Crooked Tree: A West Memphis 3 Podcast

May 10, 1993, was a long, chaotic day in West Memphis. While investigators fanned out across the community—questioning Jason Baldwin’s brand-new girlfriend Heather Cliett (and noting her brother’s ties to the Covenant of the Divine Light), a store clerk with a vague, nearly useless statement, and two young friends of the victims who offered contradictory or impossible stories about a maroon car and a mysterious fourth boy—Damien Echols remained locked inside the police department for roughly eight and a half hours.

He underwent intense questioning, a polygraph, and a hospital rape kit. His mother retained attorney (and future state senator) Mike Everett. When Everett arrived and repeatedly demanded access to his client, the building was effectively locked down. Officers denied him entry multiple times even after acknowledging they knew he was there and represented Damien. Damien later testified he had asked for a lawyer several times; the officers denied it. At a subsequent Denno hearing, the court sided with the police.

Meanwhile, the official cause-of-death reports finally arrived from the medical examiner: multiple injuries, manner of death homicide for Christopher Byers, Stevie Branch, and Michael Moore.

This episode reconstructs the parallel timelines of that pivotal day—the scattered witness interviews that yielded almost nothing useful, the mounting pressure on Damien, and the extraordinary decision to keep his lawyer outside while the interrogation continued. The case against him was already hardening, even as the mystery of what truly happened to the three boys remained unsolved.

In this special bonus episode of Crooked Tree, a voice from the original investigation steps forward after more than three decades.

Paul sits down for a long, revealing phone call with Jason White—one of the teenagers named in the West Memphis police reports from the afternoon the three boys disappeared. Jason has listened. He’s read the files. And he wants the record set straight.

What really happened near Robin Hood Hills and Devil’s Den that May afternoon? Did a group of teens offer two young girls a “shot”? Were the victims or their bikes seen? How did a simple neighborhood friendship get twisted into a “cousin” note that followed them through the case files? And why did a broken knife left in the woods suddenly put them under the gaze of Detective Sudbury?

Jason walks through the timeline, the friendships, the curfew that pulled him home, and the moment Ryan Clark (Chris Byers' brother) asked for help looking for his little brother. His memory is sharp. His account is consistent. And it forces a closer look at the statements of Kim Williams and Dawn Moore—and the conclusions drawn from them.

This is not a story of suspects. It’s a story of witnesses who never realized how close the shadow of the case had come to them… until now.

A quiet, careful correction of the record—and a rare firsthand look at the neighborhood boys who were there when the clocks were still ticking on May 5, 1993.

Who was LG Hollingsworth, and why did his name become so closely tied to Damien Echols in the early days of the West Memphis Three investigation?

In this episode of Crooked Tree: A West Memphis 3 Podcast, Paul Day and Kristin Rich dive deep into one of the most complicated and controversial threads in the case: the Hollingsworth family, a series of conflicting eyewitness accounts, and the infamous “stinky box” allegations that helped fuel suspicion surrounding LG Hollingsworth, Damien Echols, and Domini Teer.

Following the investigation day by day, we examine Narlene Hollingsworth’s May 9, 1993, tip to West Memphis police, her claims about seeing the boys near Weaver Elementary and Damien and Domini walking along the service road, and the discrepancies between her account and the timelines provided by other witnesses. We also break down LG’s May 10 interrogation, Detective Bryn Ridge’s handwritten notes, the collection of LG’s shoes and a knife, and the growing web of allegations connecting the young people under investigation.

But the deeper we dig, the more questions emerge. Why do the descriptions of the boys Narlene allegedly saw fail to match key details about the victims? What do the conflicting timelines reveal? Why were investigators focused on a possible laundromat connection, and what should we make of the increasingly disturbing reports of a mysterious box, alleged threats, and rumors of missing body parts?

We also explore the competing accusations between LG and Damien, the anonymous calls claiming responsibility for the murders, and the storm-soaked recording of Narlene’s police interview that offers a rare glimpse into the investigation as it unfolded. With sparse police notes, contradictory statements, and crucial details that remain open to interpretation, separating documented evidence from speculation becomes essential.

Paul and Kristin piece together the evidence, revisit the timeline, and examine the questions that continue to make the Hollingsworth connection one of the most fascinating and debated aspects of the West Memphis Three case.

Listen closely, compare the accounts, and decide what the evidence actually tells us. And if you can help decipher the difficult-to-hear audio from Narlene’s interview, we want to hear from you.

Join the conversation in our Facebook group and share your thoughts, theories, and findings.

Crooked Tree: A West Memphis 3 Podcast — examining the evidence, questioning the narrative, and revisiting one of the most infamous cases in true crime history.

In this Q&A episode of Crooked Tree: A West Memphis 3 Podcast, victim advocates and researchers Paul Day and Kristin Rich dig into detailed listener questions drawn from the case files surrounding the May 1993 murders of Christopher Byers, Stevie Branch, and Michael Moore.

They open with thanks to community members who shared insights on Wicca and a call for a polygraph examiner to independently review Damien Echols’ charts.

