00:00:00
want to connect with a family member who doesn't speak your language then check out the language learning program
00:00:04
Rosetta Stone on desktop or as an app Rosetta Stone is designed to immerse you in the language you're learning through
00:00:10
an intuitive process plus the true accent feature even gives you feedback on your pronunciation and with a
00:00:15
lifetime membership you have access to all 25 offered languages get started today visit rosettastone.com
00:00:22
backpod to get 50% off your lifetime membership now that's rosettastone.com slmp od50 for 50%
00:00:30
off if your child is struggling in school then ISL is right for your family ISL is an online learning program for
00:00:37
kids that covers math language arts science and social studies backed by research kids using ISL are scoring
00:00:43
higher on tests it's no wonder it's used in 95% of the top 100 school districts in the US plus a month ofl costs less
00:00:49
than an hour of tutoring get an exclusive 20% offl membership when you sign up today atl.com s20 visit xl.com
00:00:57
20 to get the most effective learning program out there at the best price [Music]
00:01:45
welcome to True Crime garage wherever you are whatever you are doing thanks for listening I'm your host Nick and
00:01:51
with me as always Manning the controls my friend and yours the captain thank you thank you thank you it's good to be
00:01:58
seen and it's good to see you good to see you Captain we got a jam-pack show for you this week so let's get straight
00:02:05
to the beer and get straight to the [Music] case this week we're drinking reverberation by Memphis made Brewing
00:02:16
Company Memphis Tennessee garage grade 3 and 1/2 out of five bottle caps this is a Belgian style coffee
00:02:26
Stout collaboration that they did with memphis-based Reverb coffee company they used freshly roasted dark Sumatra coffee
00:02:34
which perfectly Blends the accents with the Stouts natural coffee flavors sum it's a tasty treat yes it is Captain and
00:02:43
this week's beer is brought To Us by some very good friends of the garage we have Erica in Portland Oregon Robert in
00:02:48
Alberta Canada and Rachel in Londonberry New Hampshire so thank you all for buying the beer this week and if you
00:02:55
want to pitch in and buy us around for next week's show go to True Crim garage.com and click on the Donate
00:03:01
button and this is our big season 2 finale so we want to thank everybody that has purchased t-shirts signed up on
00:03:08
the mailing list added us on social media if it wasn't for you guys we'd just be talking to ourselves yeah thanks
00:03:15
for a great season 2 we hope you've enjoyed it and we got a great case for you tonight that's going to spill over
00:03:20
into next week so without further Ado gather around grab a chair and grab a beer or two and let's talk some
00:03:30
cry I believe the Lord's going to Direct Me Guide Me And Lead Me and we're going to give the glory to
00:03:42
[Music] [Applause] him there's a voice calling me from an or tree and it Whispers draw close
00:04:01
to me leave this world Memphis [Applause] [Music] Memphis the police in West Memphis
00:04:27
Arkansas confirmed today that three young boys were brutally murder the bodies of Weaver elementary school
00:04:32
second graders Steven Branch Christopher buers and Michael Mor were pulled from a
00:04:36
shallow Creek earlier today there are rumors that the boys may have been sexually mutilated the police say that
00:04:42
they do not yet have any suspects in the case the missing 8-year-old boys were discovered in an area known as Robin
00:04:48
Hood Hills a secluded patch of woods behind the Blue Beacon Truck Wash along Interstate 40 in
00:04:58
West and man imagine all the evil that you could think of the how someone could be murdered and that's how these three
00:05:06
children die no family should have to go through this unfortunately it's going to happen
00:05:13
again somewhere another town another town it's going to happen again I'm sure lot of bad people out there in the
00:05:23
world I see no reason I see no motive for why these three little boys were murder no one had to have murdered the
00:05:35
three boys even Branch Christopher Anda hundreds of people killed in the name of religion it is a motivating
00:05:52
force it gives people who want to do evil want to commit murders a reason to do what they're doing
00:06:00
[Music] [Applause] real quick Captain I want to give a little disclaimer here okay so this is a
00:06:31
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
00:06:38
this case uhhuh and we wanted to approach this a little bit differently because I've always felt that a lot of
00:06:45
the movies and a lot of the books regarding this case they claim that they're going to go into it you know no
00:06:52
bias right exactly that that John Mark buers is not guilty that Terry Hobbs is not guilty that the West Memphis 3 are
00:06:59
not guilty or or or they they are guilty right um you know that they're going to
00:07:03
go into it and point fingers and so what we're going to try to do here Captain is what we did was we
00:07:10
put the blindfold on mhm and we we we're not seeing this with any preconceived notions of of guilt by anybody involved
00:07:17
and we're just going to look and examine at how this thing went down and the timeline and the people involved it's
00:07:25
we're we're taking a car into the garage we're going to dismantle it we're going
00:07:29
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
00:07:34
there's a lot of hearsay in this case and there's a lot of character assassination in this case what we're
00:07:40
focusing on is the facts what we know for sure and I'm sure some people are familiar with the documentaries and the
00:07:47
books that were involved with this case I mean we have the Paradise Lost Trilogy
00:07:51
we have the west of Memphis documentary we have books like the devil's not untying the KN Abomination I mean the
00:07:59
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
00:08:05
movie about this case and if you watch those or you read those you only get a piece you only get a kind of a sneak
00:08:12
peek into this case you can but there's so much information out there where you can actually dive into the actual
00:08:19
reports and the actual timelines that were taken by law enforcement we're going to start off by discussing some of
00:08:25
the police reports that were given May 5th 199 93 in West Memphis Arkansas this was a Wednesday the full moon rised at
00:08:36
7:41 p.m. there's a missing person's report that needs to be responded to officer
00:08:43
Meeks arrives at the home of John Mark buers at 8:00 p.m. and now he's complaining that his son has gone
00:08:53
missing he says that uh his his son might be a missing person that the last time that he had seen
00:09:00
him he was cleaning the yard at 5:30 p.m. his son's name is Christopher buers now he he would go on to explain to the
00:09:09
officer that Christopher was on Ridin for hyperactivity and at this date he had not taken his medication that day Mr
00:09:18
buer said that his stepson Christopher was last seen at 6m By Dana Moore who is the neighbor and Christopher was playing
00:09:28
with her son Michael Moore who is also believed to be missing Christopher buers was 4' 4 in tall roughly 50 lbs light
00:09:38
brown hair and brown eyes he was last seen wearing blue jeans dark shoes and a long sleeve white T-shirt and after
00:09:47
taking the complaint officer Meek would go on to respond to another call now this call took place at the Bojangles
00:09:56
restaurant this is a chicken restaurant now she arrives and goes to the window and she takes this report through the
00:10:04
window and the report is the manager is stating that about 30 minutes before the
00:10:11
officer had arrived that a bleeding black man had entered the restaurant and went into the women's restroom now he
00:10:19
had blood on his face and appeared to have been mentally Disturbed or mentally disoriented and he had wandered away
00:10:27
from the restaurant just a few minutes before officer Meek could arrive now employees would go on and they would
00:10:35
find blood smeared on the bathroom walls there has been some speculation about this individual having a sling on one of
00:10:43
his arms yeah and that is apparent because of a follow-up police report that was conducted the second day this
00:10:51
would be uh May 6th where detective Sergeant Allen and detective Ridge went to the bo Jangles restaurant and they
00:11:01
they talked with a Marty King now Marty King is the manager at the Bojangles restaurant and the reason why they got
00:11:08
