and stevie branch with his two friends, christopher byers and michael moore. the boys were nude and bound with their own shoe laces. >> i run up there and one look at my husband and i knew it was stevie. and i hit the ground screaming "god, no". >> almost immediately word spread that these murders were the the work of the devil. >> that was the first thing that everybody started saying, that it was a ritualistic killing, satanic killing. i overheard people saying that they've been trying to let the police know that there's been groups of teenagers out there practicing satanic rituals and things like that. >> satanic killing? an idea not so far fetched for the time. this is a community steeped in religion, a church is never far away. and it was a time before the goth look or the notion of a romantic teenage vampire became fashionable. and this was a crime so horrendous it was easy to believe it was committed by a monster. >> when you're hearing all of this, what's going through your mind? >> exactly the same thing that that's what happened, that the devil actua