MEMPHIS, Tenn. (localmemphis.com)More than 25 years after the murders of three 8-year-old boys in West Memphis,a new book gives a first-person account of what was happening behind the scenes. Even today, years after his name was cleared and authorities ruled Lams death accidental, Morbid still receives threats. And that is why Echols has attorneys who want to use a new DNA test called M-Vac, a wet vacuum system that can find more DNA than older tests. However, within the first crucial hours after the bodies were discovered, mistakes were made at the crime scene that negatively impacted the investigation. But they never had any physical evidence that connected us to this crime, Echols said in 2012. In November, Judge David Burnett, who had presided over the trial, was elected to the state senate. To this day, it is still unclear who is responsible for the killings. Debates still occur regularly onlinethe West Memphis Three subreddit is fairly active for one on a 28-year-old caseand podcasts have looked at the crime from all angles. - The West Memphis 3: Free (2012) . Berlinger also concedes Revelations had some ethical problems, chiefly because it raised the possibility that Mark Byers committed the killings. It hurt all over again, he said. They asked to see a cut, and they immediately said, Not only are we going to let you use all that music, but were not going to charge you anything for it., Metallica would be the first celebrities to throw their support behind the West Memphis Three, but they were far from the last. A graveside service will be conducted on Wednesday, March 17 at Cloverdale Memorial Park beginning at 11am. On the evening of May 5, 1993, 8-year-olds Stevie Branch, Christopher Byers and Michael Moore went missing in West Memphis, Arkansas. Cinemorgue Wiki. 24 to Jun. eyewitness evidence surfaced 16 years later. Hobbs says his book is 25 years in the making, adding it is called Boxful of Nightmares for a reason. Under order of the Arkansas Supreme Court, there were to be new evidentiary hearings in the case. (Police questioned Byers several times during the investigation, but never considered him a suspect.) Auburndale, FL - TSGT Terry Lee Hobbs, USAF, ret. The pair abruptly fled to Oceanside, Calif., four days after the murders. In her recantation, Hutcheson stated that when she asked Echols directly if he had killed "those three kids," he replied, "No. In 1996, HBO released the documentary film Paradise Lost: The Child Murders at Robin Hood Hills. Filing Date : The attorneys representing Echols and Baldwin believed that the juries wouldnt accept the prosecutions versions of eventsthat they were too fantastical and tied to second-hand informationand that without conclusive proof, their clients would walk. To authorities working in West Memphisa largely Southern Baptist communitysatanic activity seemed to be the most likely cause for the killings, in part because the boys bodies were bound and appeared to have been mutilated. He died on April 4, 2019 in Panama City Beach, Florida, USA. I spoke with one of the jurors, years later after the trials and convictions, and he said he had no doubt that people could throw their lot in with the devil and be commanded to do things that they wouldnt have done otherwisethat they have basically made the deal with the devil, Leveritt says. They werent connected in any direct way, Bakken says. He retired from the US Air Force, and he was the Deputy Supervisor for Polk County Supervisor of Elections. By the time she got done watching it, her life was forever changed. Lying in the open air in near 80-degree temperatures accelerated the decomposition of the bodies. Maines won the lawsuit; police have never named Hobbs a suspect or charged him in connection with the killings.). All three had been submerged face down in the mud, stripped naked, and bound with their shoelaces. https://t.co/dXOtQkmjee. But none of that support has been able to fully exonerate the trio, something theyre still fighting for. With their 2007 request for a new trial rejected, time was running out for the West Memphis Three. Defense attorneys also pointed out that Griffis' doctorate was obtained through a notorious diploma mill and had been awarded with Griffis having never attended a single class. Terry Hobbs USAF Ret. I didn't even comprehend that the situation could get this serious that it can go this far. Terry Hobbs, the stepfather of eight-year-old victim Stevie Branch, has been named in documents released in Marian, Arkansas by the attorneys for Pam Hobbs, Stevie's mother. A source said the evidence was transferred to shipping containers where there was a fire, and some of the evidence was destroyed. That story line would make up the bulk of 2000s Paradise Lost 2: Revelations, a rare sequel for a documentary, especially before the streaming era proved that true crime series like Making a Murderer and The Staircase could maintain audience interest for years. Since the West Memphis Three were released, no one else has been charged in the murders of Stevie, Christopher and Michael. During the final year of the two-year span, from July 2021 to July 2022, California lost about 211,000 people, according to data from the state Department of Finance. Berlinger and Sinofsky expected a similar result to come quickly in the West Memphis Three case. Its headlined