the call was once the boys were found the manager believed that there was some kind of connection between the man that
00:11:16
he saw in the restaurant yeah the Bojangles restaurant was not terribly far from the Robin Hood Hills woods and
00:11:22
right that's why he called the cops out to collect evidence and we do before I get into the second police report we do
00:11:29
have to mention that officer Meek did not enter when she arrived on May 5th she did not enter the restaurant at all
00:11:37
she took the report through the window she didn't go into the restaurant she did not go into the women's restroom to
00:11:44
investigate they had other calls to tend to that evening and and she she left before she could further investigate now
00:11:51
after like you said after the boys have been found now we got to go back and revisit this thing right so now they
00:11:57
send a detective two detectives to the Bojangles restaurant they meet with the manager the manager is going to further
00:12:05
give further detail on this story now what he says is that the black male entered the restaurant on the evening of
00:12:13
May 5th and he was found in the lady's room and appeared to have been bleeding from the arm the manager stated that the
00:12:21
man was about 511 thin he was dirty he was in his late 20s and they found a pair of sunglasses that were left on the
00:12:31
toilet which is suspected to have been left by the black male now the subject that we're talking about he had a blue
00:12:38
cast type brace on his arm that had white Velcro on it the black man appeared to be mentally disoriented
00:12:47
maybe intoxicated and again he reminded police that when they placed the call the night
00:12:54
before and officer Meek arrived that the uh the black man in question had left on foot and he was walking East
00:13:03
towards the back dumpster the manager also stated that the black man's clothing was a denim
00:13:10
sleeveless shirt with black shoes that looked like they were tennis shoes and black thin warm-up pants now the two
00:13:18
detectives that arrived the day after on the 6th they would go and they would took they took blood scrapings from the
00:13:25
north wall inside the women's bathroom above the toilet they took blood scrapings from the inside of a door of
00:13:33
the stall door to the bathroom and uh they also took uh evidence from the entrance hall to the bathroom as well in
00:13:41
the sitting area of the restaurant this Blood evidence that they collected was never tested and the reason why it was
00:13:48
never tested was it was lost by the detectives yeah and some of the blood that would have been there the night
00:13:55
before was cleaned up by the employees so there was there was less and also the sunglasses that were reported to have
00:14:03
been left on the toilet were never recovered possibly thrown away back to May 5th the evening of May 5th officer
00:14:11
Meek is at the Bojangles restaurant taking her report when she receives another call now this is a disturbance
00:14:18
call regarding a criminal mischief complaint she leaves the scene this is probably why she never went into the
00:14:25
restaurant never went into the restroom and she went to take this other call this criminal mischief complaint about
00:14:32
somebody throwing eggs after taking the report about somebody throwing eggs officer Meek continues on and she's
00:14:40
responding to another call this time she arrives at the home of Dana more at 9:24
00:14:47
p.m. this was called the complaint was called in by the mother Dana and when she arrives she talks with the mother
00:14:54
and she says that she observed her son her son is missing at this point now remember earlier Mr buers had said that
00:15:02
he believed that his son was with Michael Moore this is the mother of Michael Moore and she's saying at 9:24
00:15:10
p.m. that uh her son is missing and he was last seen riding bicycles with his friends Stevie branch and Christopher
00:15:18
buers she had lost sight of the boys they ventured on further out of her sight and when she lost sight of the
00:15:25
boys she sent her daughter uh Dawn to find them the boys couldn't be found and she described her son Michael as
00:15:35
approximately 4ot tall 60 lb with brown hair and blue eyes and he was last seen wearing blue pants a Blue Boy Scouts of
00:15:45
America shirt orange and blue Boy Scout hat and tennis shoes and both of these boys that are missing are 8 years old so
00:15:54
far yes all all two boys that have been reported missing are 8 years old sold now the the complaint By Dana Moore
00:16:03
states that they were riding bicycles with their other friend Stevie Branch who's eight as well shortly after
00:16:10
officer Meek arrives to take the missing person's report from the mo household a
00:16:15
second officer is responding to again another missing person's call now this officer arrives at the catfish Island
00:16:25
restaurant we got to discuss this a little bit because this is a much different call in my opinion than the
00:16:31
first two calls that we've already discussed okay so in this situation we have Pam Hobs she's working at the
00:16:39
catfish Island restaurant okay now her husband Terry Hobbs he's The Stepfather of Stevie Branch he arrives to pick up
00:16:49
Pam Hobs from work okay so she's getting off work and and he arrives approximately it must have been about
00:16:56
920 to 9:25 because the police call comes in and a police officer is dispatched shortly after that in
00:17:04
responds to this call just after 9:24 p.m. and Terry Hobbs isn't alone when he goes to pick up Pam Hobs he is with
00:17:12
their daughter Amanda yeah you're exactly right and what happened is see Pam Hobs she had a DWI so she's no
00:17:20
longer driving she doesn't have a driver's license at this time so Terry Hobbs would typically drive her to work
00:17:27
which he did on the day of May 5th and then he would come back and pick her up mhm okay so at this point Terry Hobbs
00:17:34
arrives with older daughter Amanda and they go to pick up Pam hops now Pam says that it was a that the
00:17:42
pickup was a little weird because when Terry enters the restaurant that he came in and without talking to her without
00:17:50
telling her what he was doing he goes over to the pay phone and places a phone call he doesn't explain to her who he is
00:17:58
calling now Pam comes out of the restaurant and she specifically says that she expected to see her son and her
00:18:06
daughter in Terry's truck that they were all going to ride home together cuz it's
00:18:10
like 920 yeah inde and we got a 8-year-old and we're not going to leave children at home alone exactly so she
00:18:18
comes out of the restaurant and she says that you know they have those little gumball machines or whatever that she
00:18:23
purposely you know bought a couple pieces of candy she was going to give one to admanda and one to steevie she
00:18:29
gets into the truck there's no Stevie now Terry gets into the truck with her and he says you know Stevie's still
00:18:37
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
00:18:44
we've been out looking for Stevie now his friends are missing as well I've just called the cops from the pay phone
00:18:51
so the police arrive now this is Officer Moore he arrives and he's going to take
00:18:58
the compl from Pam hops now she would state that her son left home after school and she
00:19:05
hasn't seen him since she also stated that Dana Moore stated that she had saw Steve with her son Michael Moore and
00:19:13
Christopher buers around 6:00 p.m. now it's 1993 it's not that abnormal for 8-year-old boys to just go off and play
00:19:23
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
00:19:29
you don't you just ride around the neighborhood it's not until it's about dinner time that your parents would
00:19:35
actually start worrying about you I see what you're saying I mean this is a Time
00:19:39
kids go out and play after school you know you get together with your buddies you go ride bikes you're on skateboards
00:19:44
or whatever you're gone for a while and you're gone maybe longer than you anticipated to be gone or longer than
00:19:49
your parents told you that you could be out and playing with your friends this situation might be a little bit
00:19:55
different though you know now we're talking about like you said N9 30ish p.m. it's dark we've already established
00:20:02
that the the moon came up before 8:00 p.m. that night so just because the moon is out before 8:00 doesn't mean it's
00:20:11
dark before 8:00 but we could obviously assume that at 9:20 9:25 when this report has taken place it is dark now
00:20:20
