaimer Voice]

Jesus.

[Nick]

Three wooden sticks, one tire billy, one ice axe, three hammers, one hook, a rope, hair samples from 41 people, blood and urine samples from 11 people. Footprint impressions, shoes, a box of clothing, and a mason jar full of water. Now, these are not all items that are found at the crime scene. These are items that were collected through talking with people. Some of these items were found at the crime scene. And these were items that were sent within the. Within several weeks of their investigation to the crime lab. The crime lab would come out, the coroner and the crime lab would come out and give Gitchell and his officers and his investigators some information, give a

[Captain]

bunch of high fives.

[Nick]

This information that is given to the investigation investigators after examining the shoestring bindings, Right. They found that the knots that were used on Christopher and Michael were all of the same. Okay, so let's think about this real quickly. We have six knots. Each boy is tied twice with two shoelaces. So of those six knots, four of them are the exact same knot. Christopher and Michael are all tied using the same knots.

[Captain]

Right.

[Nick]

The knots on Steve doesn't state what

[Captain]

kind of night knot that is.

[Nick]

No.

[Captain]

Okay.

[Nick]

The knots on Stevie branch were different from each other and dissimilar to each other knot that was used in the crime. So what we're saying here, four of

[Captain]

the same and then two that are different from all those other two and

[Nick]

different from one another.

[Captain]

So I'm gonna break those down. We're gonna call those knots colors. Okay, so we got four Knots that are the color blue. Then we have one knot that's the color red and we have another knot that's color green.

[Nick]

Yes, exactly.

[Captain]

So that's basically because you start doing four knots, it gets a little confusing.

[Nick]

Yeah, six knots for the same and two that are completely different, which is weird. So we have two boys that are tied up the exact same with four knots. And we have one boy that's tied completely different using again shoelaces. But for whatever reason his two knots don't match any of the other.

[Captain]

Which as a detective starts making you. It kind of points into the direction that there's possibly more than one. One attacker, there's one more. More than one murderer. So we got that list of three people that, you know, things that we're looking at and possibly a group of people.

[Nick]

Yeah, that's the first thing it would make you think that there's a group of people. The other thing that's, that should be pointed out here is sometimes when one perpetrator or if perpetrators are outnumbered, they may have the victims tie each other up.

[Captain]

Yeah, control tactic.

[Narrator/Advertiser]

Yeah.

[Nick]

So maybe Stevie Branch was tied up by one or more of the other victims. Or maybe he was tied up by a different assailant completely. We don't know. We'll get into that. The other thing that they found was that they said that we found skin and possibly cuticles in one of the ligatures and that they said there's a strong chance that this skin is not that of any of the three boys. They also found a fragment of Negroid hair that was found in the sheet that was wrapped around Christopher Byers body.

[Captain]

Is that how it's reported? You mean African American hair?

[Nick]

Yeah, I would say African American hair, but it's, it's a medical examiner's report.

[Captain]

Okay. That's the report.

[Nick]

They use the word Negroid hair now. So remember we said that the boys, after being pulled out of the water, they were wrapped in a sheet and then they were placed in the body bags and transferred to be examined. Now what they're saying is we didn't find, we don't. We didn't find the fragment of this hair on the body per se. We found it in the sheet that the body was wrapped in.

[Captain]

Right. So it's, it, it's possible that has nothing to do with the case at all.

[Nick]

But it's also evidence and it's something that's there possibly for a good reason. On May 26, 1993, this is 20 days after the bodies were found. The lead investigator Gitchell, he has not received the autopsy reports at this time. He's frustrated. He's trying to carry out this investigation. They need leads. This case is starting to go cold.

[Captain]

I know that.

[Nick]

So he sends a letter to the crime lab. He's desperate. And in this letter he raises several questions and he wants to know the crime lab's finding findings to the following questions. First question is, what were the times of death?

[Captain]

Yeah.

[Nick]

What were the causes of death? Could he get a diagram of the wounds found on the boys? He also wanted to know had any tears, blood or punctures been found in the clothing of the boys? He wanted to know if a.

[Captain]

So, so he wanted to know. He wanted to know that because he wanted to know if they were attacked before they were disrobed.

[Nick]

And we'll get to this later in the next episode.

[Captain]

Right, but there were some big freaking case.

[Nick]

There were some stab wounds, there were some marks on these boys bodies.

[Captain]

Right.

[Nick]

What he's trying to determine exactly what you said. Were they nude at the time that these injuries were inflicted or were they still clothed? He also wanted to know if a stick that they had sent to the crime lab had been used to beat any of the children. Had the crime lab found anything that would indicate the involvement of a black male? Remember they found that Negroid fragment of hair.

