Episode
Episode 13: A Shot by the Hydrant
- Published
- Aug 18, 2026
- Duration seconds
- 1912
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Summary
In the shadowed hours before three young boys vanished into Robin Hood Hills, a critical gap in the West Memphis Three timeline has long gone unfilled… until now. On this episode of Crooked Tree, West Memphis Three researchers Paul Day and Kristin Rich dive deep into the missing thirty minutes between 5:15 and 5:45 p.m. on May 5, 1993. Drawing on overlooked door-to-door notes and police interviews, they track Stevie Branch and Michael Moore as they ride their bikes near Wilson and Holiday, then head toward the woods. The most chilling detail emerges from the accounts of Kim Williams and Dawn Moore: as the two boys enter the ditch leading into Devil’s Den, three older teens—one white male and two Black males—are seen coming out. Near the fire hydrant at the edge of Devil’s Den, one of them offers Dawn a “shot.” Paul and Kristin also uncover strange gaps in the police record—including a bizarre “555” case-number anomaly on Todd Moore’s statement, the only document in the entire file that breaks from the infamous 666 designation—and reconstruct a clearer timeline of the boys’ final free hours, revealing how the official missing-persons report may have been off by half an hour. Who were those three teenagers exiting Devil’s Den… and what else is still hidden in the shadows of the investigation? A deep dive into the overlooked minutes—and the unsettling documents—that may help us understand the last afternoon of Stevie, Michael, and Christopher.