and that's what has given her cause for concern definitely and before you know as stated she didn't know until Terry
00:20:28
had told her just minutes before that her son was still missing when the officer is there and she's giving the
00:20:34
report she would go on to describe her son Stevie as 4' 2 in tall approximately 60 lbs he's got blonde hair and blue
00:20:43
eyes and he was last seen wearing blue jeans and a white T-shirt and he was riding his 20-in black Renegade bicycle
00:20:50
now what's convenient for the police department is the three reports of the missing children they're all in the same
00:20:58
neighborhood they all live around each other do you want to describe that neighborhood for us yeah it's convenient
00:21:04
but Troublesome and they're all reported to have been seen with one another now this neighborhood is it's situated
00:21:11
between a very busy freeway the interstate 40 freeway is to the north of the neighborhood and to the south of the
00:21:19
neighborhood we have the 10mile bou we have the two boys Chris buers and Michael Moore they live basically next
00:21:30
door to one another and just less than about a quarter of a mile south of their home is Stevie is the home of Stevie
00:21:38
Branch now to the north of of all of their homes about a half mile north of the Michael Moore's home and Christopher
00:21:47
byer's home we have what is known as the Robin Hood Hills mhm this is a Woods that that is on the outskirt of the
00:21:56
neighborhood there and this section of Woods is roughly 4 Acres we have some reports where the boys were seen heading
00:22:04
towards that direction now these Woods were considered an area that parents didn't want their kids playing in the
00:22:11
woods but we all know we were all kids once if there was a wood somewhere if there was I wasn't you you've just been
00:22:19
you came out this way and if there were came out if there were Woods or if there
00:22:23
was a creek or if there was something to something that would lead to an Adventure especially when you're 8 9 10
00:22:29
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
00:22:35
were seen going north that maybe the boys had ventured into these woods these Woods are located right by the Blue
00:22:43
Beacon Truck Wash which so it's not just a car wash it's more of for washing semis and stuff like that yeah there's a
00:22:52
service road that runs right off of that Interstate 40 and this is where the truck washes and now one thing we got to
00:23:01
keep in mind here with the West Memphis town is that a lot of their money that they generate comes from being located
00:23:08
right by this freeway this freeway is one of the most traveled freeways in the United States so they get a lot of
00:23:14
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
00:23:20
stops and there's these restaurants where the truckers would go into and spend their money to get a meal or to
00:23:27
fill up their tank uh wash their truck so it's a big part of their economy by 9:30 p.m. it's well established that we
00:23:35
have three missing boys all from the same neighborhood multiple family members of these missing boys are out
00:23:43
searching for their children for their stepchildren and they would go you know they would drive up and down the streets
00:23:50
of the neighborhood ask neighbor Neighbors if they had seen anybody if they had seen the boys uh there and some
00:23:56
of them even ventured in into the truck wash and ventured into the wooded area and by after midnight most of them start
00:24:05
to give up their search you know it's getting way into to the late of the night they cannot find the boys and
00:24:12
unfortunately there's not much hope but but what they do is they wake up the next morning well also it's it's so dark
00:24:19
that you can't see anything you're you're hoping this is just a misunderstanding that maybe they went to
00:24:24
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 and
00:24:30
that these family members as well as law enforcement would continue on the search
00:24:35
the following morning now the uh police department would get help from other local law enforcement agencies in their
00:24:44
searches mhm so we have a smaller Police Department that is going to get a lot of
00:24:49
help from from bigger police departments and we even have the Memphis the city of
00:24:55
Memphis in Tennessee sends over a helicopter to search the following again this is west of Memphis Yeah we have the
00:25:02
Memphis Police Department providing the helicopter for for the search the following morning as well as the criten
00:25:08
county sheriff's department assisting with officers and boots on the ground here's one thing that's interesting
00:25:15
captain on the morning of May 6th this is an appointment that was already scheduled right okay we have a
00:25:24
woman named Vicky Hutchinson she's a proxim in the early 30s and she has an appointment to speak with an officer his
00:25:33
name is Don Bray now this is this interview would be conducted when the kids were still missing mhm so she
00:25:42
arrives to this interview and the reason for the interview is that a local truck
00:25:48
stop where Vicky Hutchinson works there was a suspected credit card fraud situation okay after being asked by the
00:25:57
truck stop owners to interview this woman he has scheduled this interview now so she's a suspect in
00:26:03
this she's a suspect for this because there was a $200 overrun on a credit card MH now the owners of the truck stop
00:26:11
they suspected that their new employee Vicki she was working at the time right and this is something that hadn't
00:26:18
happened recently or hadn't happened before and they believe that she should be suspected of this $200 overrun on
00:26:25
this credit card this credit card belonged to a customer so we could assume that they maybe questioned her
00:26:30
about it but they didn't feel so confident in what the answers they got so they turned it over to the police
00:26:35
department so the interview starts right and Vicki shows up and she shows up with
00:26:40
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
00:26:49
way for this to go down that maybe somebody should be watching your son maybe you shouldn't be bringing him to a
00:26:55
police interview where where you're a suspect in in a potential fraud yeah maybe the officer didn't think that she
00:27:01
was taking it serious enough well she explains to the officer after they start talking about the credit card incident
00:27:08
uhuh she explains to the officer that I brought my son Aaron with me because he's 8 years old and he goes to school
00:27:16
with the boys that are missing I've heard these kids are missing and that he is very good he's best friends with
00:27:24
Michael Moore and Christopher buers now Vicky would tell the officer that on the
00:27:30
previous day the pre previous afternoon that the buyer's boy had came over to the house with Michael Moore and
00:27:39
had asked Vicky if her son Aaron could go with them to the woods yeah and now Robin Hill most of thein hood Hill Robin
00:27:50
Hood Hills most of the parents didn't want their kids playing in these Woods like we talked about and a big reason
00:27:56
for this is because it is located so close to all those Trucking places right that they were worried about people
00:28:03
passing through people that they couldn't trust people that they didn't know people not from the area just being
00:28:07
around their children who might be playing in the woods or playing on the outskirts of the woods so anybody that
00:28:13
they'd run into from those truck stops would have a easy way in and an easy way out yeah it's one of the busiest
00:28:19
freeways in the United States so during this interview after officer Bray starts
00:28:25
discussing the missing boys with with Vicky and with her son Aaron he decides to phone the local police department and
00:28:32
say hey I might have I might have somebody that might have some information in this case this boy was
00:28:38
asked to go with the other boys to the woods and his mom said no you can't go sound sounds like a great way to deflect
00:28:45
so the the officer is then told this is in the early afternoon on May 6th that uh thank you for the call but we have
00:28:55
just found the bodies of the three boys he hangs up the phone and he decides you
00:29:00
know what I'm going to continue this interview with the son [Music] Aaron the evidence keeps pouring in at
00:29:19
this point the facts are undeniable it's an open and shut case Monopoly go is the
00:29:24
most fun you can have in a mobile game everyone is still talking about Monopoly go for a good reason it is an absolute
00:29:33
