The police continue to investigate the murder of the three boys, and everywhere they turn they are hearing stories that blur the line between fact and fiction. As suspects rise and are quickly discarded, the focus grows on Damien Echols.Check out our new True Crime Substack the True Crime Times Check out our other show The Prosecutors: Legal Briefs for discussion on cases, controversial topics, or conversations with content creators.Get Prosecutors Podcast Merch Join the Gallery on Facebook Follow us on TwitterFollow us on Instagram Check out our website for case resources: Hang out with us on TikTokSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
Chapter 1: What is the focus of the West Memphis 3 investigation?
And I'm Alice.
Chapter 2: How did April Fool's Day influence this episode?
And we are the Prosecutors. today on The Prosecutors. The investigation heats up in the case of the West Memphis Three. Hello, everybody, and welcome to this episode of The Prosecutors. I'm Brett, and I'm joined, as always, by my foolish co-host, Alice.
Ha ha, Brett. Don't worry, guys. You're listening to this probably months later, but today is April Fool's Day. And you know what?
I hope everyone had a chuckle and didn't get mad at some fun, fun chuckles. Did you get any tricks played on you today, Brett? Because I had several tricks played on me.
I didn't. I didn't. And I'm kind of sad about it. I mean, I saw various jokes online, but they're always fun. And I'm just going to say, if you were upset about today's post, then I'm sorry, you're not going to get an actual apology. That's just the way it is. So I'm sorry that you're upset, but I'm not sorry that we did it. Yeah.
For those of you who are following, no, we don't do it every year.
That's part of the fooling.
That's part of the fooling.
That's how we catch you. We've been doing this podcast like six years. We've only done three April Fools.
Exactly. You got to figure out there's no rhyme or rhythm when you're least expecting it.
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Chapter 3: Who were the initial suspects in the West Memphis 3 case?
They're just people that the police looked at at various times, things that they were told about different people. And one thing I think this should impress upon you is the just amount of information that was dumped on the police. and it's really interesting to see because this happens in a lot of cases, but you often don't see it. Take the Adnan Saad case.
I mean, there's no telling how many tips the police got, but you don't even really look at those because most of them, they don't even rise to the level of thinking about. But in this case, it is interesting to see sort of all these different tips that come in and what the police are dealing with, and I think that helps shade what ends up happening in this case.
So with that said, Alice, why don't we go ahead and start?
Sure. So last time we left off with Damien coming in and speaking with the police for the first time on May 10th. And there was a lot happening in that interview. A lot of you guys said, why, why follow these leads that he's giving? Okay. So when you get tips, you investigate them. Many tips you can just dispose of, but many of them you do have to follow up on.
And if you missed our last episode, you should really go listen to the report on his interview because there is a lot of information that he is telling to the police that really do require follow up. And in fact, the police do follow up. But that's not the only lead they look into. They're looking down every single lead possible.
This is one of the most horrific things that could have happened to this town. So the next day on May 11th, the police look into another suspect. This one is Chris Wall. Pam Hobbs had mentioned him as a 19-year-old who lived on the corner of East Baldwin and Goodwin. And she said that he liked to hang out with younger kids.
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Chapter 4: Why was Chris Wall eliminated as a suspect?
Wall is given the same barrage of questions as Damien Echols was, and he's also given a polygraph test, as are many people in this case, as you'll see. Now, Wall passes the polygraph test, and he seems to have an alibi, and so the police eliminate him as a suspect.
But we mention this because you see, this is not honing in on one person, but rather they really are going down multiple leads and they treat them all the same. Same set of questions, same polygraph tactic, shall we say. But as we've said also, these police, they really do put a lot of stock into polygraph.
And the fact that Wall seems to have an alibi and passes the polygraph, they pretty much say, okay, this is a dead end here.
And if Wall's name is familiar to you, he is the witness who says he saw the kids going into Robin Hood Hills, I think at around seven o'clock. I forget right now, but he is the one with the latest entrance of the kids into the forest. And he is also someone the police looked at as a possible suspect.
As he should. If you are the last person to see anyone who disappears and it ultimately is murdered, you will absolutely be a suspect. So it was correct of them to look into him. But again, Damien Echols and Chris Wall aren't the only ones they're looking into.
