Between Briar and Water: The Unsolved Murder of Stevie Branch, Christopher Byers, and Michael Moore The Robin Hood Hills Case, West Memphis Three, Ark
Dusk in West Memphis, Arkansas. Three second-graders on bikes slip across a pipe bridge into Robin Hood Hills. By early afternoon the next day, a single child's sneaker surfaces in a shallow, oil-sheened ditch behind the Blue Beacon Truck Wash-and the search is no longer a search. What follows is one of America's most contested investigations, where three boys were recovered bound with their own shoelaces and almost no blood where you'd expect it. If the scene wasn't the place of killing, who controlled the rest?
This book contains no images-only cinematic narrative written in the style of a detective-investigator.
Moving from the first grid search to autopsy morning; from panic-driven "occult" theories to lab reports and appeals; from early convictions to DNA exclusions and a 2011 Alford plea; then forward to August 1, 2025, when a court ordered new M-Vac DNA testing on ligatures and retained items, Between Briar and Water keeps the focus where it belongs: on Stevie Branch, Christopher Byers, and Michael Moore, their families, and the stubborn facts.
Inside you'll find:
A precise chronology from 17:30-20:00 on May 5, 1993-the critical window of disappearance-through the 13:45 recovery on May 6.
Forensic analysis of bindings, submersion, scene integrity, and the evidentiary gaps that shaped the narrative.
Victimology and working offender profiles grounded in documented sources, with clarity around what the record can and cannot support.
The legal posture from 1994 convictions to post-conviction DNA, and how modern touch-DNA/M-Vac extraction may resolve remaining questions.
Reader's Promise: You will follow the case without sensationalism-scene by scene, lab to courtroom-so you can weigh the evidence yourself and understand why this story still matters to law, memory, and community.
This Book Is For Readers Who...
want meticulous true crime grounded in documents, not rumor;
care about forensic DNA methods and chain-of-custody;
follow cold case breakthroughs;
study miscarriages of justice and post-conviction review;
seek empathetic storytelling that centers victims over spectacle.
Perfect For Fans Of... Gregg Olsen, Michelle McNamara, Pamela Colloff, and T. Christian Miller-writers who braid investigation with human stakes.
Why It Endures: Because three children crossed a common boundary-from sidewalk to shadow-and the record still asks us to finish the work. With new testing underway, what holds may finally answer what broke.
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