hit millions of people pass go every day because this game is always bringing something new to the table like
00:29:40
countless crazy tournaments you can join with your friends as partners or teams or timed events offering bonuses like
00:29:48
massive multipliers or rent frenzies to help you get huge rewards and there's so
00:29:55
many rewards to discover rare stickers you can can trade with friends to complete albums delightful emojis to
00:30:01
taunt people with when you raid their riches unique playing pieces and so much more the verdict is in with Monopoly go
00:30:10
there's something new to discover every time you play so don't miss out go download it now free on the App Store
00:30:18
and Google play the best part of spring cleaning takeaway is the post clean Clarity you get it's kind of like when
00:30:26
you find out that you've been paying a Fortune for wireless when mintmobile has phone plans for $15 a month when you
00:30:33
purchase a 3-month plan it's time to switch to Mint mobile all plans come with high-speed data and unlimited talk
00:30:41
and text delivered on the nation's largest 5G Network use your own phone with any mint Mobile plan and bring your
00:30:49
phone number along with all of your existing contacts ditch overpriced Wireless with mint Mobile's limited time
00:30:58
deal and get three months of Premium wireless service for 15 bucks a month save a lot of money with mint mobile get
00:31:06
their great Mobile Wireless service delivered on the nation's largest 5G Network that's premium service at a
00:31:15
great price to get this new customer offer and your new three-month Unlimited Wireless plan for just 15 bucks a month
00:31:23
go to mintmobile.com TCG that's mintmobile.com TCG cut your wireless bill to 15 bucks a
00:31:34
month at mintmobile.com tcg $45 upfront payment required equivalent to $15 a month new customers
00:31:43
on first three-month plan only speed slower above 40 gigabyt on Unlimited Plan additional taxes fees and
00:31:51
restrictions apply see mint mobile for details warmer sunnier days are calling fuel up for them with factors no prep No
00:32:00
Mess meals meet your Wellness goals in time for summer thanks to the menu of Chef crafted meals with options like
00:32:07
calorie smart Protein Plus and keto factors fresh never frozen meals are dietitian approved and ready to eat in
00:32:15
Just 2 minutes so no matter how busy you are you'll always have time to enjoy nutritious great tasting meals with 35
00:32:23
different meals and more than 60 add-ons to choose from every week you'll always
00:32:28
have new flavors to explore crush your Wellness goals this may with dietitian approved meals and ingredients that you
00:32:36
can trust make your day Delicious from breakfast to dessert stay fueled with easy nutritious options treat yourself
00:32:45
to restaurant quality meals that feature premium ingredients like filet Manan shrimp and black and salmon I am new to
00:32:54
factor and I have been loving every minute of it I have a problem and it's called lunch some days I need a pack of
00:33:01
lunch and some days I work from home whether I'm at home or whether I'm on the go factor is fueling my lunch from
00:33:08
now on head to factor meals.com truecrimegarage 50 and use code True Crime garage 50 to get 50% off your
00:33:18
first box plus 20% off your next month that's code truecrimegarage 50 at Factor meals.com
00:33:26
truecrimegarage 50 to get 50% off your first box plus 20% off your next month while your subscription is
00:33:39
[Music] active Aaron would go on to tell officer Bray that in the past he had gone to the
00:33:51
woods with the boys and on one occasion Michael Moore had even gone swimming in the ditch there was a ditch a drainage
00:33:58
ditch that had run off of the 10 mile by you and it was basically like a big Creek right and in some locations it was
00:34:07
quite it was quite deep you know it would get as maybe as deep as 4ot 5 foot yeah uh definitely enough for a
00:34:15
8-year-old to swim in yeah and it was it at some points you know it was thin and
00:34:19
other points that there was more distance between the two Shores but he had said that on more than one occasion
00:34:24
he had gone into the woods with the boys and that they had actually had a clubhouse in the woods and they would go
00:34:31
there often Aaron would go on to tell officer Bray that the day before just after school he had seen Michael Moore
00:34:40
talking with a black man this man was described as tall and that the man had been sent he
00:34:47
said he had been sent by Michael Moore's mom to pick him up after school mhm the
00:34:53
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
00:35:02
well this was very interesting to the officer because Aaron Hutchinson would have known he knew these boys he went to
00:35:09
school with them he lived in the neighborhood with them he would easily be able to identify Michael Moore his
00:35:16
description of the man is specific you know he's giving specific details right the problem with this report is that
00:35:26
Michael Moore's mom said no I didn't send anybody to pick up my son right and second of all we live right by the
00:35:34
school he just walks home and Michael was reported as having come home straight after school mhm so this
00:35:42
reports a little weird we have this strange but it's coming from an eight-year-old we have this strange
00:35:47
person that's that's seen by this 8-year-old that knew Michael Moore knew Christopher buyers and reports that he
00:35:53
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
00:36:01
Moore came straight home after school not a lot of validity to this story a quick friendly garage reminder this show
00:36:09
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
00:36:16
in the room with you uh don't do it uh this this is about to get pretty graphic and this is the stuff that nightmares
00:36:24
are made of so you've been warned all right now now we're going to venture into the woods and what took place in
00:36:30
the afternoon of May 6th the officers the the all the law enforcement agencies that have banned together and they're
00:36:39
looking for these three missing boys they would find them in the early afternoon on the 6th now they had looked
00:36:46
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
00:36:55
wooded area like I said before the woods was about 4 Acres but the first part it
00:37:02
seemed like the most populated part or the most the part that people would spend the most time at would be the
00:37:08
front part of the woods not so much the back part yeah so what you have here is you have basically a tree line that that
00:37:14
I don't know how deep the tree line was but then the woods itself is divided by the 10 m Bou
00:37:22
diversion which is to to make sure that it doesn't flood the area it's basically
00:37:29
a giant pipe well but but the water that runs underneath of it they they're diverting the water elsewhere right so
00:37:36
that the main waterer Source doesn't flood and so this divides the woods now the the tree line that we just discussed
00:37:44
is closest to the neighborhood where the boys lived now if you cross over that pipe and cross over the diversion ditch
00:37:52
the water that runs there you're in the part is what what the neighborhood people would refer to as old Robin Hood
00:37:59
okay so they are combing both sides of this wooded area for most of the morning and nothing is discovered now they're
00:38:09
just about ready to leave the area law enforcement is just about ready to leave the woods mhm when one Officer Steve
00:38:17
Jones he's a Kinton County juvie officer he is basically the last man left in the
00:38:24
woods and there is a creek that runs off of that diversion that we had discussed
00:38:32
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
00:38:41
laceless tennis shoe this is a 1:30 p.m. now the officers he calls over other officers to come over and view this
00:38:49
tennis shoe it's clearly a child's shoe and they're talking and they wonder how they could have missed this because
00:38:57
they've combed this area all morning long however it's it's just now spotted and they've decided we have to search
00:39:06
this Creek yeah so what happens is talking about chilling right yeah and the police officer you're going we just
00:39:14
found this shoe now we got to go into this water well what's even more chilling yeah somebody has to volunteer
00:39:21
to go into the water mhm because now if anybody has seen pictures of this water it's the best I can describe it is a
00:39:29
Milky like when they show pictures of it from above it just looks milky like you
00:39:34
couldn't you couldn't look deep into the water yeah I mean it kind of looks like
