Terry Hobbs USAF Ret. Dec 13th, 2021. He retired from the US Air Force, and he was the Deputy Supervisor for Polk County Supervisor of Elections. Best selling books such as Lawrence Pazder's Michelle Remembers and disgraced evangelical comedian Mike Warnke's The Satan Seller fueled the madness with tales of ritual abuse and human sacrifice. Stidham, who was just 30 years old and not long out of law school when the court appointed him to be Misskelleys attorney, went in thinking he would negotiate a deal for his client, who had told police that his acquaintances Baldwin and Echols committed the crimes and that he was present and played a role as an accessory. The only possible culprits were 18-year-old Damien Echols, a poor teen with an interest in the occult and a record of mental illness, his friend Jason Baldwin, a quiet kid whose talent for art tended toward dark subjects, and Jessie Misskelley, a 17-year-old misfit with an IQ of 73. During Misskelley's trial, Hutcheson testified that she had attended an "an occult Satanic meeting" she referred to as an "esbat." All three had been submerged face down in the mud, stripped naked, and bound with their shoelaces. (Despite Misskelleys statement, the coroners examination found no injuries on the victims consistent with sexual assault.) I just checked again and HE IS STILL MISSING. That type of support made observers question the verdicts perhaps more so than any rock star who shouted Echolss name into a mic because of an HBO documentary. He was an actor, known for Sleepaway Camp II: Unhappy Campers (1988), Fast Food (1989) and In the Heat of the Night (1988). On the evening of May 5, 1993, 8-year-olds Stevie Branch, Christopher Byers and Michael Moore went missing in West Memphis, Arkansas. 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. Over two decades after the murders, what really happened to Stevie Branch, Christopher Byers, and Michael Moore on the evening of May 5, 1993, remains a mystery. Get an all-access pass to never-before-seen content, free digital evidence kits, and much more! Paso Robles, California. Luminol tests, which reveal the hidden presence of blood, were not performed at the scene until six days later. The great irony of the 18-year quest to free the West Memphis Three is that it didnt begin as a crusade. Minutes later, Sgt. As detailed by The Hollywood Reporter in 2011, Jackson and Walsh helped fund key investigations for the West Memphis Three's defense during the last seven years of their incarceration. 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. When we were driving in the car a lot, wed play a lot of the Metallica album Master of Puppets, says Alex Sinofsky, who became a doctor instead of getting behind the camera himself. 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 sce 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. No explanation has yet been given as to why such a seemingly important lead was dropped. The three teens were arrested after Misskelley said they committed the crime after 12 hours of interrogation. And yet Hobbs was not interviewed at all in the months after the crimes. He was handed the phone. 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. Mojo was right. At the request of West Memphis authorities, the two were picked up and questioned by Oceanside police. 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. Over the years there has been lots of speculation and finger pointing as to who was responsible. It was a call about Damien Echolshe wasnt dead, but his wife, Lorri Davis, feared he might be soon. Damien Echols, Jessie Misskelly and Jason Baldwin were originally convicted of the killings and released from prison in 2011 after making a deal with prosecutors. He died on April 4, 2019 in Panama City Beach, Florida, USA. Among those active in the cause were singer Eddie Vedder of the band Pearl Jam, the country music trio The Dixie Chicks, punk rock icon and poet Henry Rollins, and actor Johnny Depp. He is from USA. But they were saying that he was about to die.. Yes, the West Memphis Three are out of prison, but as long as they are considered guilty in the eyes of the state, the case is closed, meaning no further investigation can occur. But for every Your Own Backyard or Ill Be Gone in the Dark that has applied journalistic rigor to their research in the past two decades, theres an Up and Vanished, which has been at the center of ethical debates since the podcast debuted in 2016. It's affected a lot of lives, but for some reason it keeps being brought up," said Hobbs. 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. 