Crooked Tree: A West Memphis 3 Podcast
Oct 13, 2026 · 57 min · 15 segments
On May 10, 1993—the day that never ends—Damien Echols leaves a grueling interrogation with Detectives Ridge and Sudbury and walks straight into a polygraph with Detective Bill Durham. What follows is…
Paul DayHostWell, I think the most significant thing that we hear from Detective Durham in that clip is that it wasn't recorded.
We have no records whatsoever of what happened in that room other than Detective Durham's notes.
And at this point, it's my opinion that he has already formulated some sort of idea about who Damien was and what he was capable of, and probably the fact that he was involved in these murders.
Well, the questions he's gonna ask during this interview seems to be based upon some prejudicial information he might be getting, specifically from Sudberry is where I think he's getting it from.
When we read these questions, you'll say, "Oh, yeah, this definitely feels like a Sudberry question, for sure." So it feels like there's some cross-contamination between the two.
But to me, what's really relevant are the admissions from Durham that Damien is effectively denying his involvement-
He never once says, "Yes, I did it." But it's going to get controversial at one point, so we're gonna bring up that controversy in a little bit.
And he's already hinting at it, talking about the lack of denial, that kind of thing, and we'll get into what the lack of denial really implies here and what is going on with that in the latter part of this episode.
Detective Durham says both on the stand and in his report that Damien denied all involvement.
In fact, the remarks on his report from the polygraph say, "In the pre-test interview, the subject denied having been in Robin Hood Hills on May fifth, nineteen ninety-three.
He denied being present when the victims were killed and denied having killed any of the victims.
He also said he did not know who killed the three victims." So he does report this accurately.
Damien agrees, Detective Durham agrees that this is what was said by Damien in this interview.
So keep in mind that Durham probably knows what was said to Detectives Ridge and Sudberry in their interview, or at least partially.
He's hoping something will be indicated in this polygraph, and he can come at Damien and say, "You're lying.
Well, I think the most significant thing that we hear from Detective Durham in that clip is that it wasn't recorded.
We have no records whatsoever of what happened in that room other than Detective Durham's notes.
And at this point, it's my opinion that he has already formulated some sort of idea about who Damien was and what he was capable of, and probably the fact that he was involved in these murders.
Well, the questions he's gonna ask during this interview seems to be based upon some prejudicial information he might be getting, specifically from Sudberry is where I think he's getting it from.
When we read these questions, you'll say, "Oh, yeah, this definitely feels like a Sudberry question, for sure." So it feels like there's some cross-contamination between the two.
But to me, what's really relevant are the admissions from Durham that Damien is effectively denying his involvement-
He never once says, "Yes, I did it." But it's going to get controversial at one point, so we're gonna bring up that controversy in a little bit.
And he's already hinting at it, talking about the lack of denial, that kind of thing, and we'll get into what the lack of denial really implies here and what is going on with that in the latter part of this episode.
Detective Durham says both on the stand and in his report that Damien denied all involvement.
In fact, the remarks on his report from the polygraph say, "In the pre-test interview, the subject denied having been in Robin Hood Hills on May fifth, nineteen ninety-three.
He denied being present when the victims were killed and denied having killed any of the victims.
He also said he did not know who killed the three victims." So he does report this accurately.
Damien agrees, Detective Durham agrees that this is what was said by Damien in this interview.
So keep in mind that Durham probably knows what was said to Detectives Ridge and Sudberry in their interview, or at least partially.
He's hoping something will be indicated in this polygraph, and he can come at Damien and say, "You're lying.
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