00:39:38
chocolate milk yeah cuz it's it's so muddy too it's very muddy and it's kind of dirty and so uh a very brave man
00:39:47
detective Brian Ridge he decides that he is going to go into the water and see if
00:39:53
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
00:40:02
because you can't see into this water you got to feel around he's got to get down on all fours and he's got to kind
00:40:09
of crawl along the bottom and feel out with his hands to see if he can feel anything some of these spots of this
00:40:16
water are going to be 4T deep right 3 to 4T deep so some of it he has to submerge
00:40:22
his whole body in water yeah and the area that they uh are in at the moment is about 2 to 3 foot deep
00:40:32
okay so it's not as deep as the deepest parts but he's going to be able to keep his head above water but his most of his
00:40:39
body is going to be submerged right and his arms are are out in front of him and
00:40:44
he's feeling around and now the bottom of we we should point out that the bottom of this Creek you know like the
00:40:51
captain said the water is very muddy is the best way to describe it and so the bottom of the the the water floor there
00:40:59
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
00:41:08
around and he's in the water for about 10 to 15 minutes when he feels something and he pulls this object up okay he
00:41:19
pulls this object up up and it is a it's one of the bodies it's it's a body of Michael Moore
00:41:28
and the first thing that he notices is that Michael is nude and that his he's hog tied right it's been referred to as
00:41:37
hog tied but actually he's tied with his right hand tied to his right ankle by a
00:41:43
shoelace and his left hand is tied to his left ankle by a second shoelace and typically the way you'd hog tie somebody
00:41:51
is you would tie their right arm to their left leg behind their back left arm to the the right leg behind their
00:41:59
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
00:42:06
keeping them behind your back you if you struggled enough you probably could cut
00:42:12
loose right yeah and the best way to describe Michael Moore and the way that he's found is that if if you were on
00:42:20
your knees and your feet were behind you and you put your your hands down to grab
00:42:26
your ankles yeah and then tie the ankle to the wrist okay would be the best way to describe
00:42:32
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
00:42:41
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
00:42:48
beaten quite a bit about the head and face area they pull the body out of the water and now detective Brian rid
00:42:57
has to get back down on all fours and continue searching hoping not to find another child right but we have two
00:43:05
other boys missing so they continue their search because if one boy is found in the water it's very likely you might
00:43:13
find the other two in there as well correct so he's crawling along and he again finds another body this time he
00:43:23
pulls up the body and this would end up being identified as the body body of Stevie Branch now he again is nude just
00:43:32
like Michael Moore and he's tied in the same manner as Michael Moore with his right hand to his right ankle and his
00:43:39
left hand to his left ankle and bound by shoelaces now with him they notice that
00:43:47
that there's something a little bit different so again there are lacerations to the face and neck as with what they
00:43:54
quickly saw with Michael Moore however with Stevie Branch it appears that he has either been bit or bitten multiple
00:44:01
times in his face which I mean this is a terribly disturbing image already but it's getting more disturbing as we go
00:44:10
they pull the body out and then again detective Brian Ridge continues to search the
00:44:18
creek he shortly then finds a third body and this would be identified as the body
00:44:26
as Christopher buyers again when he pulls the body up they notice that Christopher is
00:44:32
nude and he he bound the same way exactly he's bound exactly the same way right ankle to right wrist left ankle to
00:44:41
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
00:44:50
what they see it appears that Christopher buers has been castrated they put the the body on the
00:44:58
side of the U of the bank and they continue to search okay so what do they find they
00:45:05
they found the boys all three of them are tied they're all tied with shoelaces right they're all three nude and what
00:45:13
else they would find is that they would find the clothing for these boys what they were able to determine is that
00:45:21
somebody had taken sticks and they had basically anchor the boys into the water and again this water's muddy it's murky
00:45:31
it's milky because all the boys were still underwater you could search the area and not see them right they might
00:45:40
have not have found them for days if it wasn't for that shoe floating and the reason why is they were
00:45:45
all pinned down with these sticks yeah that that anchored them to into the water and there was some speculation
00:45:52
that maybe the STI sticks were even sharpened a couple of them appear that they might have been sharpened some of
00:45:58
them look like they were just broken off and and others look like they may have somebody have taken the time to sharpen
00:46:04
them a bit to to stick them deeper into the mud and keep the bodies in now not only did they anchor down the bodies but
00:46:13
they had also anchored down the clothing that was not on the boys right they wrap
00:46:17
it around the sticks and then put it down in the mud some of the clothing was pinned under sticks some of it was
00:46:22
wrapped around sticks and none of it was visible but they didn't find all three sets of clothes right there
00:46:31
wasn't complete sets of clothes well after they pull all the bodies out after they pull out all the clothing that they
00:46:38
can find they are trying to determine what is missing from the scene now there are a few items that are
00:46:46
missing from the scene there's four they find all the other clothing right however they're missing one sock two
00:46:54
pairs of underwear and and they're also missing the the the penis of Christopher
00:47:02
buers he's been castrated and the best way to describe this castration is that the scrotum has been removed the penis
00:47:12
shaft has been cut and the head of the penis is missing uhhuh and they do not find these items in the water so we
00:47:21
didn't find all the pairs of clothes or the all the items of clothes that you would expect to find
00:47:27
but they're also 8-year-old boys so it's very possible that one of them wasn't wearing underwear maybe didn't have both
00:47:35
socks on we're not really for sure it's a possibility but uh I think most of the
00:47:41
parents believe that they would have been fully dressed the the other thing that uh detectives and that the police
00:47:47
were really kind of fascinated by was the state of some of the clothing they found two pairs of the pants two pairs
00:47:56
of pants that were buttoned and zipped up right but they were completely inside out
00:48:04
which is kind of a strange way to to to have found these items yeah but if you helped you know anybody that has again
00:48:11
dealt with little boys and had raised little boys you'd know that if you if they took off their pants sometimes
00:48:18
they'd pull them off completely inside out and like the button would stay button the zipper would stay zipped yeah
00:48:26
it's not apparent whether that means that they were pulled off of the boys or if the boys had removed them themselves
00:48:33
right the parents of the missing children are near and they are waiting behind the you know the evidence line
00:48:42
the the police tape you know you cannot cross this area and detective gell now he was in charge of the
00:48:50
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
00:48:58
unfortunate situation where he's got to deliver the message to the parents yeah and you're not just making a phone call
00:49:05
here you're having to tell him face to face and he tells uh Terry Hobbs and Pam Hobs first that yes we found the boys
00:49:14
and and they're deed they're dead and and they appear to have been murdered and Terry Hobbs collapses he you know he
00:49:21
falls over and he's crying and Pam Hobs she faints um at hearing this news gell goes over
00:49:30
and he also discusses the findings with John Mark buers the father of The Stepfather of Christopher buyers and um
00:49:39
yeah he had the unfortunate situation of delivering this news the bodies were found around approximately 1:45 p.m.
