West Memphis

All three were eight years old.

On May 5, 1993, the boys disappeared in West Memphis, Arkansas.

The following day, their bodies were discovered in a wooded drainage area known as Robin Hood Hills.

Investigators determined that they had all been murdered.

Three teenagers spent more than 18 years in prison.

They have now been free for more than 15 years, and the families are still living with the impact of the original murders.

No matter where someone stands on the guilt or innocence of the West Memphis Three, the enduring question is what reliable evidence can tell us about the deaths of those children.

And again, their names are Christopher Byers, Stevie Branch, and Michael Moore.

Welcome to Crooked Tree, a West Memphis Three podcast.

Now, where I did hear something that sounded odd, that Thursday evening, it was probably like six.

No, it wasn't even that late.

And I think that's kind of where my head went when I read this statement because it is so vague and I'm trying to figure out why Lieutenant Hester ended up talking to Alice.

Like, what precipitated this conversation? And honestly, all I can think of is that it's related to Mark.

Like, I'm wondering if the older white male she's referring to... is Mark Byers, and she's asking if Mark was in a store with Christopher, only because pretty quickly, Mark was seen as a possible suspect by the West Memphis Police Department.

That, coupled with what Mark tells the police about his night, could have led them to, like you said, a flash market, a convenience store.

If you'll recall, when Mark was talking about his night and we were kind of tracking where he was on the night of the 5th during the search of the boys, he runs into a police officer near Big Star, a Big Star supermarket grocery store.

I want to do it at karaoke, right? I was listening to it, and I looked it up to listen to it, and when I looked it up, a couple different results popped up.

One of them... an acoustic version acoustic version of a spooky song always always hits right always a banger um and it's saying by michael graves and damian eccles so i listened to it it's great it works really well and it got me thinking about damian eccles so i wanted to talk about him a little bit and the case of the west memphis three in case you or anyone is like unfamiliar and i'm gonna make an argument that there's something to learn from it and something that we should be thinking about right about now right halloween uh 2026 as as our freedoms are being eroded specifically you know which ones um okay the bbw ones so if you know the case of the west memphis three it happened in the 90s it happened during the satanic panic it's like it's like the satanic panic case it's emblematic of the entire thing becoming um you know real like becoming something that isn't just cultural but had real like material impacts on the law and policing and shit like that uh case is essentially that there were these three kids in uh west memphis arkansas in this hick town who were like goths and they like hung out um and there was a murder like a true crime gruesome murder of three other children three young boys were found like hog tied and one of them had his genitals cut off and like horrific shit happened to these three kids and bludgeoned over the head and they were dumped in a lake.

Right.

police find them and they start asking around and conducting investigation and around this time all of the tipper gore you know music will turn you into a satan worshiping child murderer stuff is going on all of the uh the free speech stuff right this was a huge uh freaking free speech moment too with like frank zappa and everyone the musicians have you know having the stickers put on the cds and being told you know you can't sell certain music and shit like that um yeah wait this is it all can i connect okay all right i'm glad i brought up face sitting uh but this happened and um in this moment and so you know this is like a case of a middle of nowhere podunk police department that has nothing that doesn't know what it's doing uh happens true crime you see this all the time they're just bumbling idiots they they're a bureaucratic sort of system they have to arrest someone they have to file the case away so they just make shit up they go in random places and in West Memphis what they did is they consulted a guy who's like he's a cult an occult specialist like as in he studies people who are occultists and then he's the type of person who the police like refer to as an expert it's idiot con artist.

He's just some guy with a goatee in West Memphis.

And he pointed them in the direction of Damien Echols and his two friends.

Because they were goths.

I get where these kids are coming from.

Besides, people like you, I've been watching this.

And I used to live in West Memphis, Arkansas, by the way.

So I know a little bit about Arkansas.

I know a little bit about Paula Jones.

the area.

Between my hometown of West Memphis and Little Rock in the eastern part of the state.

So it's Brinkley is a

cute little

I used to have a buddy whose dad I went to college with.

His dad lived in West Memphis, and his dad would come from West Memphis to every single game in Bud Walton Arena, every single one.

That was a different time, obviously.

Everything wasn't on television.