by not only the films directors, but also Sheila Nevins, its executive producer and winner of 32 individual Emmy awards, more than any other person in history. It allowed them to get out of prison after almost 20 years. Minutes later, Sgt. Branded the West Memphis Three, the mens case was featured in multiple documentaries, earning them support from an array of high-profile musicians, celebrities and activists. While Berlinger says that the work of people like Bakken and Sauls was more impressive than that of any celebrity, its undeniable that the famous and influential brought a megaphone and funding mechanism to this case that most never get. February 27, 2023 (82 years old) View obituary. Hobbs said he wrote the book so people, especially other victims of crime, could understand the tragedy he has gone through and how it impacted his life. In February, Netflix released Berlingers Crime Scene: The Vanishing at the Cecil Hotel, a docuseries that looked at the 2013 death of Elisa Lam, a Canadian student who died while vacationing in Los Angeles. Misskelley initially told police that the killings happened during the day; knowing that they actually occurred some time after dusk, the officers corrected him, helping him retrofit his story to the cases few known facts. As reported by the Arkansas Times, examination of the shoe laces used to bind Michael Moore contained hair "not inconsistent" with that of Stevie Branch's stepfather, Terry Hobbs. Published: Dec. 21, 2021 at 9:56 PM CST WEST MEMPHIS, Ark. People have come out of the woodwork and said this and this and people have done things and a lot of them are wrong, said Hobbs. On 04/08/2021 Terry Hobbs was filed as a Bankruptcy - Chapter 13 lawsuit. You need corroborating evidence.. 21, 2021 at 1:51 PM PDT CALHOUN COUNTY, Fla.. Well, perhaps not nobody. Local 24 News EXCLUSIVE: Terry Hobbs on his new memoir on the West Memphis 3. Terry Lynn Horn Hobbs -Miller (1953-2021) - Find a Grave Memorial At the suggestion of the police, Hutcheson hid microphones in her home and borrowed occult books from the library to inspire Echols' interest. I said, Im going to send some kids down there., Those kids turned out to be Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky, the young documentarians who had recently completed the acclaimed Brothers Keeper, a film chronicling a death and the resulting trial in a small upstate New York village. He had been expecting a visitation, but was instead led to the prison chapel office, where inmates were typically brought only if someone close to them had died. If the state of Arkansas has a deep and abiding belief that the West Memphis Three are child murderers and did these terrible crimes, then shame on them for letting them out after 18 and a half years because a bunch of celebrities are whining about it, Berlinger says. Here's when clocks will 'spring forward' in 2023. The following day revealed the unthinkable, when the bloodied and bruised bodies of the three boys were found submerged in a muddy creek in a wooded area called Robin Hood Hills. West Memphis is pretty much like a second Salem," Echols stated in the 1996 documentary Paradise Lost: The Murders at Robin Hood Hills. He said, J.B., youre going home, man, youre going home.. Baldwin, who had been coached by his lawyers to avoid speaking to the press, says money was the only reason he agreed to the added pressure of appearing in the documentary, especially when everyone else in a position of authority seemed adversarial toward him. Dan Stidham, the original attorney for Misskelley, who would also work on Baldwins and Echols appeals, says he has the answer. He could have been me, he told Rolling Stone in 2011. According to Griffis, black hair, black T-shirts, and black jeans were signs that a kid was in league with the devil. He also lost the defamation case because of his violent past. 25, 2021. 1.0. . Terry Hobbs Obituary He responded proudly, 11.. Terry was born on September 11, 1959 in Sweetwater, to Jack Harvey and Marjorie. "I knew from when I was real small that people were going to know who I was," Echols said in 1994. Metallica had never licensed a song for a film before, but when they learned about the case, Berlinger says, they made an exception. In an email to The Ringer, Rollins stressed that inaction was not an option., Myself and the many people I worked with did what we could to help bring attention to the case and generate much needed financial aid, he wrote. On Aug. 11, 2011, the West Memphis Three entered the courtroom for the final time. Murders In West Memphis::: A spiritual successor to Errol Morriss The Thin Blue Line, and a forerunner of more recent documentaries like Making a Murderer, the film stands today as the most affecting examination of one of the most studied legal cases in U.S. historyone that put heavy metal lyrics and black T-shirts on trial and helped lay the groundwork for the current thinking around false confessions. Pam Hobbs divorced Terry Hobbs in 2004 and has reversed her position on the West Memphis Three's guilt. Filming the activists work seemed like the best place for Berlinger and Sinofsky to turn their attention; what better way to show the continued plight of the West Memphis Three than to show regular people dedicating their free time to fighting for them? Unaware of what was to come, Allen