Crooked Tree: A West Memphis 3 Podcast
Episode 14: The Broken Knife
Aug 25, 2026 · 45 min · 10 segments
In this episode of Crooked Tree: A West Memphis 3 Podcast, hosts Kristin Rich and Paul Day pick up the trail from Dawn Moore and Kim Williams’ May 8, 1993 interviews with the West Memphis Police…
In this episode of Crooked Tree: A West Memphis 3 Podcast, hosts Kristin Rich and Paul Day pick up the trail from Dawn Moore and Kim Williams’ May 8, 1993 interviews with the West Memphis Police Department. The girls described three teenagers emerging from Devil’s Den who offered Dawn a “shot,” then later entering a house on Wilson Street—identified as the home of 13-year-old Carlos Seals at 808 Wilson. Kristin and Paul examine how police zeroed in on Seals and his friends—Billy Sanderson, Kent Lynn, Jason White, and Samantha Gardner—through door-to-door notes and the girls’ account. Interviews on May 8 and 9 by Lieutenant James Sudbury initially paint a straightforward picture: the group helped search for Christopher Byers on the afternoon of May 5 but claimed they stayed out of Robin Hood Hills that day. By the next day’s questioning, a different story emerges. The teens say they had entered the woods via Devil’s Den on Sunday, May 2. During that trip, Kent broke a knife while cutting vines and left it behind. Details accumulate—Jason and Carlos leave first, the others reach the pipeline and Turtle Hill, and Billy reports seeing (and briefly speaking with) two older white males. Police recover the broken knife roughly 75–150 yards from the crime scene. A subsequent report clears Seals and the group pending further developments, though the knife is later rushed to the lab ahead of trial. The hosts weigh the accounts against independent corroboration (including Thelma Turner’s observation of teens matching their description with a large knife near Goodwin on May 2), note the absence of any follow-up on the “shot” offer that so alarmed Dawn and Kim, and highlight gaps around Bobby Posey’s door-to-door claims. The episode then turns to other neighborhood leads: interviews with Jeff Holliday and Clint Garner about a suspicious white van that followed them weeks earlier near McAuley Circle, multiple additional white-van reports, and the list of vans the department compiled and checked. Packed with primary documents, timelines, and careful analysis of what the police pursued—and what they left unasked—this episode unpacks how a promising lead about teens near Devil’s Den quickly centered on a broken knife, why the group was cleared so swiftly, and the lingering questions that remain.
In this episode of Crooked Tree: A West Memphis 3 Podcast, hosts Kristin Rich and Paul Day pick up the trail from Dawn Moore and Kim Williams’ May 8, 1993 interviews with the West Memphis Police…
- Show signals
- SuitabilitySafeBiasNot politicalAudience≈196 followers
