Knowing that the police were already focusing on Damien Echols, Hutcheson asked her neighbor, Jessie Misskelley Jr., about the brooding teen and his occult connection. And without substantial physical evidence, police zeroed in on a pair of teens they knew well: Echols, a self-professed Wiccan who wore all black and read Stephen King, and his best friend Baldwin, who was considered an outsider because of his love of drawing and bands like Metallica. Initially, Misskelley repeatedly denied having knowledge of the crime, aside from rumors that Damien Echols was involved. He knew that if he ever got out, hed want to do that in a more organized way. She said it was one of the highest-rated pieces they had. (Maines briefly became a part of the story when Terry Hobbs, stepfather of another of the victims, sued her for defamation after she wrote a blog post pointing out that physical evidence at the crime scene potentially pointed at him and not the three convicted for the crime. 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. He was an actor, known for Sleepaway Camp II: Unhappy Campers (1988), Fast Food (1989) and In the Heat of the Night (1988). Except this was 1996, and home internet was still in its infancy. 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. Their advocates believe the Alford pleas represent their own form of injustice, but correcting that is a less pressing issue than the early battlesthe men are free and have been able to mostly live their lives in the years since their release. 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. One of Kathy Bakkens earliest jobs in Los Angeles allowed her a certain kind of cultural currency: She designed movie posters for an entertainment-advertising company, which meant she got to see films months before they were released. Social media didnt fully exist yet, but the group managed to harness the potential of the nascent information superhighway to bring attention to their cause. Sign up forOxygen Insiderfor all the best true crime content. Id like to see this put to rest. doesn't know how to teach the material and you will end up teaching yourself everything. "People probably think I'm in Satanism because what they don't understand they try to destroy or ridicule. That didn't make sense to me. Beyond the black-and-white print of the newspaper, there was a movement brewing. 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? They saw this movie and they felt like, I have to do something.. 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. " (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. With a large population of fundamentalist Christians, the American South was particularly subject to occult paranoia. Get all your true crime news from Oxygen. Family and friends are welcome to leave their condolences on this memorial page and share them with the family. So when I saw this tiny little article in the Times, I wasnt about to free anybody that was guilty. "I'd like to see this put to rest. West Memphis 3 / Terry Hobbs 2022 Update New Scott 94.5K subscribers Subscribe 241 Share 20K views 8 months ago https://www.crimeonline.com/2022/05/. Terry Hobbs stated both family and co-workers believed he was guilty from day one and continued to believe him guilty after the trial and convictions of the West Memphis Three. Their bikes were found by a pipe nearby. The prosecutor would later say, There was a lack of physical evidence to tie anyone or anything to the crime scene, while the lead investigatorthe same one who told the press the case was an 11 out of 10would concede, Youve got a lot of circumstantial evidence is what youve got. In August 2011, Jason Baldwin was pulled from his prison cell under confusing circumstances once again. Self. The final scene Berlinger and Sinofsky filmed may have been the piece that stuck with viewers the most: the image of Baldwin and Echols being led out of the courthouse in handcuffs and bulletproof vests, now property of the state. 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. Terry was born on September 11, 1959 in Sweetwater, to Jack Harvey and Marjorie Hobbs .Terry graduated from Sweetwater High School in 1977. But Berlinger also believes that the sequel is important for documenting the power of citizen activism. But inside, he was just another prisonerBaldwin didnt know who he could trust. This is the true story of the West Memphis Three murders. 2012 West of Memphis (Documentary) Self - Steven Branch's Stepfather. 