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. March 8, 2021, Terry Hobbs passed away on March 8, 2021 in Boise, Idaho. A statement he made to the producers of Paradise Lost: The Child Murders at Robin Hood Hills did little to help his public image. Polygraph tests revealed deception in the answers of both men in regard to the crimes. Other details that have come to light include that many wounds on the slain children, originally attributed to human bites and/or a serrated blade, were the result of animals feeding on the bodies. 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. Years of solitary confinement and the abuse he said he suffered at the hands of prison guards had taken its toll. A quarter-century later, what does the documentary tell us about citizen activism, the criminal justice system, and the Satanic Panic of the 1980s and 90s? She said it was one of the highest-rated pieces they had. Essentially, it allows the accused to assert their innocence while pleading guilty, conceding that the prosecution has an overwhelming amount of evidence to procure a conviction. A later confession during the trial phase would prove equally problematic. I'm not stupid." Published by The Commercial Appeal from Jun. As more people learned about the case from Paradise Lost and the work of people like Bakken and Sauls, the phrase Free the West Memphis Three caught on as a slogan for progressive musicians and actors in the 1990s, up there with Save the Rainforest and Free Tibet. Eddie Vedder became an early leading voice, soon followed by the likes of Peter Jackson, Johnny Depp, and Natalie Maines from the band then known as the Dixie Chicks. (Echolswho is in better health today, though his eyesight has degenerated and he has premature arthritis from his time in solitary confinementin particular has maintained a relatively public life, through the five books hes published, performing magic for Patreon subscribers, and making TV appearances to discuss other cases he sees as similar to his.) Sheila Nevins, the HBO exec who pushed for Berlinger and Sinofsky to make that initial trip to Arkansas, is most proud of the companys willingness to let her finance three documentaries over 18 years without knowing where they would go. After roughly 18 months of editing, Paradise Lost debuted at Sundance in January 1996 before heading out to other festivals. (At one point, Sauls says, it landed on Yahoos list of the top 100 websites.) 1.0. . With a large population of fundamentalist Christians, the American South was particularly subject to occult paranoia. Everybody Id come in contact with was hostile to the truth, Baldwin says. La Mirada, California. 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. Hide Self (6 credits) 2012 48 Hours: Hard Evidence (TV Series) Self. But they never had any physical evidence that connected us to this crime, Echols said in 2012. 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. Im not the jury. Earlier this year, he told Action News 5 he welcomes new DNA testing. Hobbs, with the help of an author, put all that journaling intoa book about the 1993 murders of his stepson Stevie Branch, and Branchs friends Michael Moore and Chris Byers. The causes most high-profile moment came in 2000, when Trey Parker said the slogan at the MTV Movie Awards while collecting an award for Best Musical Sequence. In 1996, HBO released the documentary film Paradise Lost: The Child Murders at Robin Hood Hills. Although she was unable to recall the exact location or anyone who attended the alleged meeting, she claimed a drunken Echols confessed to the murders. But on that early morning in 1997, Jason Baldwin wasnt concerned with Berlinger and Sinofskys craft, or legal precedent, or crusading celebrities. Another hair found near the crime scene on a tree stump was found to be consistent with the DNA of Hobbs friend, David Jacoby, according to court documents obtained by Oxygen.com. I think we were the first internet sleuths, but we were not internet sleuths.. He began his career in the. Its first season ostensibly focused on the disappearance of a Georgia beauty queen, but it spent nearly as much time digging through the salacious details of the victims love life and dipping into amateur psychology as it did looking at evidence. Robin Lynn Jones. Echols' disdain for authority, penchant for black clothes, and propensity to make shocking statements didn't help his plight. The West Memphis Police Department interviewed Hobbs, who was dismissive of the findings, claiming the hair could have been picked up during a visit to his home since the victim "played with our little boy regularly," according to the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. Explore. 