[Captain]

Well, they also have the guy from

[Nick]

Bojangles, the tall, thin black man with the yellow teeth and the writing on his. Oh, I'm talking about Aaron Hutchinson report.

[Captain]

Right. But I think we can kind of dismiss that report a little bit. But we got the individual at Bojangles.

[Nick]

He also wanted to know if there was any evidence that the boys had been forced to perform oral sex. He wanted to know if maybe they had been sodomized. Now here's the other thing though. This was the big question that he'd left for the end of his letter. There was a closely guarded secret that the department was keeping close to the vest. All right, the, the doctor that had performed the autopsy. This is Dr. Frank Peretti. He performed the autopsy and he, he mentioned.

[Captain]

Now he. Now you see him in Paradise Lost.

[Nick]

Mm, you do.

[Captain]

He took, he took the stand, funny like this.

[Nick]

And he, he had mentioned kind of off the record that urine might have been found in the stomachs of two of the boys.

[Captain]

But he would have said this. He was. There was possible urine found in their stomachs.

[Nick]

Well, he had asked the police if they would gather a, gather water samples and submit them to the crime lab because he wanted to determine, you know, we need to make a determination.

[Captain]

This is the doctor.

[Nick]

Was this urine in the stomachs or was the.

[Religious/Spiritual Speaker]

Or.

[Nick]

Or was this just the creek water?

[Captain]

Right, but this is the doctor.

[Nick]

He said that to police. Yes, he said, please submit water samples.

[Captain]

I find that to be a very intelligent thought. That's something I.

[Nick]

And the police did. As such, they collected water samples the. The next day, and they sent them to the crime lab.

[Captain]

Now, but it's a very intelligence insight, I believe.

[Nick]

I agree, but here's the problem. There's been 20 days since these bodies have been found, and the lead investigator still has a lot of questions.

[Captain]

I mean, that's like, that's a list.

[Nick]

Because think about this. First of all, we don't thinking about this.

[Captain]

That's what we do.

[Nick]

We don't have a time of death.

[Captain]

No.

[Nick]

Well, that's messed up. We need a time of death so we can figure out where people were, what they were doing, and. And if they were involved.

[Captain]

Right. Second of all, timeline becomes important. How do you know anything? Alibis don't matter that much. They don't help you or hurt you if you don't have a time of death or at least a rough estimate.

[Nick]

Second of all, he wanted to know which kid, if they could determine so

[Captain]

was killed first, which would possibly give you some leads on possibly, which. Well, which victim would know somebody that would know that victim.

[Nick]

Well, here's the thing. Yeah. There. There could be a situation where maybe one of the children were. Was killed by accident and the other two were killed to cover that up. And if so, if you knew who was killed first, you could explore that. That possibility, that idea.

[Captain]

But it's a. But it's weird that one would die from accident and then they decided to tie up all three victims.

[Nick]

Yeah, yeah, it is weird.

[Captain]

But it's also weird to then have an accidental death and then have two murders after the accidental death.

[Nick]

Yeah. He wanted to know which kid was killed first. And the following, the. The last question that he had for the crime lab was, were any of the kids dragged?

[Captain]

Like their bodies dragged?

[Narrator/Advertiser]

Yeah.

[Nick]

Meaning maybe they weren't killed at the scene.

[Captain]

Because you have three possibilities, right? They're either killed in the water or killed in the woods or they're killed somewhere else.

[Nick]

And if they were killed elsewhere and only one person committed this crime, you would think that they would have to drag them because again, the coroner couldn't even get their vehicle into the woods to retrieve the bodies.

[Captain]

You could take them one at a time. I mean, all the victims are 50 to 60 pounds. So that's not.

[Nick]

No, it's not impossible to take them one at a time. But, but if they could show clear signs that they were dragged, then maybe, maybe that would point that this was definitely take. Had taken place elsewhere. Because remember.

[Medical/Legal Disclaimer Voice]

Yeah.

[Captain]

But also I think it puts some indication on how many people because if there is no drag marks then you. They're either carried one at a time or they're carried by several people.

[Nick]

Well, and we should point out that the police believe that there was a lack of blood found at the crime scene, found where and near where the boys bodies were found. This would indicate that maybe the crime was carried out elsewhere.

[Captain]

Yeah. And if you look at that, what they call that when they take the pictures with the blood splatter.

[Nick]

The blood spatter.

[Captain]

Yeah, but it's. But that's.

[Nick]

They use the luminol.

[Captain]

Yeah, yeah. When you look at the luminol pictures, it doesn't look like a ton to me. But then the other problem is blood does soak into the ground.