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. I never foresaw that they would in turn save us.. Terry Gibbs Covered in wounds, all three showed signs of having been beaten. It allowed them to get out of prison after almost 20 years. In 1996, a screener for Paradise Lost passed her desk. Terry Hobbs - IMDb On 04/08/2021 Terry Hobbs was filed as a Bankruptcy - Chapter 13 lawsuit. Nobody was saying, This is an outrageous case that needs to be looked into.. Mike Allen arrived on the scene. Yet, Judge David Burnett accepted Griffis as an expert. Also, law enforcement chose not to focus on the victims' families as the starting point of the investigation as is the norm. Los Angeles Times Obituaries (1985 - 2023) - Los Angeles, CA I think I introduced my dad to it because that was not his normal genre., Three Metallica songsOrion, Welcome Home (Sanitarium), and Call of Ktuluwould play throughout the documentary. Not everyone believes that the West Memphis Three are innocent of the killings of Michael Moore, Stevie Branch, and Christopher Byers. "The reason I made the West Memphis boogeyman comment during the first film was because I was making light of the situation," Echols says in Paradise Lost 2: Revelations. In 2013, Jackson and Damien Echols produced a fourth documentary about the case. All three had been submerged face down in the mud, stripped naked, and bound with their shoelaces. It was so emotionally taxing to watch and go through it again, he says. I think we were the first internet sleuths, but we were not internet sleuths.. The Paradise Lost cameras captured not only the defenses discussions, but the full testimony, in Misskelleys trial, of an expert on coerced confessions. Hobbs has never wavered in his conviction that justice was served the first time around. We made a promise early on that we would never pretend to be law enforcement or detectives, Sauls says. Well, perhaps not nobody. 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. I wouldn't do something like that. Mara Leveritt, a journalist who followed the case throughout the 1990s and wrote the 2002 book Devils Knot: The True Story of the West Memphis Three, calls the strain of Christianity that runs through the region very literal and says that even her children faced harassment as teenagers for playing Dungeons & Dragons and listening to Ozzy Osbourne. The level of corruption in the American justice system is glaring and sickening.. (Despite Misskelleys statement, the coroners examination found no injuries on the victims consistent with sexual assault.) Michelle McNamara helped crack the Golden State Killer case by poring over thousands of pages of case files while working on her book Ill Be Gone in the Dark, which was published two years after her 2016 death, while Chris Lambert and his podcast Your Own Backyard were highlighted by authorities after two arrests in April in connection with the 1996 disappearance of Cal Poly student Kristin Smart. Case Details. Damien Echols (@damienechols) July 7, 2021 Terry Hobbs, the stepfather of Branch who was under suspicion but never charged, said he welcomes new DNA testing. Despite the best efforts of the police, dozens of volunteers, a search-and-rescue team, and a helicopter dispatched from nearby Memphis, Tenn., searchers came up empty handed. Years of solitary confinement and the abuse he said he suffered at the hands of prison guards had taken its toll. . Family and friends can send flowers and/or light a candle as a loving gesture for their loved one. Now, evidence from the case of the West Memphis Three is either missing or destroyed. But then the verdicts arrived: Both Baldwin and Echols were found guilty on all counts, just like Misskelley had been six weeks before them. "I knew from when I was real small that people were going to know who I was," Echols said in 1994. Who Is Terry Hobbs, Stepfather Of West Memphis Three Victim? | True You still dont really know what happened to these kids. But Echolss situation changed Baldwins thinking. In 1994, Dr. Dale W. Griffis was a retired police officer who had embarked on a second career as a self-styled consultant on occult and cult-related crime. This family in-fighting led to him shooting his brother-in-law. View Source Suggest Edits Memorial Photos Flowers Created by: Legend Added: 11 Aug 2021 Find a Grave Memorial ID: 230642037 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. Terry Hobbs says he is a church member, a father, and working man and in no way a killer. The arrest, trial, and conviction of the three young men known as the West Memphis Three came under national scrutiny as details of the case became public. Like Misskelley in the first trial, Baldwin received a life sentence. https://t.co/dXOtQkmjee. At approximately 1:30 p.m., Steve Jones, a juvenile parole officer from Crittenden County, peered over the steep bank of a water-filled ditch in the woods near the Blue Beacon truck wash. But on the subject of Paradise Lost, he speaks emphatically: He understands how important the movies were in helping him, Echols, and Misskelley walk free 10 years ago this August. Share Memories & Support the Family. Terry Hobbs - IMDb In West Memphis, Hobbs worked as an ice cream delivery man and Hicks worked at a restaurant. Inevitably, the West Memphis Three case always comes up. In the years since the trial, John Mark Byers, adoptive father of Christopher Byers, and Pamela Hobbs, mother of Stevie Branch, became vocal supporters of the West Memphis Three. Case Details Parties . To date, no DNA evidence from the crime scene can be linked to Damien Echols, Baldwin, or Jessie Misskelley. Because I was thinking, if you haven't done anything, then they can't prove you did something you haven't actually done. The third put forth the unusual theory that the killings were committed as a cult ritual. But none of that support has been able to fully exonerate the trio, something theyre still fighting for. Funeral Home Services for Terry are being provi. On the evening of May 5, 1993, three 8-year-old boys disappeared from the streets of West Memphis, Ark. He was an actor, known for Sleepaway Camp II: Unhappy Campers (1988), Fast Food (1989) and In the Heat of the Night (1988). '", In 1999, a more mature Echols explained the comment. It was also revealed in 2012 that Hobbs nephew allegedly told his friends, My Uncle Terry murdered those three little boys," and that the killings were a Hobbs family secret, according to, I still believe in my heart that Jessie, Jason, and Damion Echols [sic] are responsible for what happened to our children, Hobbs told Memphis ABC affiliate. During Misskelley's trial, Hutcheson testified that she had attended an "an occult Satanic meeting" she referred to as an "esbat." Luminol tests, which reveal the hidden presence of blood, were not performed at the scene until six days later. The knife was thrown into the lake by Baldwin's mother a year before the murders. He began his career in the plumbing business at a very young age, workingfor his . Make a life-giving gesture After ending his first marriage, he wed Pamela Hicks Branch in 1986, when her son Stevie was almost 2 years old. Terry Hobbs passed away in Nampa, Idaho. (WMC) - Its a case that has captured the nation and certainly the Mid-South. I went to a Baptist school and I got accused of being a devil worshiper because I was trying to learn how to write hieroglyphics, says Sauls, today a screenwriter and VFX designer. It was born out of genuine admiration for the fact that these guys took the time out of their lives to dedicate, to go down to Arkansas, to build a website, to really step out of their lives, Berlinger says. After new DNA evidence was discovered, the West Memphis Three were released from prison in August 2011 by agreeing to an Alford plea, which allowed him to proclaim their innocence while admitting the prosecution had enough evidence to convict him. However, in 2010, a series of rapidly unfolding developments turned the tide for Damien Echols, Jason Baldwin and Jessie Misskelley. Terry Hobbs, the stepfather of West Memphis Three murder victim Stevie Branch, has denied any involvement in slayings of Branch and his two friends. The idea, Berlinger says, was to tell a story of disaffected youthabout kids killing kids., There was no reason not to believe the press, Berlinger says. 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. People would drive by and yell at us, Theyre going to burn in hell, Sauls says. Check out never-before-seen content, free digital evidence kits, and much more! With the guards blessings, Mojo led Baldwin to Varners visitation room, where everything had been put away aside from two chairs set up in front of a cart holding a small TV and a VCR. William Holford Griffiths. Baldwin, the youngest member of the trio that had come to be known as the West Memphis Three, was serving a life sentence after being convicted on charges connected to the 1993 killings of three 8-year-old boys. The Messed Up Truth About The West Memphis Three Murders - Grunge.com Mojo jumped up, Baldwin recalls. Unaware of what was to come, Allen explained that he just wanted to ask him some questions. A native of Winter Haven, born December 21, 1964, Terry . Misskelley and Echols were 36; Baldwin was 34. By the time she got done watching it, her life was forever changed. For Rollins, it was a moral imperative: Id find myself up at 3:30 a.m. thinking about Damien. Polygraph tests revealed deception in the answers of both men in regard to the crimes. The first being that boys were killed by someone they knew. Terry Hobbs Breaks His Silence | WREG.com They were releasedfrom prison in 2011 on whats called an Alford plea, after new forensic evidence was presented