00:49:47
they were pulled from the water as we had just said the coroner's office was not called for approximately two hours
00:49:57
so at 3:20 p.m. the coroner's office receives a call from the West Memphis Police Department that stated that they
00:50:05
had found the three boys and that they needed the coroner to come to the Blue Beacon TR Truck Wash to pick up the
00:50:14
bodies yeah and protocol I guess is if you find bodies in water that sometimes you want the corner to be the ones to
00:50:22
take the bodies out of the water yeah in in this situation two there's something
00:50:27
else going on here okay so it's May it's an Arkansas for people that aren't familiar with the United States Arkansas
00:50:35
can be a warmer State especially in the month of May uh the the approximate temperature of the water was suspected
00:50:43
to be 60° which would be better to maintain whatever evidence or whatever you could with the body and once they
00:50:51
pulled them out you know they start decomposing right away they start decomposing faster right and the the
00:50:58
temperature that day in the woods was approximately 80° so we're talking a 20° difference and you got bugs insects and
00:51:08
and all kind of things and the coroner shows up about 2 hours after the first bodies pulled out of the water to
00:51:15
retrieve the bodies and maybe any evidence that would go along with those bodies now because the wood is the woods
00:51:22
is so dense you know you couldn't you couldn't drive a vehicle into the woods so what they had to do was they they had
00:51:29
a hearse and the hearse pulled up to that Blue Beacon Truck Wash uhhuh and they had to back in up to the tree line
00:51:37
and the officers wrapped the bodies along with the coroners approval they wrapped the bodies in a sheet placed
00:51:45
them in body bags individual body bags and they carry them out carried them out of the woods a police officer yeah these
00:51:53
these police officers are are beaten down mentally physically emotionally it's hot
00:52:00
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
00:52:07
their careers or their lifetime after having found the bodies finding the clothing police and law enforcement
00:52:15
found the two missing bicycles as well well there should be maybe three yeah we should report here and we'll get more
00:52:23
what we're going to do is episode 2 we're going to get way into the families and way into their movements and what
00:52:29
was going on in the neighborhood at the time of The Disappearance but part of that is that Christopher buers was not
00:52:36
on a bicycle the other two boys were on bicycles Christopher buers started off that afternoon that evening on a
00:52:43
skateboard and at some point he ended up doubling up on a bicycle with one of the
00:52:48
other boys typically what would happen CU she couldn't keep up on the on the skateboard so you just be like I'm going
00:52:54
to ride with you tandem the boys bodies are found in the water in the woods and the bikes are found the two bikes are
00:53:02
found in the water in the woods as well how far away from the bodies do you know
00:53:07
I believe it was approximately 50 ft or so um so it's pretty good distance yeah well it's hard to it's hard to say I
00:53:15
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
00:53:23
you know what I mean I I don't know exactly well 50 feet or is 50 feet whether you're in water or you're on
00:53:30
land right 50 foot is exactly it it is 50 foot is an exact Mark but what I'm getting at is how was that determined by
00:53:40
law enforcement because because where the bikes were positioned in comparison to the bodies you could get you could
00:53:47
one could argue you might be able to get to them faster via water than you would
00:53:52
quicker that'd be closer if you're actually in the water and and it wouldn't be significant but I just
00:53:56
wonder about that investigator gell he has to now talk to the media right so not only do we have the victim's
00:54:05
families and neighborhood people standing around outside of the crime scene tape waiting to hear if they found
00:54:12
the bodies but we also have the news media because by this point Not only was this the biggest case in the city this
00:54:20
was the biggest case in the state and arguably in the nation we had had three boys that were seen together the night
00:54:27
before all have gone missing they're reported missing in the state of Arkansas the next morning on the news as
00:54:35
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
00:54:41
with this investigation they find the bodies gell has to deliver the disturbing news to the parents and now
00:54:48
he has to address the media yeah so he addresses the media and he's pretty vague on what they have found basically
00:54:55
he's saying we found well it's an open case so why would you just say hey we got all this evidence we we found the
00:55:01
boys we don't know much at this time we we are investigating All Leads what was once a missing person's case this is now
00:55:11
a homicide case the only the only thing he could say for certain was because how
00:55:16
the bodies were found it was obvious that this was a homicide Multiple homicide so gel rounds up his men and
00:55:26
and there's some talk between him and the state police agency the state police agency wants to know does Gary gitchell
00:55:35
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
00:55:43
thank you for your assistance in the search which I think is just arrogant and I think at this moment you humble
00:55:51
yourself and you take any assistance you can get and you use all the resources you can well arrogant or not this would
00:55:58
come back to bite gell and the investigation in the ass and it's not gel's fault this would end up being the
00:56:06
fault of the State Police agency what gel wanted to do was he wanted he wanted to not release any information on how
00:56:15
the bodies were tied or the damage that he visibly saw right away right to the private
00:56:24
parts right so we we don't want the media we don't want the the the general population to know how they were tied we
00:56:31
don't want them to know about the castration we don't want them to know about the potential bite marks on Stevie
00:56:36
Branch's face right we don't want them to know much about this other than this is a homicide investigation the reason
00:56:43
being and and gitchell's absolutely right is that when we are eventually going to be questioning people regarding
00:56:50
the regarding the potential abduction and the murders of these boys mhm now now we need to hold to our vest how they
00:57:00
were killed and what was done to the bodies so that when we are questioning these suspects we can eliminate who
00:57:08
knows what's going on and what who doesn't know what's going on well and it's a possible castration and it's a
00:57:13
possible bites to the face well this this plan of gel's which I thought was decent was a good good plan was foiled
00:57:23
from the beginning because what ended up happening was later that night on on May
00:57:29
6th the reporters from the Memphis Commercial Appeal that's the local newspaper or the area newspaper they
00:57:36
were using the newsroom's police scanner and by using that police scanner they overheard they picked up a broadcast
00:57:45
from the Arkansas State Police which contained details not released to the Press by gell so the next day the front
00:57:55
day the the front page of the news the next day contained details about the murders and it stated things about how
00:58:03
the bodies were found how the boys were tied and that all three were sexually mutilated right which was technically
00:58:14
incorrectly reported right uh but they got these details from that broadcast well that puts a big problem
00:58:22
in gel's plan because now he cannot use that information to to decipher who is who could be involved and who is just
00:58:31
somebody that that that's being thrown under the bus or somebody sometimes we've seen captain that people false
00:58:37
confessions yeah or they inject themselves into an investigation yeah um so now now we got some problems here
00:58:44
from from the get-go of this investigation gell would round up his men and they were going under a strategy
00:58:53
mhm it was kind of a three-pronged approach Ro to the investigation that the murders of these
00:59:00
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
00:59:11