On that same day, Billy Newell calls the police to let them know that on the Monday before the murders, he had traded a knife to Jason Baldwin for some shirts. This is street trading, I guess. On May 10th, he got home from work to find that Jason had returned the knife. Now, Billy says he immediately became suspicious that the knife was used in the murder and he called the police.
One thing to note, this knife, it's not like a kitchen knife. It's an Indian kukri knife. So it's a special type of knife, in other words. It's not just some run-of-the-mill steak knife or kitchen knife or shearing knife, something like that. And I will say, whether he has any other sense of why he suspects this knife was used in the murder or not, remember what's happening.
This is now public, right? There was a bulletin that night. This is horrific. Everyone is suspicious of everyone else because... There hasn't been a suspect who's been arrested. Everyone's looking over their shoulders. Am I next? Are the other children in our neighborhood going to be preyed upon by the serial killer? And so everyone is on a heightened alert here.
So I'm actually not surprised that he is suspicious of this knife. Whether this knife has anything to do with it, you know, we'll get more into.
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Chapter 5: What role did paranoia play in the investigation?
I think that's interesting. It's not like it has a ton of weight, but I do think it's interesting.
I think I don't know enough context about what made him suspicious. And oftentimes witnesses are not the best about articulating what causes them to suspect someone for it. And so that's fair. Fair to say he knew Jason and still said, I still I think this had something to do with the murder, whereas there are certainly people in my life.
I'm not sure you'd fall into the category that I would suspect nothing. I'm not going to lie. But there are people in my life where it would never even enter my mind. Right. So it's fair enough to say that he was someone who knew Jason and it was something to be thought of. But I will also note to play the other side of that coin. Everyone's also on heightened alert.
And we do often see a lot of tip lines being flooded with false, not false, inaccurate or incorrect tips because people are so heightened. They're like, oh my goodness, what if I'm holding the murder weapon? So keep that in mind.
And just as an aside, this was not the knife. This knife definitely was not the knife involved in the case, but that's not really the point. So anyways.
So the police are hot and heavy in their investigation. That same day, you can see there's a lot going on. This is not a large police department, right? As we can tell from the night of the murders, there's one police officer who's responding to a domestic dispute, to the Bojangles' potential mental situation with a bloody customer, to missing children, to an egging of a house. So you can see that
They're doing a lot of work in a short amount of time because obviously there's pressure to figure out what happened. So also on that same day, the police look into Harold Allison since he was known to have abused children. Allison stated that he hadn't been to Arkansas in years and declined to come in for questioning and a polygraph.
So you can see how they're kind of trying to spread their net as widely as possible. Who could have possibly done this? Who would target eight young children and murder them in such a horrific and sadistic way?
I think this also is a testament to the shotgun approach. This investigation, whatever it is, is not organized. So it may be thorough in ways, but it's not organized. It doesn't feel like they are investigating the way you might expect. Typically, an investigation into a murder like this would start very close to the victims.
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Chapter 6: Did the police have a structured investigation plan?
This is somewhat like the Gabby Petito case when she first went missing before she was discovered. And there was this all out search for her at the point where people realized they were likely looking for a body rather than Gabby alive. And what did they do? They found a bunch of objects.
other bodies that were not gabby that were unrelated to a lot of people said oh my goodness they found eight bodies is it or ten bodies is this a serial killer who dumps in this area they just know it's that when you go digging there are a lot of really interesting things you're gonna find and this includes creepy people as we have seen in this community now this is really difficult because you have to figure out what who are just creepy people on their own
who have nothing to do with the case and who are creepy people who maybe you should look a little closer and i agree on this one i don't think he's just a creepy person there's just way too many intersecting lines between what happens to the boys and him especially the fact that i mean who could his alibi be he doesn't seem like he has a really big network if he's collecting pictures of people in a box his
Alibi is probably my guess. I don't know. I haven't seen this anywhere, but I'm guessing his mom, if he lives with his mom or something along those lines, someone who has an interest in probably covering for him is my best bet. But we can't go back in time and do the investigation for them. This is where the timeline begins. has major flaws that we can't do anything about.
And time has passed by that likely these holes cannot be fixed. And we point them out to you because I don't want to end this with, this is unknowable, but there are some massive holes and massive lines of investigation that we cannot fill in for you now.
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Chapter 7: Who was Richard Cummings and why was he a suspect?