[Nick]

Yeah. And you have a water source very close by.

[Captain]

Right. Which I think would. Then that would be the argument that maybe there was more blood but it got washed away.

[Nick]

And again, Gitchell still not received the autopsy report. So he doesn't clearly know how the boys had died. But I'm assuming using his experience that it's probably, you know, and he's a smart guy. It's probably pretty obvious that at least Christopher Byers may have bled to death because of the castration.

[Captain]

Right. Which would be roughly about five pints of blood.

[Nick]

And you would expect to find a lot of that blood at the actual crime scene.

[Captain]

Yeah, but see, that's where I wonder about the time of death because if the death happened earlier on the 5th, then like I said, if it's soaking into the ground, how much of that is not coming up on the luminal pictures? Yeah, yeah, there's a lot of questions here.

[Nick]

One could only wonder. And, but I think you're.

[Captain]

Wait, hold on. But I think your point is not only are we coming up with questions right now, but this detective had a ton of questions and he's hoping to get the answers.

[Nick]

Well, yeah, not only that, here's what's going on at this point in the case. The, the investigators and the officers, they're combing the area, they're canvassing the scene, they're going around the neighborhood and they're asking questions door to door. Well, they can't figure out who to eliminate or to who to believe because they don't know what the actual situation is. All they can go off of is what they observed when the bodies were pulled from the water. We've gone through the events from Wednesday evening, gone through the search for the boys Thursday morning and until the early afternoon of when they found the bodies and their immediate observations when they found the bodies.

[Captain]

Well, I mean, we're also talking a little bit about what happened 20 days later. Looking for these answers from the crime lab.

[Medical/Legal Disclaimer Voice]

Yeah.

[Nick]

And that's just to point out how. How they were kind of dragging their feet when they're waiting for these answers and. And hoping to get leads.

[Captain]

Yeah. Because they don't got a lot to go off of right now.

[Nick]

No. Nope, not much at all. Just what they observed when they pulled the bodies from the water. They have the fragment. Fragment of hair that they've heard about and how the boys were tied up.

[Narrator/Advertiser]

Yeah.

[Captain]

This suspicious individual and Bojangles and we got. And got some family members we need to look into and.

[Nick]

Yeah, you're exactly right.

[Captain]

And we got this weird community. I don't want to say weird, but it's a community that seems like it's down on their luck a little bit.

[Nick]

And we have Gitchell's statement where he is saying that we are looking for somebody that either knows one or all of the boys or two, we're looking for someone that didn't know any of

[Captain]

the boys or possibly a group or

[Nick]

possibly a gang or. Or a cult. And this is how we're going to investigate this.

[Captain]

Well, and this, this area too is very religious, so I wonder if that's the Bible belt. Yeah, you'll hear. You'll hear phrases like satanic panic.

[Nick]

And so next week what we're going to have to explore are those three different areas that get you was looking into.

[Captain]

I thought this was the finale.

[Nick]

Well, unfortunately, we picked a case that's too big for one show. So good for you. Good for us. We'll be back again next week to discuss the West Memphis three more in more detail. And what we're going to look at next week, we're going to look at the family members. We're going to look at their movements, the family members of the victims, their movements, their timeline. On the 5th and on the 6th of May, we're going to determine if any of those people are potentially involved in this case. We're going to look at unknown persons and we're also going to start to explore that third element, that gang and cult aspect of the case that gets you. Was. Was pressing all right.

[Captain]

So I guess it's we're not wrapping up the season for at least another week.

[Nick]

No. So thank you for joining us in the garage tonight. We look forward to seeing you again next week. And until then, be good, be kind and don't litter. Join me Cyndi Lauper with Chef Michelle Bernstein and Dr. Panico to talk about psoriasis and psoriatic arthritis, the potential connection and risk of developing permanent joint damage.

[Medical/Legal Disclaimer Voice]

Cosentic secukinumab is prescribed for adults with moderate to severe plaque psoriasis 300mg dose and adults with active psoriatic arthritis 150mg dose. Don't use if you're allergic to Cosentyx before starting, get checked for tuberculosis. An increased risk of infections and lowered ability to fight them may occur. Like tuberculosis or other serious bacterial, fungal or viral infections, some are fatal. Tell your doctor if you have an infection or symptoms like fevers, sweats, chills, muscle aches or cough had a vaccine or planned to, or if inflammatory bowel disease symptoms develop or worsen, serious allergic reactions and severe eczema like skin reactions may occur. Learn more at 1-844-cosentyx or cosentyx.com Cindy.