The bodies had been removed from the water and placed on the adjacent embankment, possibly disturbing physical evidence or otherwise contaminating the scene. Well, perhaps not nobody. Self. Jesse was gonna take it anyway. It was a call about Damien Echolshe wasnt dead, but his wife, Lorri Davis, feared he might be soon. It hurt all over again, he said. A murderer was loose in West Memphis. https://t.co/dXOtQkmjee. He just didnt know it would take another 14 years to happen. " Every crime, no matter what it is, gets blamed on Satanism.". They had a daughter together, Amanda Hobbs, who was 4 years old at the time of her brothers death. doesn't know how to teach the material and you will end up teaching yourself everything. It was so emotionally taxing to watch and go through it again, he says. Iwould journal something and put it in the box, said Hobbs. Misskelley, who reportedly had an IQ of 72, changed his story several times, and only a small part of his statements was recorded. Also, law enforcement chose not to focus on the victims' families as the starting point of the investigation as is the norm. Bakken immediately showed her friends Burk Sauls and Grove Pashley, who were both equally gripped by what they had just watched. He died on April 4, 2019 in Panama City Beach, Florida, USA. 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. 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. When they searched online, they found little to no information about the case. 2 Over the years there has been lots of speculation and finger pointing as to who was responsible. It had been a long fight to clear their names, and the odds seemed better than ever. Filing Date : 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. At the time of the West Memphis Three trial, Griffis claimed to have given seminars to 38,000 police officers all over the globe. Although blood scrapings were taken, the West Memphis police lost the evidence. The obituary was featured in Idaho Press Tribune on March 13, 2021. He is from USA. But inside, he was just another prisonerBaldwin didnt know who he could trust. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. In June 1996, Paradise Lost debuted on HBO, bringing the story of the West Memphis Three to TV sets and showing the power of the camera in the courtroom. Berlinger says that after months of filming, the parents of one of the victims raised the issue of payment. Rather, they were fighting for something they believed in. Echols tweeted, New technology and evidence in science would now allow us to test DNA in amounts so small that it would have been previously impossible. When the pair got the call from Nevins, they mobilized immediately, landing in Arkansas shortly after the arrests. She said it was one of the highest-rated pieces they had. "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. Wherever it was screened, Berlinger says, it was followed by intense Q&As from audience members who couldnt believe what theyd just watched. To learn more or opt-out, read our Cookie Policy. The evolution of how the teens were perceivedon behalf of both the filmmakers and even part of the defense teamis captured on camera early as Stidham and his colleagues began to consider whether Misskelleys confession had been coerced. 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. 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. It was almost like an out-of-body experience., When the credits rolled shortly after the unforgettable final scene, which shows a now-convicted Baldwin and Echols leaving the courtroom in handcuffs and entering a police cruiser as Metallica plays, Baldwin sat stunned. Example video title will go here for this video. Mojo was right. Except this was 1996, and home internet was still in its infancy. According to Dan Stidham, the attorney for Misskelley, that money became essential for the cash-strapped defense teams, who needed to pay for expert witnesses and other expenses. For Rollins, it was a moral imperative: Id find myself up at 3:30 a.m. thinking about Damien. Replacing Burnett was Circuit Court Judge David Laser. The killings came at the peak of the so-called Satanic Panic, a time of heightened worries about ritualistic abuse. All of them were convicted after Misskelley confessed to helping Echols and Baldwin with the murders, which he later recanted. We didnt see them grow up.. They saw the same thing you did. It's affected a lot of lives, but for some reason it keeps being brought up," said Hobbs. We made a promise early on that we would never pretend to be law enforcement or detectives, Sauls says. On the morning of June 2, 1993, Jessie Misskelley Jr., a 17-year-old high school drop out with a reported IQ of 73, was taken into custody by Detective Mike Allen. He could have been me, he told Rolling Stone in 2011. Today, Berlinger calls Revelations the weakest of the three films in the trilogyadvocacy in search of a story as opposed to the in-the-moment, on-the-ground approach of the first Paradise Lost and the in-depth exploration of new evidence in 2011s Purgatory. I think we were the first internet sleuths, but we were not internet sleuths.. Since the West Memphis Three were released, no one else has been charged in the murders of Stevie, Christopher and Michael. This is a story of justice delayed and justice denied. As the movement to free the West Memphis Three gained traction, a number of celebrities joined the cause, bringing the case under more scrutiny. 