The questions then take center stage: Was Damien still at the West Memphis Police Department during the anonymous 3:36 p.m. May 10 call claiming responsibility for the killings—and could the voice have been his? Did Detective Bryn Ridge routinely ask religious and occult questions of multiple suspects? Why did Damien place himself at the Sanders house from 3–5 p.m., and did he wear a watch? Could an innocent person have inferred “two drowned and one was mutilated”? Did Jason Baldwin ever have “evil” tattooed across his knuckles? What does a fuller timeline from the boys’ last sightings to discovery look like, and is there evidence one person (or more) restrained all three? What about the gunshot heard in the woods during the search, and was Terry Hobbs known to carry? Finally, how much of Damien’s troubled past reached the jury, and did it drive the guilty verdicts?

As always, Paul and Kristin stay grounded in the documentation, clarify earlier points, correct misconceptions, and share what the records actually show—while teasing deeper dives still ahead. Join the discussion in the Facebook group and keep the questions coming.

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 a tense, unrecorded session of pretest questions, ten carefully crafted polygraph queries, and a high-pressure post-test interview that would haunt the West Memphis Three case for decades.

Damien denies every relevant question about the murders. Durham scores every answer as deception. Pressure mounts. Damien claims he asked for an attorney three times; Durham insists he never did. Then comes the moment that gives this episode its name: after nearly an hour of confrontation, Damien reportedly stops denying involvement—an “admission through absence of denial,” later called a tacit confession. He mentions the electric chair. He asks to speak to his mother. And the exact wording of what he said next remains bitterly disputed.

Pam Hutchinson is brought in. The prosecutor hovers nearby. Biological samples are collected. Anonymous tips flood the department—one claiming credit for the killings, another pointing a finger at Damien and a close friend. By the time the sun sets, an 18-year-old has gone from person of interest to prime suspect, and the machinery of the investigation has locked into place.

Join Kristin and Paul as they break down the polygraph results, courtroom testimony, conflicting accounts, and the chilling sequence of events that turned May 10 into a point of no return…and the day isn’t over yet.

In this pivotal episode of Crooked Tree, forensic geologist and victim advocate Paul Day and criminologist and victim advocate Kristin Rich take a meticulous, slow-crawl look at one of the most consequential moments in the West Memphis Three investigation: the May 10, 1993, interview of Damien Echols at the West Memphis Police Department.

Beginning at 11:54 a.m., Echols—brought in with his mother—sits down with lead Detective Bryn Ridge and Lieutenant James Sudbury. What starts as a “person of interest” conversation lasting roughly 90 minutes ends with Damien labeled a suspect. Paul and Kristin carefully compare Ridge’s sparse interview notes, his later handwritten report, and the final typewritten version that would be used at trial, revealing subtle shifts, omissions, embellishments, and a troubling conflation of Wicca with Satanism. They also examine how Sudbury filled out his 32-question occult questionnaire largely by listening in and mapping Damien’s answers onto the form—sometimes out of sequence and without direct questioning.

No audio recording exists of the interrogation. The hosts unpack the subject description focused on tattoos, Damien’s statements about his beliefs, alibis, the crime, and potential suspects, then follow the trail into the polygraph examination and the escalating pressure that followed. Drawing on trial testimony from Ridge, Damien, and others, they show how these documents and leading questions shaped the narrative that would haunt the case for decades.

A cautionary deep-dive into note-taking, confirmation bias, the dangers of unrecorded interrogations, and the moment a teenager’s decision to talk to police changed everything. Essential listening for true-crime fans who want the granular details behind the headlines.

In this episode of Crooked Tree, hosts Kristin Rich and Paul Day turn their focus to Murray Farris, an 18-year-old West Memphis resident whose name appears on Jerry Driver’s list of possible occult-linked individuals. On the evening of May 9, 1993—hours after Damien Echols and Jason Baldwin were questioned—Farris walks into the West Memphis Police Department.

What follows is a revealing interview. Farris describes his involvement in a small group identified as the Covenant of the Divine Light, a personal blend of Wiccan practice, biblical study, and protective symbolism including a pentagram medallion bearing the Tetragrammaton. He names associates, downplays any sinister intent, and, almost as an afterthought, offers a detailed description of a heavyset, blonde, bespectacled man in his late 30s known as “Lucifer”—leader of an “evil cult,” driver of a cream-colored van, and resident near Earle, Arkansas.

The next day brings more: a tip from a local Baptist youth counselor confirming that Farris and Chris Littrell were at a church youth night the evening the three boys vanished, followed by a lengthy fax from NYPD cult expert Detective Marcos Quinones outlining classic signs of occult crime scenes—missing organs, nine-foot circles, candle wax, inverted crosses, pentagrams, and more.

Kristin and Paul examine how this information lands with investigators already primed by the era’s Satanic Panic, how it intersects with Damien Echols’s circle, and why the police’s growing interest in ritualistic motives begins to take sharper shape—even as the physical evidence at the crime scene fails to match many of the classic markers Quinones describes.