of the boys someone unknown to the families and the boys right or C that it was it was a murders carried out by a
00:59:21
gang or maybe a cult by a group of people right so that was their going that was going to be their strategy we
00:59:28
are going to investigate the triple homicide using these three aspects of the case that it was either somebody
00:59:36
they knew somebody they didn't know or it was a gang of people cuz at this time the evidence isn't given them any leads
00:59:43
the only evidence that they had at this point was that one of the officers had pointed out to the investigators that he
00:59:53
thought that the way that the boys were Tau side was very similar to the way that uh that US soldiers that were
01:00:01
captured in the Vietnam War were tied by the by the vietcom because they'd have them bend
01:00:08
down and then theye one hand to one one ankle one hand to the other ankle and it
01:00:15
it was kind again this is not this is not a way that you typically find people when you find these victims of these
01:00:21
crimes right and so it was pointed out that this could have been maybe the wor of a Vietnam vet that somebody that
01:00:28
would have seen this before and maybe for whatever reason is using that tactic so their first lead that they end up
01:00:36
using and that they end up going off of is that they start searching the local and area hospitals now what they were
01:00:44
looking to find is a former Vietnam vet right who's been checked into the hospital that is suffering from injuries
01:00:52
to his penis because they believe all of the boys to have been sexually molested
01:00:58
or sexually assaulted at the time of their deaths that's what they believe but they don't have proof of that
01:01:06
correct they're just going off of what they've seen between the time that the bodies were pulled from the water and
01:01:11
carried away by the coroner right in the weeks that immediately followed the murders the police department submitted
01:01:19
hundreds of items to the criminal invest to the evidence lab to the crime lab for
01:01:25
evaluation among these items were 18 knives Three Wooden sticks one tire Bly that's the uh
01:01:34
you know with the the truck drivers come out with the little the small billy club
01:01:39
and they thump the tires uhhuh so one tire bellly did you how many knives did you say 18 knives Jesus Three Wooden
01:01:47
sticks one tire bellly one ice axx three hammers one hook a rope hair sand from 41 people blood and urine samples from
01:01:59
11 people M footprint Impressions shoes a box of clothing and a mason jar full of water now these are not all items
01:02:10
that are found at the crime scene these are items that were collected through talking with people some of these items
01:02:17
were found at the crime scene and these were items that were sent within the within several weeks of their
01:02:24
investigation to the crime lab mhm the crime lab would come out the coroner and the crime lab would come out and
01:02:30
give gell and his officers and his investigators some information give them a bunch of high fives this information
01:02:38
that is given to the investig investigators after examining the shoestring bindings right they found
01:02:46
that the knots that were used on Christopher and Michael were all of the same okay so let's think about this real
01:02:53
quickly we have six knots mhm each boy is tied twice with two shoelaces so of those six knots four of
01:03:04
them are the exact same knot Christopher and Michael are all tied using the same
01:03:11
knots right the knots on Stevie it doesn't State what kind of KN knot that is no okay the knots on Stevie Branch
01:03:20
were different from each other and dissimilar to each other knot that was used in the crime so what
01:03:29
we're saying here is four of the same and then two that are different from all those other twoo and different
01:03:36
from one another so I'm going to break those down we're going to call those knots colors okay so we got four knots
01:03:43
that are the color blue mhm then we have one knot that's the color red mhm and we
01:03:49
have another knot that's the color green yes exactly so that's basically cuz you
01:03:54
start doing four knots it gets a little confusing yeah six knots four the same and two that are completely different
01:04:00
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
01:04:07
completely different using again shoelaces but for whatever reason his two knots don't match any of the others
01:04:15
which as a detective starts making you it kind of points into the direction that there's possibly more than one
01:04:21
attacker there's one more more than one murderer so we got that list of three people that you know things that we're
01:04:28
looking at and possibly a group of people yeah that's the first thing it would make you think that there's a
01:04:34
group of people the other thing that's that should be pointed out here is sometimes when one perpetrator or if
01:04:43
perpetrators are outnumbered they may have the victims tie each other up yeah control tactic yeah so maybe Stevie
01:04:52
Branch was tied up by one or more of the other victims M or maybe he was tied up
01:04:57
by a different asant completely we we don't know we'll get into that the other thing that they found was that they said
01:05:05
that we found skin and possibly cuticles in one of the legates and that they said there's a
01:05:12
strong chance that this skin is not that of any of the three boys they also found a fragment of
01:05:20
negroid hair that was found in the sheet that was wrapped around Christopher buyer's body is that how it's reported
01:05:28
you mean African-American hair yeah I would say African-American hair but it's it's a medical examiners report okay
01:05:36
that's the report they use the word negroid hair now so remember we said that the boys after being pulled out of
01:05:42
the water they were wrapped in a sheet and then they were placed in the body bags and transferred to be examined now
01:05:48
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
01:05:54
in the sheet that the body was wrapped in right so it's it it's possible that has nothing to do with the case at all
01:06:01
but it's also evidence and it's something that's there possibly for a good reason mhm on May 26th
01:06:10
1993 this is 20 days after the bodies were found the lead investigator gell he has not received the autopsy reports at
01:06:21
this time mhm he's frustrated he's trying to carry out this investigation they need leads this case is starting to
01:06:29
go C I know that so he sends a letter to the crime lab he's desperate and in this
01:06:36
letter he raises several questions and he wants to know the crime Labs finding findings to the following questions
01:06:44
first question is what were the times of death yeah what were the causes of death
01:06:51
mhm could he get a diagram of the wounds found on the boys he also wanted to know
01:06:58
had any tears blood or punctures been found in the clothing of the boys he wanted to know if a stick so so
01:07:07
he wanted to know he wanted to know that because he wanted to know if they were attacked before they were
01:07:14
disrobed yeah and we'll get to this later into in the next episode right but there were some a big freaking case
01:07:23
there were some stab wounds there were some marks on these boys bodies right what he's trying to determine exactly
01:07:30
what you said were they nude at the time that these injuries were inflicted or were they still
01:07:36
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
01:07:43
children had the crime lab found anything that would indicate the involvement of a black
01:07:50
male remember they F found that negroid fragment of hair well they also have the
01:07:55
guy from Bojangles the tall thin black man with the yellow teeth and the writing on his oh oh I'm talking about
01:08:01
Aaron Hutchinson report no right but I think we can kind of dismiss that report a little bit but we got the individual
01:08:09
at Bojangles he also wanted to know if there was any evidence that the boys had been forced to perform oral sex he
01:08:16
wanted to know if maybe they had been sodomized now here's the other thing though this was the big question that
01:08:24
he' left for the end of his letter mhm there was a closely guarded secret that the department was keeping close to the
01:08:32
vest all right the the doctor that had performed the autopsy this is Dr Frank Paretti he performed the oopsy and he he