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. William Holford Griffiths. None of the initial trio behind WM3.orgnor their friend Lisa Fancher, who later became a key part of the efforthad ever considered themselves an activist to that point. Events. Get all your true crime news from Oxygen. Who Killed The Forgotten West Memphis Three? 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. He said Boxful of Nightmares is his memoirs unedited. After ending his first marriage, he wed Pamela Hicks Branch in 1986, when her son Stevie was almost 2 years old. As for Paradise Lost, it was the inciting incident in the two-decade chain of events that led to the release of the West Memphis Three. But I had to. A later confession during the trial phase would prove equally problematic. Terry Hobbs (1969 - 2019) Sleepaway Camp 2: Unhappy Campers (Nightmare Vacation II) (1988) [Rob Darrinco]: Stabbed and hanged (after gaging), off-screen by Pamela Springsteen in Walter Gotell's office; his body is shown afterwards when Carol Martin Vines discovers him. Searching obituaries is a great place to start your family tree research. 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. The community's worst fears were confirmed. 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. Unfortunately, for three teen outsiders, the West Memphis Police Department chose to focus on the cult angle to the detriment of their efforts to investigate the other two, more likely scenarios. But Berlinger also believes that the sequel is important for documenting the power of citizen activism. Misskelley told Hutcheson that he really didn't know much about Echols other than that he was "a weird person." 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. 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. According to Griffis, black hair, black T-shirts, and black jeans were signs that a kid was in league with the devil. Its no surprise the juries found the prosecutions narrative compelling, Leveritt says: For them, the image of killer satanists headbanging to Metallica was more than plausible. 25, 2021. Armchair detectives of today, I think a lot of them dabble in conspiracy theory, Berlinger says. We use cookies and other tracking technologies to improve your browsing experience on our site, show personalized content and targeted ads, analyze site traffic, and understand where our audiences come from. Its affected a lot of lives, but for some reason it keeps being brought up, said Hobbs. Critics were effusive in their praise and stunned by the footageparticularly Roger Ebert, who wrote in a four-star review that at the end of the film I was unconvinced of their guilt. The film won Emmy and Peabody awards to go with more than a dozen other nominations. A native of Winter Haven, born December 21, 1964, Terry has been a lifelong resident of Auburndale. March 8, 2021, Terry Hobbs passed away on March 8, 2021 in Boise, Idaho. Websleuths, an online forum for discussions about unsolved homicides and missing-person cases, has more than 100,000 members, and internet vigilantes have used social media and other online breadcrumbs to help track down actual criminals, such as the Canadian murderer and subject of the documentary Dont F*ck With Cats, Luka Magnotta. Link your TV provider to stream full episodes and live TV. 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. Baldwin and Misskelley were sentenced to life without parole while Echols received the death penalty. Although Damein Echols had a teenager's typical disdain for authority, he nevertheless trusted that the system would work in his favor. 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. At the request of West Memphis authorities, the two were picked up and questioned by Oceanside police. He graduated from Sweetwater High School in 1977. 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. On 04/08/2021 Terry Hobbs was filed as a Bankruptcy - Chapter 13 lawsuit. Paso Robles, California. Hobbs said, I still believe in my heart that Jessie, Jason, and Damion Echols are responsible for what happened to our children., He added, You look at what happened and then you wonder, what if this did not happen, where would our boys be today? Investigators kept minimal notes and omitted pertinent details including criminal records. 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. All three had been submerged face down in the mud, stripped naked, and bound with their shoelaces. Get an all-access pass to never-before-seen content, free digital evidence kits, and much more! I'm not stupid." Hobbs says his book is 25 years in the making, adding it is called Boxful of Nightmares for a reason. That's not the same Terry Hobbs. But most notably, his initial timeline of events didnt match what was known about the crimes, and every time he offered a detail that diverged from the accepted chronology, the interrogating officers seemed to steer him back in the direction of the official version. 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. 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. By choosing I Accept, you consent to our use of cookies and other tracking technologies. The great irony of the 18-year quest to free the West Memphis Three is that it didnt begin as a crusade. He was an actor, known for Sleepaway Camp II: Unhappy Campers (1988), Fast Food (1989) and In the Heat of the Night (1988). 