• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

28. The summary read like a press release, but since much of the information it contained was being guarded, it may have been prepared for dissemination to other law enforcement agencies. The West Memphis police would not elaborate on the summary’s purpose. When asked for interviews during preparation of this book, detectives Gitchell, Sudbury, Ridge, and Allen all refused comment.

29. Later tests of Aaron’s vision, conducted by a private investigator, would indicate he was color-blind.

30. Ridge noted that blood found on the side of one bank “may have been the result of the perpetrator standing in the area with an amount of blood on him or one of the bodies may have been placed there prior to being placed in the water.” He surmised that other spatters “may have been the result of blood transfer from the crime scene either on the feet or clothing of someone leaving the area.” This could have been the killer or killers. Or it could have been the police.

31. This was especially true in light of the victims’ ages. By 1993, law enforcement agencies in the United States were becoming increasingly aware of the grim statistical link between child abuse and child homicide. By then, murder had been identified as the third leading cause of death of children between the ages of five and fourteen. Police departments dealing with child murders were advised to respect the grief of parents but also to weigh the possibility that a family member may have been the killer. Because children usually stay close to home and are taught to be wary of strangers, police agencies around the country were being advised to look carefully at the people around them.

32. Dawn’s friend, Kim Williams, was a fourth-grader who lived near the woods.

33. No records indicate that Gitchell ever sought court records to confirm whether or not Christopher had been adopted, and the matter apparently went unquestioned throughout the investigation. Byers told the author in an interview that a local attorney named Jan Thomas had handled the adoption. But when Thomas was asked how Byers had been allowed to adopt the child while he was on probation for a felony, was not complying with the terms of that probation, and claimed to be unable to pay child support for his two biological children, Thomas said he was unaware of the felony conviction and no longer had records of the adoption. Adoption records in Arkansas are confidential; but R. L. Murray, Christopher’s biological father, said he never relinquished his parental rights, which would have been necessary for Byers to have adopted Christopher.

34. Melissa Byers worked at Fargenstein’s Jewelry Store, at Poplar and Highland streets in Memphis. At rush hour, a round trip from municipal court in West Memphis, across the Mississippi River, to the store in the heart of Memphis, and back again to the Byerses’ house would have taken at least an hour.

35. The detectives who interviewed Taylor were Diane Hester and Mary Margaret Kesterson.

36. Ryan had been called to testify in a reckless driving case.

37. Patrol Officer John Moore reported to his dispatcher that he was searching the woods between 9:42 and 10:10P .M.

38. The following day, May 20, Sergeant Allen and another detective did interview Ryan again, but the question of what happened at midnight was not brought up. Still, in this interview, another statement Ryan made disagreed with that of his stepfather. Ryan told the detectives that until the day or two before the murders, he had never seen Christopher play with Stevie Branch. Moreover, Ryan reported some disturbing aspects of his brother’s friendship with Michael. Once, near the beginning of the school year, Ryan said, he had caught Christopher and Michael playing “nasty” behind the school. “They had poo-pooed in the field,” Ryan said, “and were throwing it at each other.” More recently, he said, “Chris has not played with Michael a lot since they got in trouble for breaking into Weaver school.”

39. Byers said he threw