01:08:43
mentioned now he now you see him in Paradise Lost MH you do he he took he took the St funny like this and he he
01:08:51
had mentioned kind of off the record that urine might have been found in the stomachs of two of the boys but he would
01:09:00
have said this he was there was possible Ur found in their stomachs well he had asked the police mhm if they would
01:09:09
gather a gather water samples and submit them to the crime lab because he wanted
01:09:15
to determine you know we we need to make a determination this is the doctor was this urine in the stomachs or was the or
01:09:22
or was this just the Creek Water right but this is the doctor he said that to police yes he said please submit water
01:09:29
samples I find that to be a very intelligent thought that's something I wanted and the police did as such they
01:09:35
collected water samples the the next day and they sent them to the crime lab but
01:09:41
it's a very intelligent Insight I believe I agree but here's the problem there's been 20 days since these bodies
01:09:48
have been found and the lead investigator still has a lot of questions I mean that's a that's a list
01:09:54
because think of about this first of all we I am thinking about this that's what
01:09:58
we do we don't have a time of death no well that's messed up we need a time of death so we can figure out where people
01:10:05
were what they were doing and if they were involved right timeline becomes important how do you know anything aliis
01:10:13
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
01:10:22
second of all he wanted to know which kid if they could deter termin so was killed first which would possibly give
01:10:28
you some leads on possibly which which victim would know somebody that would know that victim well here's
01:10:38
the thing yeah there there could be a situation where maybe one of the children were was killed by accident and
01:10:45
the other two were killed to cover that up and if so if you knew who was killed first you could explore that that
01:10:52
possibility that idea but it's a but it's weird that one would die from accident and then they decided to tie up
01:11:00
all three victims yeah yeah it is weird but but it's also weird to then have an accidental death and then have two
01:11:08
murders after the accidental death yeah he wanted to know which kid was killed first and the following the the last
01:11:15
question that he had for the crime lab was were any of the kids dragged like their bodies dragged yeah
01:11:24
meaning Maybe they weren't killed at the scene because because you have three possibilities right you they're either
01:11:31
killed in the water they're killed in the woods or they're killed somewhere else mhm you know and if they were
01:11:38
killed elsewhere and only one person committed this crime you would think that they would have to drag them
01:11:43
because again the coroner couldn't even get their vehicle into the woods to retrieve the bodies you could take them
01:11:49
one at a time I mean all the victims are 50 to 60 lbs so that's it's not no it's not impossible to take them one
01:11:58
at a time but but if they could show clear signs that they were dragged then maybe maybe that would point that this
01:12:05
was definitely T had taken place elsewhere because remember yeah but also I think it puts some indication on how
01:12:12
many people because if there is no drag marks then you they're either carried one at a time or they're carried by
01:12:21
several people well and we should point out that the police beli that there was a lack of blood found at the crime scene
01:12:30
found where and near where the boys bodies were found mhm this would indicate that maybe the crime was
01:12:36
carried out elsewhere yeah and if you look at that what do they call that when they take the pictures with the blood
01:12:43
blood splatter the the blood spatter yeah but it's um but that's kind they use the luminol yeah yeah when you look
01:12:50
at the aluminol pictures there it doesn't look like a ton to me but then the problem is blood does soak into the
01:12:58
ground yeah and you have a water source very close by right which I think would then that would be the argument
01:13:06
that maybe there was more blood but it got washed away and again gel's still not received the autopsy report so he
01:13:13
doesn't clearly know how the boys had died but I'm assuming using his experience that it's probably you know
01:13:21
and he's a smart guy it's probably pretty obvious that at least Christopher buers may have bled to death because of
01:13:28
the castration right which would be roughly about five pints of blood and you would expect to find a lot of that
01:13:34
blood at the actual crime scene yeah but see that that's where I wonderer about the time of death because if the death
01:13:41
happened earlier on the 5th then like I said if it's soaking into the ground how
01:13:47
much of that is not coming up on the luminol pictures yeah yeah a lot of questions
01:13:55
here one could only wonder and and but I think wait hold on but I think your point is is not only are we coming up
01:14:02
with questions right now but this detective had a ton of questions and he's hoping to get the answers well yeah
01:14:08
not only that here's what's going on at this point in the case the the investigators and the officers they're
01:14:15
combing the area they're canvasing the scene they're going around the neighborhood and they're asking
01:14:20
questions door too well they can't figure out who to eliminate or who to believe because they don't know what the
01:14:27
actual situation is all they can go off of is what they observed when the bodies
01:14:32
were pulled from the water we've gone through the events from Wednesday evening we' gone through the search for
01:14:39
the boys Thursday morning and until the early afternoon noon of when they found the bodies and their immediate
01:14:48
observations when they found the bodies well I mean we're also talking a little bit about what happened 20 Days Later
01:14:56
looking for these answers from the crime lab yeah and that's just to point out how how they were kind of dragging their
01:15:04
feet when they're waiting for these answers and and hoping to get leads yeah because they don't got a lot to go off
01:15:12
of right now nope nope not much at all just what they observed when they pulled the bodies from the water they have the
01:15:18
fragment fragment of hair uh that they've heard about and how the boys were tied up yeah this is suspicious
01:15:25
individual in Bojangles and we got and we got some family members we need to look into and yeah you're exactly right
01:15:33
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
01:15:39
a little bit and we have gel's statement where he is saying that we are looking for
01:15:46
somebody that either knows one or all of the boys or two we're looking for someone that didn't know any of the boys
01:15:55
possibly a group or possibly a gang or a cult and this is how we're going to investigate this well and this this area
01:16:02
too is very religious so I wonder if that's the Bible Belt yeah and you you'll hear you'll hear phrases like uh
01:16:13
satanic Panic yeah so next week what we're going to have to explore are those three different areas that gell was
01:16:21
looking into I thought this was the finale well unfortunately we picked a case that's too big for one show so good
01:16:28
for you good for us we'll be back again next week to discuss the West bhis 3 more in more detail and what we're going
01:16:35
to look at next week we're going to look at the family members we're going to look at their movements the family
01:16:39
members of the victims their movements their timeline on the 5th and on the 6th of May we're going to determine if any
01:16:47
of those people are potentially involved in this case we're going to look at unknown persons and we're also going to
01:16:54
start to explore that third element that gang and cult aspect of the case that gell was
01:17:01
was pressing all right so I guess it's we're not wrapping up the season for at least another week no so thank you for
01:17:08
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
01:17:16
litter [Music] you can live out your Master Chef dreams when you find a professional on Angie to
01:17:57
tackle your dream kitchen remodel connect with skilled professionals to get all your home
01:18:03
projects done well visit angie.com you can do this when you Angie that