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. There also were issues with other details he provided, including how the victims were bound and whether the boys were raped. In the minds of many, the bizarre nature of the Robin Hood Hills murders could only have been committed by one of Satan's minions. All three had been submerged face down in the mud, stripped naked, and bound with their shoelaces. The first being that boys were killed by someone they knew. More than 2,500 people attended and the story dominated the local press for days. 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. Also, law enforcement chose not to focus on the victims' families as the starting point of the investigation as is the norm. They werent connected in any direct way, Bakken says. Misskelley told Hutcheson that he really didn't know much about Echols other than that he was "a weird person." 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. 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. The community's worst fears were confirmed. It's affected a lot of lives, but for some reason it keeps being brought up," said Hobbs. No explanation has yet been given as to why such a seemingly important lead was dropped. Sign up forOxygen Insiderfor all the best true crime content. I deeply admire that and I thought it was worthy of putting on film.. Yet, Judge David Burnett accepted Griffis as an expert. But then the verdicts arrived: Both Baldwin and Echols were found guilty on all counts, just like Misskelley had been six weeks before them. 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. The first and likely simplest gauge is continued interest in the case. (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. Not everyone believes that the West Memphis Three are innocent of the killings of Michael Moore, Stevie Branch, and Christopher Byers. The bodies of Branch, Byers, and Moore were found in a drainage ditch in West Memphis May 6 . The second postulated that they had been slain by one or more strangers. 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. And that makes him hopeful that exoneration is on the horizon. 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. They procured the domain WM3.org and made a website, updating it with whatever information they could track down. hangyermoon 2 yr. ago. But it wasnt in the ways its directors had hoped. 24 to Jun. People in West Memphis are going to tell their kids stories. Update: I was totally wrong. La Verne, California. That didn't make sense to me. " (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. Terry Hobbs was born in 1958 and grew up in Northern Arkansas. 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. Paso Robles, California. 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. 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. His net worth has been growing significantly in 2021-2022. Published by The Commercial Appeal from Jun. He says that while he was in the supermax prison in Varner, he would write letters trying to drum up support for not just himself, but also for other inmates he believed were wrongfully convicted. Like everyone else who was familiar with the case, they wanted to know who committed the crimes, but their main goal was advocacy, not using the opportunity to play investigators. Terry was born on September 11, 1959 in Sweetwater, to Jack Harvey and Marjorie. I don't know if the other 2 did, but even if they did polygraphs aren't admissible in court. Updated: 9:42 AM CDT June 11, 2019. Its like ripping a Band-Aid off a wound. 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, Three teenage boys were arrested for the crimes , Baldwin and Misskelley were sentenced to life without parole while Echols received the death penalty. 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. But they werent just voices in the growing choir calling for the West Memphis Threes releasethey were leading the movement. This is a brand new website dedicated to the internationally famous musician, Terry Gibbs. But on that early morning in 1997, Jason Baldwin wasnt concerned with Berlinger and Sinofskys craft, or legal precedent, or crusading celebrities. 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. 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. Theyve had several victories, including the case of Daniel Villegas, who was acquitted of capital murder in 2018 after a 25-year legal saga. Despite an offer of a reduced sentence, Misskelley ultimately recanted his statements and refused to testify against Echols and Baldwin. That came partially through the exposure they got through this film., But perhaps the best measure of Paradise Losts impact is the work being done by Baldwin today. There have also been several high-profile incidents of laypeople reinvestigating decades-old cold cases in more rigorous, journalistic ways and helping bring them to a resolution. La Mirada, California. 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. I didnt want to stop with us being that close. Years of solitary confinement and the abuse he said he suffered at the hands of prison guards had taken its toll. Thursday, August 19th 2021. 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. 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. Under order of the Arkansas Supreme Court, there were to be new evidentiary hearings in the case. 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. Its my perspective of what happened in 1993, 26 years ago in West Memphis, Arkansas, said Hobbs. 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. Three teenage boys were arrested for the crimes Damien Echols, Jason Baldwin and Jessie Misskelley Jr. and prosecutors argued they killed the boys as part of a Satanic ritual. Other possible suspects includedBrian Holland and Chris Morgan, two young men from Memphis, Tenn., with a history of drug offenses. At that time, I was a little naive that what you read in the paper must have some truth to it, and all the press reports coming out of Arkansas were saying that this was like a slam dunk, an open-and-shut case with a confession that was printed in the newspaper.. Main Page; 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. 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. But I had to. They formed the organization Proclaim Justice, a nonprofit that reinvestigates crimes with the hopes of freeing innocent people. 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. As the West Memphis Three languished behind bars for 18 years, thousands of supporters called out for their freedom while others vehemently declared their guilt. 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. A murderer was loose in West Memphis. The Paradise Lost cameras captured not only the defenses discussions, but the full testimony, in Misskelleys trial, of an expert on coerced confessions.
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