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. You still dont really know what happened to these kids. The second postulated that they had been slain by one or more strangers. I had a friend who was working on 20/20, and they had done a film about exorcism in one of the magazine pieces, Nevins says. It just needed a catalyst. Even without a smoking gun, the circumstantial evidence was enough for a conviction in a place like Crittenden County, Arkansas. " (Detective Allen) told me if I knew anything, that there was a $35,000 reward, and if I could help them out, we'd get the money," said Misskelley, as quoted by Mara Leveritt in Devil's Knot. A benefit album was released in 2000, and the phrase made it into a Dawsons Creek episode when Pacey shouted Free the West Memphis Three over an airport intercom. (WMC) - Not a single piece of evidence ever connected the West Memphis Three, Damien Echols, Jason Baldwin, and Jessie Misskelley, to the 1993 murders of Steve Branch, Christopher Byers, and Michael Moore. Now, evidence from the case of the West Memphis Three is either missing or destroyed. None of the three believed that, but Echolss healthand the possibility that even if he survived, he would still be on death row should the fight for retrials failmade it an imperative. 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. there are no assignments to cushion your grade, so either pass or fail. The specter of the church looms over Paradise Lost, best represented by an early scene in which Mark Byers leads his congregation in prayer and song. Although the bodies were discovered at 1:30 p.m., investigators didn't call the coroner until 3:58 p.m. By the time the coroner arrived, fly larvae were already present in the nostrils and eyes of the victims. Updated: 9:42 AM CDT June 11, 2019. Share Memories & Support the Family. Heavy metal music, role playing games like Dungeons & Dragons, and horror movies were regarded as gateways to evil. Among them was a disoriented, muddy, and bleeding African-American man who stumbled into a West Memphis Bojangles restaurant men's room less than a mile from the crime scene. Auburndale, FL - TSGT Terry Lee Hobbs, USAF, ret. Because I was thinking, if you haven't done anything, then they can't prove you did something you haven't actually done. It allowed them to get out of prison after almost 20 years. Hes subdued when discussing the facts of the case, but he comes alive while recounting his work with the Jaycees while in prison, or buying Metallicas Black Album when it came out in 1991. 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. February 27, 2023 (76 years old) View obituary. Baldwins attorneys even avoided putting him on the witness stand or mounting much of a defense, believing the burden was on the state. weaving supposedly anti-Christian and occult messages into their songs, he discovered her while Googling cold cases, funded an extensive private investigation, a November 2010 Arkansas Supreme Court ruling, biggest allies in the years before his 2020 death, acquitted of capital murder in 2018 after a 25-year legal saga. And then there was the public pressure: In August 2010, Vedder and Maines headlined yet another benefit concert, this one in Little Rock. Some believe the West Memphis Three are guilty to this day, and others, including some victims family members, point to their innocence and maintain the real perpetrator is still at large. Over the years there has been lots of speculation and finger pointing as to who was responsible. Self. Theyve had several victories, including the case of Daniel Villegas, who was acquitted of capital murder in 2018 after a 25-year legal saga. Their main worry was Damien, who was staring down the threat of lethal injection should the appeals fail. For Rollins, it was a moral imperative: Id find myself up at 3:30 a.m. thinking about Damien. Theres no smoking gun. Pam Hobbs divorced Terry Hobbs in 2004 and has reversed her position on the West Memphis Three's guilt. Paradise Lost also led to a famous citizen-activist campaign championing the release of the three teens that caught on at the dawn of the Internet Age and would eventually pull in Eddie Vedder, Henry Rollins, and a whos who of the rich and famous. The footage included raw jailhouse interviews with the defendants, strategy sessions held by legal teams on both sides, and extended monologues from Mark Byers, the tall, goateed stepfather of one of the victims, who spoke as though he were reciting the Book of Revelation and who, at one point in Paradise Lost, fired a handgun at a pumpkin while reciting the names of the accused. It'll be sort of like I'm the West Memphis boogeyman. 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. West Memphis is in the heart of the Bible Belt: just a two-hour drive from where, legend has it, the devil tuned Robert Johnsons guitar, in a state thats 46 percent evangelical Protestant.