A pivotal look at the investigation’s early pivot toward the occult, the people drawn into its orbit, and the cultural climate that shaped what detectives chose to see.

In the hours and days after the bodies of Stevie Branch, Michael Moore, and Christopher Byers are recovered, West Memphis investigators begin receiving tips steeped in the era’s widespread fears of satanic ritual abuse. A call from a Texas Child Protective Services worker about alleged ritualistic killings in Gilmer, TX sets an early tone. Lieutenant James Sudbury and juvenile officer Steve Jones quickly zero in on Damien Echols, interviewing the teenager at his family’s trailer on May 7 based on their shared belief that the crime shows “overtones of a cult sacrifice."

By Mother’s Day, May 9, the focus intensifies. Drug Task Force officers follow up on rumors of devil worship at Lakeshore Trailer Park, interview Damien, his pregnant girlfriend Domini Teer, and best friend Jason Baldwin, and administer a pointed questionnaire crafted by Sudbury. A contemporaneous tip from neighbor Narlene Hollingsworth places Damien and Domini near the service road by the Blue Beacon looking dirty—directly contradicting their alibis—and draws in additional names from the local “cult cops,” Jerry Driver and Steve Jones.

This episode traces how the occult theory rapidly takes root in the investigation, examines the content and context of those early interviews and questionnaires, and raises the questions still hanging over the case: What was the Covenant of the Divine Light? Who was LG Hollingsworth, and how was he connected? What really happened on the service road the night the boys disappeared? And how did Damien Echols move from alternative teenager to primary person of interest in less than 72 hours?

In this gripping Q&A installment of Crooked Tree: A West Memphis 3 Podcast, West Memphis Three researchers and victim advocates Kristin Rich and Paul Day confront listener questions that cut straight to the heart of the case—and the shadows still lingering over the 1993 murders of Christopher Byers, Stevie Branch, and Michael Moore.

They open by addressing accusations of bias, revealing how their close ties to the Byers and Branch families formed only after years of independent, evidence-driven research—and why those relationships change nothing about the facts they’re presenting. From there, the episode descends into the unresolved details that continue to haunt the investigation: Did the victims’ parents or the search teams even know the unnamed creek existed before the bodies were found? What really happened to Stevie’s stolen bicycle, and why was he so fiercely protective of the new one? Where exactly were the boys’ bikes recovered in the murky waters of Ten Mile Bayou—and what do the missing tracks in the Discovery Woods suggest?

Kristin and Paul dig into one of the investigation’s most glaring failures: the near-total failure to thoroughly interrogate the families in those critical first days. They examine the Cub Scout leader who had regular contact with the boys, the polygraphs that cleared some while raising questions about others, and the mysterious cloth material recovered from Michael Moore’s hand—evidence whose true origin remains murky.

The conversation turns darker still with a detailed look at the offender profile of someone capable of the dismemberment injury inflicted on one of the boys. Drawing on studies of sexual sadists, body-disposal methods, and multi-offender crimes, the hosts explore what the violence—and what was not done to the other two children—may reveal about the killer’s motives, experience, and whether this was the work of one person or more.

Along the way they address non-public crime scene materials, the reliability of the polygraphs administered by Bill Durham, a widely circulated (and thoroughly debunked) serial-killer theory, the partial print recovered early in the case, and the origin of the podcast’s haunting theme music. They also clarify their strong working relationship with the current West Memphis Police Department—separate from the investigative failures of 1993.

No spoilers are held back this time. Every question is answered. And the episode ends with a chilling preview of what’s coming next: the first deep dive into how Damien Echols and two other teenagers were pulled into the investigation—and how that fateful focus began.

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The search for answers continues.

In this episode of Crooked Tree: A West Memphis 3 Podcast, forensic geologist and victim advocate Paul Day and criminologist and victim advocate Kristin Rich pull back the curtain on the law-enforcement climate surrounding the murders of Christopher Byers, Stevie Branch, and Michael Moore.

Why did West Memphis Police Inspector Gary Gitchell decline substantial help from the Arkansas State Police—even as three children lay dead and the department reached out to the FBI? The hosts examine the West Memphis–Crittenden County Drug Task Force, its high-profile seizures of cash, vehicles, and guns, and the cloud of investigations that hung over it in early 1993. Through contemporary newspaper reporting, they document allegations of confiscated property diverted for personal use, unaccounted cash, weapons handed out far beyond the evidence locker, and the subsequent state and federal probes that followed key officers for years.

Names that surface repeatedly in the boys’ case—James Sudbury, Tony Miller, Shane Griffin, and others—also appear in these drug-unit controversies. The episode traces how those parallel scandals, personnel changes, and later criminal cases (including firings, indictments, and other serious misconduct) raise hard questions about integrity, priorities, and culture inside the agencies investigating the murders. Paul and Kristin are careful to distinguish individual failings from the trauma many officers carried, while underscoring why these issues matter to understanding the investigation itself.

A clear-eyed look at the institutional backdrop of one of the most scrutinized cases in true-crime history.