explained that he just wanted to ask him some questions. Well theres been a lot of things that happened over the years. William Holford Griffiths. They were naked and hog-tied with their own shoelaces, and showed signs of blunt force trauma and mutilation, the latter of which may have been the work of wild animals, reported the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette newspaper. Jesse was gonna take it anyway. According to Devil's Knot author Mara Leveritt, the investigation of the murders was divided along three lines. He graduated from Sweetwater High School in 1977. It was so emotionally taxing to watch and go through it again, he says. Jason Baldwin had no idea what was happening when a fellow inmate at the supermax prison in Varner, Arkansas, woke him up early one morning in 1997. It ranges from Mark Byers, the crusading stepfather who became one of the West Memphis Threes biggest allies in the years before his 2020 death, to famed FBI criminal profiler (and Mindhunter inspiration) John E. Douglas. Years of solitary confinement and the abuse he said he suffered at the hands of prison guards had taken its toll. Terry Hobbs, the stepfather of Branch who was under suspicion but never charged, said he welcomes new DNA testing. They saw the same thing you did. Terry Hobbs was born on November 25, 1969 in Columbus, Georgia, USA. Check out never-before-seen content, free digital evidence kits, and much more! The whole point of the web sleuths presented in the Cecil Hotel is that you cannot assume something is truthful just because circumstantially it seems interesting. I dont know if they were questioning it, but they werent mistreating me and telling me that what I was telling them wasnt true., While Berlinger admits that he and Sinofsky may have tilted pro-prosecution in the early days of filming, that quickly changed after witnessing how the cases came together and spending time with the three teens during pretrial jailhouse interviewsparticularly Baldwin, who Berlinger describes as sweet and studious.. He was just taking in the enormity of the defining event of his life to that point, which had been committed to film and was now playing for him inside the cavernous, auditorium-style visitation room. Terry Hobbs | Cinemorgue Wiki | Fandom They had a daughter together, Amanda Hobbs, who was 4 years old at the time of her brothers death. One of the prosecution's key pieces of evidence linking Jason Baldwin to the crime a survival knife with a serrated edge recovered from a lake behind his home has also come under scrutiny. Jessie took a polygraph. None of the early interviews with the parents were recorded. Now, I see they can. But the list of people who have looked at the facts of the case and come away believing Baldwin, Echols, and Misskelley are innocent is long. The first film gave rise to a movement devoted to reopening the investigation in hopes of exonerating, and ultimately freeing, Jason Baldwin, Damien Echols, and Jessie Misskelley. I don't entirely think Hobbs did it, but I . Berlinger contrasts this with the approach taken by Bakken, Sauls, and Co., who considered the truth sacrosanct and avoided rumor and innuendo in part because similar speculation helped convict the West Memphis Three. When it didnt, the praise heaped on Paradise Lost felt hollow. A year after the DNA results were released, Hobbs sued Dixie Chicks singer Natalie Maines for defamation, claiming she implied he was a murderer on the bands website and at a 2007 rally, according to The New York Times. Boxful of Nightmares is the personal memoirs of Terry Hobbs, the stepfather of one of the children murdered. Mojo was right. So with less urgency surrounding full exoneration and no documentary cameras rolling, the question 25 years later becomes: Who is paying close enough attention to the case to pick up the fight? In 1994, the FBI said there was scant evidence that violent satanic crimes had ever occurred in America outside of a few isolated incidents, but that was long after TV hosts like Geraldo, Sally Jessy Raphael, and Oprah had spread moral hysteria about musicians weaving supposedly anti-Christian and occult messages into their songs, and long after wrongful convictions were handed down in the infamous McMartin Preschool sexual assault trials. Terry Hobbs Memphis 32, 14-Jun, Superior Funeral Home-Hollywood. The test results showed that no genetic material on the crime scene evidence was a match to Echols, Baldwin or Misskelley, reported the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. of Auburndale, FL passed away Monday, August 16, 2021. MEMPHIS, Tenn. (localmemphis.com) - More than 25 years after the murders of three 8-year-old boys in West Memphis, a new book gives a first-person account of . Initially, Misskelley repeatedly denied having knowledge of the crime, aside from rumors that Damien Echols was involved. At the request of West Memphis authorities, the two were picked up and questioned by Oceanside police. And then there was the public pressure: In August 2010, Vedder and Maines headlined yet another benefit concert, this one in Little Rock. Investigators kept minimal notes and omitted pertinent details including criminal records. The sheer mountain moving amount of money it cost to prove the obvious innocence of Jessie, Jason, and Damien still staggers me.