Abomination: Devil Worship and Deception in the West Memphis Three Murders Read Online Free Page A

had smeared excrement on the floor and himself and blood was smeared on the walls. The manager called the police and the same Officer Meek (after taking police reports from Mr. Byers and Mrs. Moore) arrived too late; the African American man had already left Bojangles Restaurant. Police Officer Meek talked to the manager out of the window of her car. She never left her police cruiser and drove off after receiving another call.
     
    At about ten o’clock the evening of May 5th, Narlene Hollingsworth drove her car to pick up her relative, Dixie Hubbard at a local laundromat located on a service road near Robin Hood Hills. She filed her two children into the car and headed for the laundromat. As she drove to her destination, she passed two teens walking along side the road. Flashing her headlights to high beam, she recognized that one of them, dressed in his usual black, was Damien Echols. Beside him she thought she saw his current girlfriend, Domini Teer. In a statement to police, she said they were dirty and muddy. When she arrived at the laundry, Dixie Hubbard had a story to tell Narlene. Her seventeen year old nephew, LG Hollingsworth, stopped by the laundry to wash dirty clothes just before the 10 o’clock closing, having been dropped off in an unusual car. Damien and Domini were close friends with LG.
     
    At about 10:30 p.m., Mark Byers returned to Robin Hood Hills in the moonlit night to again search for his stepson. After a fruitless circling of the area, he headed home. On his way back, he ran into West Memphis Patrol officer John Moore. Together they returned to the woods, but found nothing of interest other than two sets of bicycle tire tracks.
     
    At midnight, Jackie Hicks, Stevie Branch’s grandfather arrived in West Memphis from Blytheville, Arkansas. Once he heard his grandson Stevie was missing, he got in his car and drove fifty miles south to help with the search. With Mark Byers by his side, Hicks searched the forested area again. Speculating that the three may have drowned in the Ten Mile Bayou, a man-made tributary of the Mississippi, they scanned the water for any sign of the boys. They searched through the night, ending exhausted at 3 a.m.
     
    By morning, the anxious parents, with local residents, began searching anew for the lost boys. The West Memphis police, now fully mobilized, addressed the issue of the missing children at their eight o’clock morning briefing. Chief Inspector Gary Gitchell, head of the Detective division, spearheaded the discussion. He informed the assembled members of the police department that a search-and-rescue team would assist in the search. A helicopter from Memphis, Tennessee flew in to scan the area for any sign of the children. Groups gathered with flyers to hand out to locals. Search parties were organized to cover any unsorted areas within West Memphis. Local news reporters began congregating to cover the growing story.
     
    By noon, most of the search parties assumed that the boys had gone camping far outside of the Robin Hood Hills area. However, Steve Jones, a Crittenden County juvenile officer, decided to check a shallow creek area in the Hills known as the Devil’s Den. Usually dry during most of the year, there was about eight feet of water in the gully from recent rains. Scanning the water from the bank, Jones spotted something. A young child’s black tennis shoe floated on the surface of the water. He radioed to other officers what he found. At about 1:30 P.M., Detective Mike Allen arrived at the creek to investigate. While trying to get a closer look at the shoe, Allen slipped on the slick, muddy bank and slid into the murky water. Dislodged by Allen, Michael Moore’s naked, alabaster body floated up into the view of the detectives. A cloud of blood surrounded the body when Allen gently pulled Michael Moore’s body from the water and placed it on the bank of the creek. The detectives recoiled at the sight of the young boy’s body: he had been hogtied