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. Bray asked her if she knew about rumored cult activity in the community. Now, evidence from the case of the West Memphis Three is either missing or destroyed. Although Griffis' testimony was dramatic, it showed only a tenuous grasp of occult knowledge much of it, including a reference to a cult called "Crytos," was simply made up. There also were issues with other details he provided, including how the victims were bound and whether the boys were raped. 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. The districts current prosecuting attorney, Keith Chrestman, did not respond to requests for comment for this article, but his predecessor Scott Ellington, whose office negotiated the deals, told The New York Times in 2011 that while new trials would have likely resulted in acquittals, We dont think that there is anybody else. The Moore family has been outspoken about the end result, vehemently protesting the 2012 Oscar nomination for the third Paradise Lost installment. The consequences of that online campaign were ruinous: The person they targeted, a Mexican metal musician who worked under the name Morbid, was harassed into hiding. So, how much is Terry Hobbs worth at the age of 50 years old? - The West Memphis 3: Free (2012) . Their main worry was Damien, who was staring down the threat of lethal injection should the appeals fail. La Verne, California. Mojo jumped up, Baldwin recalls. That was more than the people deciding the case were able to hearthe presiding judge made the expert give most of his testimony without the jury in the courtroom because he questioned its relevance. The level of corruption in the American justice system is glaring and sickening.. During the trials of Jason Baldwin and Damien Echols, Griffis drew tenuous links between circumstantial evidence, such as the killings taking place near the date of the pagan festival of Beltane. Case Number : 2:21-BK-21177. 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. One of those shows, Truth & Justice With Bob Ruff, became the basis for an Oxygen docuseries last year titled The Forgotten West Memphis Three, which took a closer look at the three victims and tried to shine new light on the evidence. Classmates at Weaver Elementary School, the three were active in their Cub Scout troop and responsible enough to be trusted to roam their neighborhood without supervision. The pair abruptly fled to Oceanside, Calif., four days after the murders. Hobbs denied the accusation, saying that his family does have secrets, but none of them have to do with murder. 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. 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. every single person in my class was either . I just checked again and HE IS STILL MISSING. Leave a sympathy message to the family in the guestbook on this memorial page of Terry Hobbs to show support. Echols is correct. Terry Hobbs was born on November 25, 1969 in Columbus, Georgia, USA. Berlinger also concedes Revelations had some ethical problems, chiefly because it raised the possibility that Mark Byers committed the killings. 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 WMC-TV. As the appeals processes stretched across several years and the buzz of the initial film faded, the directors began looking for ways to keep the story alive. This family in-fighting led to him shooting his brother-in-law. Like Misskelley in the first trial, Baldwin received a life sentence. Terry Roland Hobbs <p>Terry Roland Hobbs, 62, of Sweetwater, passed away on Saturday, September 11, 2021.</p> <p>Terry was born on September 11, 1959 in Sweetwater, to Jack Harvey and Marjorie Hobbs .Terry graduated from Sweetwater High School in 1977. By the end of Paradise Lost, you cant believe they were found guilty, Bakken says. At the suggestion of the police, Hutcheson hid microphones in her home and borrowed occult books from the library to inspire Echols' interest. 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. He retired from the US Air Force, and he was the Deputy Supervisor for Polk County Supervisor of Elections. 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. Baldwin remembers the dire circumstances laid out during the call. Not everyone believes that the West Memphis Three are innocent of the killings of Michael Moore, Stevie Branch, and Christopher Byers. Then youd try to find it, and it didnt exist, because when we went out to discussion groups, no one knew about the case yet., After learning that the teens were still in prison, Bakken, Sauls, and Pashley decided to make full use of the budding technological revolution. He says his students seem to have a better grasp on the idea of coerced confessions than any of his peers in 1994. As the first in a trilogy of Paradise Lost films about the case, the 1996 movie was a stunning example of cinma vrit, as directors Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky embedded themselves with the prosecution, the defense, and the families of both the slain and the accused to put human faces on a heart-wrenching tragedy, as well as highlight the overblown worries of satanic rituals and murderous cults that proliferated throughout the 1980s and 90s. 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. Timeline Of The West Memphis Three Victims, Motivations For Investigating The West Memphis Case. Its gone from a controversial legal theory to an accepted phenomenon. (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.)