as part of the case. (2 weeks at #1, on for 19 weeks!) Local 24 News EXCLUSIVE: Terry Hobbs on his new memoir on the West Memphis 3. Terry Hobbs | 2:21-BK-21177 | Court Records - UniCourt On the surface, 18-year-old Damien Echols, an intelligent, but psychologically troubled teen with interests in Wicca and extreme music, fit the profile. Hobbs said, I still believe in my heart that Jessie, Jason, and Damion, 'Feels Like Home:' electrical failure from a light fixture caused December fire that killed 1, Shelby County reporting an increase in drug-related overdoses, largely due to fentanyl, Severe weather threat is over | Prepare for a sunny weekend, Daylight saving time starts soon. Oxygen Insider is your all-access pass to never-before-seen content, free digital evidence kits, and much more. People in West Memphis are going to tell their kids stories. 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. Baldwins attorneys even avoided putting him on the witness stand or mounting much of a defense, believing the burden was on the state. Dec 13th, 2021. However, within the first crucial hours after the bodies were discovered, mistakes were made at the crime scene that negatively impacted the investigation. (Its worth noting that despite the issues raised by Lindseys work, the first season of Up and Vanished renewed interest in the case, which ultimately led to arrests, albeit of people that Lindsey hadnt previously covered on the podcast.). Get an all-access pass to never-before-seen content, free digital evidence kits, and much more! She has since expressed her belief that her ex-husband was involved in the murders,citing the discovery of her son's favorite pocket knife in Terry Hobbs' belongings. It's one. 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. This article was updated after publication to add more context about the honorariums paid to the families of the victims and the West Memphis Three and also to correct the time frame in which Berlinger and Sinofsky informed HBO about the changing scope of the documentary. Terry-Hobbs - InkFreeNews.com "They said close to the crime scene because at one time I did walk near where they had found the kids with Terry Hobbs But I didn't wear hats back then, my hair could have blown around anywhere, Jacoby told Memphis NBC affiliate WMC-TV in 2013. 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. Timeline Of The West Memphis Three Victims, Motivations For Investigating The West Memphis Case. On August 19, 2011, all three accepted the deal and were immediately released from prison. As rumors of a Satanic sacrifice swept the community, the minds of many in West Memphis were already made up. The reason for the credit gets less curious when hes asked about it: He was a huge Metallica fan. The Alford plea is a seldom-invoked and somewhat confusing legal maneuver, but the basics are fairly straightforward. 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. Little kids will be looking under their bed 'Damien might be under there! Explore. Further down, it includes names such as Rick Dior, a sound mixer who worked on Apollo 13 and Dirty Dancing, and Bob Richman, a three-time Emmy-nominated cinematographer whose rsum also includes renowned docs like An Inconvenient Truth and Waiting for Superman. Echols is an author and mystic living New York with his wife, architect Lorri Davis. Bakken immediately showed her friends Burk Sauls and Grove Pashley, who were both equally gripped by what they had just watched. Link your TV provider to stream full episodes and live TV. A hair found on one of the ligatures to bind the boys, however, was found to be consistent with the DNA of Hobbs, according to court documents obtained by Oxygen.com. He could have been me, he told Rolling Stone in 2011. When the case was given the option for DNA evidence, everyone but Terry Hobbs said yes. She has since expressed her belief that her ex-husband was involved in the murders, citing the discovery of her son's favorite pocket knife in Terry Hobbs' belongings. Damion Echols, Jason Baldwin, and Jessie Misskelley were convicted of murdering the children in 1994. October 14, 2017: #26 on the JazzWeek chart! 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. According to Devil's Knot author Mara Leveritt, the investigation of the murders was divided along three lines. For the next two hours and 29 minutes, the two inmates sat in near silence watching Paradise Lost: The Child Murders at Robin Hood Hills, the landmark documentary released on HBO 25 years ago this week that captured the trials of Baldwin, Jessie Misskelley Jr., and Damien Echols, the three teenagers convicted in 1994 of the crimes that ripped through the small, working-class community of West Memphis, Arkansas. His net worth has been growing significantly in 2021-2022. Terry Hobbs Memphis 32, 14-Jun, Superior Funeral Home-Hollywood. The trio assumed that the convictions had already been overturned by the time Bakken received the screenerthis was a modern-day witch hunt, they thought, and surely the state of Arkansas had already corrected the course. When it didnt, the praise heaped on Paradise Lost felt hollow. 