And I think now probably if you talk to the FBI, they would probably say, actually, no, you don't really need more than one person for some kids to control some kids. But I think this guy was a loner. I think they could not imagine him having an accomplice. And so I think they moved on from him. And this is my speculation. I think they moved on from him pretty quickly.
And I think that's probably true of several of these people. People they looked at. So on May 13th, they look into Robert Andrus, who was a man from California who had been arrested in the area and had an active warrant from Florida for aggravated child abuse. But he was able to show that he'd been in California the day of the murders. So obviously he could not have committed them.
So continuing their investigation on May 14th, Joni Brown will later tell police that on this day, her friends Jennifer Ashley and Whitney Nix told her at the skating rink, remember that's where everybody hangs out, that a boy named Robert Birch told them, is your head spinning yet? This is a lot of he said, she said. that he and Damien had killed the boys and that they would kill two more girls.
So I think you begin to see the police are really trying to figure out where they need to focus. And this is not uncommon of things that we hear from witnesses, especially ones who want to be helpful. It's not firsthand. It's not secondhand. It's not even really thirdhand.
But she hears from the skating rink where the kids all hang out that Robert Birch and Damien had killed the boys and they were going to kill more people. Joni would also claim to have seen Damien, Jason, and Jesse enter the skating rink and stay there together until it closed. It's interesting because she's putting those three together right now.
But Joni later changed her story to say that it was Damien who said he killed the boys, not Robert. Nix told police that she did not hear a confession. So again, this is not firsthand, not even secondhand. It's a little further removed than that.
And I think this is a good example of how just because somebody says they heard someone say something doesn't mean it necessarily happened. I mean, don't be offended by this, but this is the most exciting thing that happened in West Memphis in a long time. And everybody was talking about it. Everybody was involved in it. And everybody thought Damien was creepy and dangerous.
And so I think stories sort of naturally developed here. And like Alice said, I mean, this is... hearsay to hearsay to hearsay, the police basically go talk to Whitney Nix and she says, I never said that. So that breaks that chain. Doesn't seem like they ever talked to Jennifer Ashley, but I don't put a lot of stock in what Joni Brown says she heard at the skating rink.
It won't be the last time the skating rink comes up.
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Chapter 8: What happened during the police interviews in California?
So I wonder if it was something more innocuous than what it has turned out to be now. I don't know. That's really interesting that she would not remember something like this.
Well, so we have the transcribed interview from Brandy Wilson. I mean, as she said, she's 12 or 13, right? It is very, very, very hard to follow because she basically says that, you know, Jason's there, Domini's there, Damien's there, and she's sitting there and Damien's sitting next to her. And so she can, she can overhear what's said and, and,
I was just listening and he said that he had something to do with these three boys and him and Jason just started giggling and laughing. And so the police are like, so what exactly did he say? And she never can get to it. And the police keep trying to bring her back to like, so what exactly did he say? And supposedly he was saying this to Domini and Jason. So I think you're probably right.
I think it's very vague.
And I will say it's easier to read than I can imagine it would be to listen because we can hone in on the parts that are like, oh, this is an important line. But having been in these types of interviews where the witness is just swirling around like what's really important, not on purpose because she's 12 and because she wasn't part of the conversation. She's only overhearing. I can imagine.
Her mom, her mom hears because her mom hears her talk all the time is like what you were at the skate park and a bunch of guys are giggling. So that's what the mom hears. But what the police here are, they're giggling because and then they impart their own investigation into the words of what Brandy is not saying. That's what I'm thinking may have happened here.
So mom is in the room, even though she doesn't remember this. And the police officer says, did you tell your mother what you heard? And she says, yes. So, and it's Alan, by the way, detective Alan. So he now turns to the mom and this is what she says. Well, the girls did say something about it that night. that we came home, but they didn't, nothing, the kids or nothing like that.
Just like there was some weird boys there and a couple of other things went on, but no, I know we all really didn't talk about it or nothing until Mr. Bray called. So I think you pretty much put your finger on it.
This is where interpretation really matters a lot. This is why we say go to the sources, right? This is why rule of evidence matters in the court of law, because people tend to interpret or read into statements all the time. not because the police are malicious, because they're thinking about the murders and they may have other knowledge that Brandy doesn't have.
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