Episode 13: A Shot by the Hydrant

In the timeline, we have a big gap for Stevie from 4:00 to 5:00.

We don't really know where Stevie is.

But there's another gap that we need to fill in, and that is from 5:15 to 5:45.

Now, we know where Christopher is.

Christopher is at home.

Yeah, he's in trouble because he was riding south on 14th Street on his stomach on his skateboard.

His dad found him out there and pulled up behind him in the car, scooped him up, threw him in the backseat, threw the skateboard in the backseat, took him home, spanked him, made him clean up the carport, and then he drove off, leaving him there.

So that's all happening between about 5:30 to 5:45.

Right.

But we have a clue about where Stevie and Michael are, and that is also from the door-to-door notes with Kristi Blanchard.

Yeah.

Kristi Blanchard lives over at 824 Holiday Drive, which is right on the intersection between Wilson and Holiday.

Now, Wilson is parallel to 14th.

It's right behind Christopher Byers' house and up the block.

So you can have an address on Holiday, but this house actually faces Wilson, so it functions as a house where the front door and the carport and all this stuff goes towards Wilson, but the mailbox is on Holiday.

But it functions as if it's on Wilson, so you have a perfect view of this.

Kristi Blanchard sees them out there at this intersection riding their bikes, and in fact, she says, sees two boys, one wearing a Scout shirt and the other one a white shirt, riding bikes.

So whenever you hear of a white shirt and a Scout shirt riding bikes in that neighborhood at that time, you immediately know that you're talking about Michael and Stevie.

And that's where we've got them at 5:15 is at that intersection.

We don't pick them up again with anybody's sightings until 5:45, when Alan Bailey Jr, who lives over at 1202 W.E. Cat, or We Cat, as the locals call it, he speaks to Michael Moore and Stevie Branch and notes that they are in a hurry and say they're going to pick Christopher Byers up.

Also reports that Stevie Branch, quote, "wouldn't talk." So we have a gap between 5:15 all the way to 5:45 where we have no accounting, no observations of these kids, but they're in a very crowded neighborhood where they're commonly observed.

So we're hoping to be able to fill in that gap today.

To start to fill that gap, we are going to return to the door-to-door notes on page eight.

The police department is canvassing the neighborhood, and they go to 707 Wilson, which is the home of the Craftons.

15-year-old Ben Crafton lived there, and he reported that he saw Branch and more kids on bikes Wednesday, 6:00 PM, going toward Goodwin.