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. The bodies had been removed from the water and placed on the adjacent embankment, possibly disturbing physical evidence or otherwise contaminating the scene. Berlinger says that he counts Errol Morriss The Thin Blue Line as one of his greatest influences, not just for the innovations Morris brought to the documentary genre, but also because it helped free Randall Dale Adams from a sentence for the murder of a Texas police officer that he did not commit. February 27, 2023 (82 years old) View obituary. It just needed a catalyst. By staying on this subject for the next couple of decades, they gave these men a chance and really decades of freedom afterward. This is not a smoking-gun-type case.. The nonprofits work hasnt always been easyfundraising is hard, and because hes a convicted felon, hes unable to visit clients in prison or discuss pleasbut its been essential for him as he strives to live the words by 14th-century Persian poet Hafez that he keeps as an email signature: The small man builds cages for everyone he knows / While the sage, who has to duck his head when the moon is low / Keeps dropping keys all night long for the beautiful rowdy prisoners. Baldwin says hes learned that justice isnt a computer programthat you can input all the evidence and testimony and still get the wrong results. By going into the courtroom and sticking with the case for its entire duration, Berlinger and Sinofsky were able to capture what may have otherwise been lost to time or left out of transcripts. Peter Jackson, who would produce a separate documentary about the case titled West of Memphis in 2012, and his partner, Fran Walsh, funded an extensive private investigation and helped hire forensic experts to comb through evidence. After 18 years in prison, the West Memphis Three were finally free, but not exonerated. . Who Killed The Forgotten West Memphis Three? They procured the domain WM3.org and made a website, updating it with whatever information they could track down. Thursday, August 19th 2021. But they werent just voices in the growing choir calling for the West Memphis Threes releasethey were leading the movement. 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 was born on November 25, 1969 in Columbus, Georgia, USA. Due to marital problems stemming from Stevies death, the couple divorced in 2004, reported CNN. 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. Rather, they were fighting for something they believed in. 1.0. . Reaching its apex in the late 1980s and early 1990s, the Satanic Panic was a wave of paranoia rooted in the belief that Satanic cults intent on corrupting the souls of the young had infiltrated American society. He was 56. This is a brand new website dedicated to the internationally famous musician, Terry Gibbs. They werent connected in any direct way, Bakken says. 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. Produced and directed by filmmakers Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky, the film and its two sequels, Paradise Lost 2: Revelations and Paradise Lost 3: Purgatory, gave audiences a unique and detailed look into the case, the accused, and the families of victims. Terry Hobbs Obituary (1959 - 2021) - Sweetwater, TX - Sweetwater Reporter It was clear that Paradise Lost was resonating. The idea of the average citizen becoming embroiled in a criminal investigation isnt far-fetched in 2021, decades removed from the launch of WM3.org. Berlinger says that after months of filming, the parents of one of the victims raised the issue of payment. Stevie Branch, Michael Moore, and Christopher Byers were best friends. 21, 2021 at 1:51 PM PDT CALHOUN COUNTY, Fla.. While thats cooled from the days of concerts in the shadows of the Arkansas Supreme Court building, the documentaries still live on HBO Max, where they pull in new viewers to this day. Baldwin remembers the dire circumstances laid out during the call. The news was devastating beyond just word of his friends suffering. One person who has come up in the investigation is Terry Hobbs, although police have never named him a suspect or charged him in connection with the case. Its my perspective of what happened in 1993, 26 years ago in West Memphis, Arkansas, said Hobbs. 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.