Theres no smoking gun. Like Misskelley in the first trial, Baldwin received a life sentence. Terry Castleman is a data . He could have been me, he told Rolling Stone in 2011. La Mirada, California. No charges have been brought against Jacoby, and he has never been named a suspect by the West Memphis Police Department. 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 knife was thrown into the lake by Baldwin's mother a year before the murders. He said Boxful of Nightmares is his memoirs unedited. February 27, 2023 (82 years old) View obituary. 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. 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. By choosing I Accept, you consent to our use of cookies and other tracking technologies. I wouldn't do something like that. Creator Payne Lindsey, a filmmaker with no previous experience investigating crimes, had no connection to the victim before he discovered her while Googling cold cases in hopes of finding his own version of runaway successes like Serial and Making a Murderer. 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. (2 weeks at #1, on for 19 weeks!) Their bikes were found by a pipe nearby. Replacing Burnett was Circuit Court Judge David Laser. 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. Almost 30 years ago, three eight-year-old West Memphis boys were found murdered and three teenagers were charged in the murders. During Misskelley's trial, Hutcheson testified that she had attended an "an occult Satanic meeting" she referred to as an "esbat." As rumors of a Satanic sacrifice swept the community, the minds of many in West Memphis were already made up. 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. 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. 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? 21, 2021 at 1:51 PM PDT CALHOUN COUNTY, Fla.. On the surface, 18-year-old Damien Echols, an intelligent, but psychologically troubled teen with interests in Wicca and extreme music, fit the profile. Paso Robles, California. "People probably think I'm in Satanism because what they don't understand they try to destroy or ridicule. 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. They were releasedfrom prison in 2011 on whats called an Alford plea, after new forensic evidence was presented as part of the case. 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. This is before considering the 2013 dramatized movie based on the events (and Leveritts book), Stidhams plans to release the book Harvest of Innocence, and how elements of the case made their way into True Detectives third season. 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. 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. "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. October 13, 2018 - Happy 94th Birthday Terry! I deeply admire that and I thought it was worthy of putting on film.. Investigators kept minimal notes and omitted pertinent details including criminal records. 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. On the evening of May 5, 1993, three 8-year-old boys disappeared from the streets of West Memphis, Ark. He graduated from Sweetwater High School in 1977. 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. Explore. One of the keys to understanding the West Memphis Three murders is the phenomenon known as the Satanic Panic. In 2007, new DNA and physical evidence arose that seemed to further distance the West Memphis Three from the murders. Evidence in West Memphis Three case missing or destroyed, Judge sets bond for 76-year-old woman accused of killing terminally ill husband, Woman accused of driving into home, killing former pro basketball player Galen Young granted diversion, DA Mulroy says he doubts any drag shows will violate Tennessees new drag bill, MPD finds alleged chop shop operating in plain sight, Congressman Cohen announces $1 million grant for Memphis YMCA, Red hot Memphis womens basketball ready to make a run in AAC Tournament. 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. In 1996, HBO released the documentary film Paradise Lost: The Child Murders at Robin Hood Hills. They saw this movie and they felt like, I have to do something.. On 04/08/2021 Terry Hobbs was filed as a Bankruptcy - Chapter 13 lawsuit. So when I saw this tiny little article in the Times, I wasnt about to free anybody that was guilty. 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. Local 24 News EXCLUSIVE: Terry Hobbs on his new memoir on the West Memphis 3. A source said the evidence was transferred to shipping containers where there was a fire, and some of the evidence was destroyed. He had always maintained he didnt commit the crimes, and outside the Varner Units walls, a growing chorus of activists and legal observers were arguing that same thing on his behalf. Terry Hobbs was born on November 25, 1969 in Columbus, Georgia, USA. According to Devil's Knot author Mara Leveritt, the investigation of the murders was divided along three lines. Echols is correct. 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. of Auburndale, FL passed away Monday, August 16, 2021. Its evidence that Damien Echols attorneys wanted to do new DNA testing on. He died on April 4, 2019 in Panama City Beach, Florida, USA. How do you measure the legacy of Paradise Lost, which is one of the best reviewed documentaries of all time and considered among the most influential, but whose mission is only partly complete? Terry Roland Hobbs, 62, of Sweetwater, passed away on Saturday, September 11, 2021. WEST MEMPHIS, Ark. 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 knew that if he ever got out, hed want to do that in a more organized way. 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. Nevertheless, Echols made no incriminating statements. Create a free profile to get unlimited access to exclusive videos, breaking news, sweepstakes, and more! But Berlinger also believes that the sequel is important for documenting the power of citizen activism. Although the Alford Plea set the West Memphis Three free, they are, at least in the eyes of the law, guilty, and therefore, the state of Arkansas is under no obligation to continue investigating the crimes at this time. I kind of enjoy it because now even after I die, people are going to remember me forever. Other possible suspects includedBrian Holland and Chris Morgan, two young men from Memphis, Tenn., with a history of drug offenses. TSGT Terry Lee Hobbs, USAF, ret. 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. (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. 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. We were finally winning, he says. He was handed the phone. All of them were convicted after Misskelley confessed to helping Echols and Baldwin with the murders, which he later recanted. But the lawyer quickly noticed inconsistencies in Misskelleys purported confession. We have estimated Terry Hobbs's net worth , money, salary, income, and assets. Not everyone believes that the West Memphis Three are innocent of the killings of Michael Moore, Stevie Branch, and Christopher Byers. (Police questioned Byers several times during the investigation, but never considered him a suspect.) 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. To learn more, watch The Forgotten West Memphis Three on Saturday, March 28 and Sunday, March 29at 8/7c on Oxygen. The second is by looking at it as an act of passion and perseverance. But they werent just voices in the growing choir calling for the West Memphis Threes releasethey were leading the movement. 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. Support came from unlikely corners: a classroom of kids who held a cookie sale that raised $30, local bands in Chicago who held a benefit show and sent $150. He was 56. As part of the deal, they cannot file wrongful-conviction lawsuits, which both Berlinger and Baldwin say couldve cost the state tens of millions of dollars. He also lost the defamation case because of his violent past. " (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. The governor of the state of Arkansas who will one day pardon the West Memphis Three is probably in junior high right now, he says. 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. I don't know if the other 2 did, but even if they did polygraphs aren't admissible in court. Boxful of Nightmares is the personal memoirs of Terry Hobbs, the stepfather of one of the children murdered. 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. When he was released in 2011, he met John Hardin, who worked with the West Memphis Three support group Arkansas Take Action, and the two bonded over a desire to do for others what had just been done for Baldwin. 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. Over the years there has been lots of speculation and finger pointing as to who was responsible. Getting that kind of creative validation was exciting, but we were also extremely frustrated that it didnt move from the entertainment page of the newspaper to the editorial page, Berlinger says. The killings came at the peak of the so-called Satanic Panic, a time of heightened worries about ritualistic abuse. Even without a smoking gun, the circumstantial evidence was enough for a conviction in a place like Crittenden County, Arkansas. 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. 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. And yet Hobbs was not interviewed at all in the months after the crimes. We made a promise early on that we would never pretend to be law enforcement or detectives, Sauls 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. 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. Additionally, the judge in the original trialswho under Arkansas law presided under the requests for retrials in the years following the convictionshad been elected to the state Senate that December, meaning someone new and possibly more sympathetic would oversee the case. Mojo jumped up, Baldwin recalls. 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. 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. Due to marital problems stemming from Stevies death, the couple divorced in 2004, reported CNN. Feigning a romantic interest in Echols, she asked Misskelley to arrange a meeting. Echols said in 2012, he will never give up his mission to exonerate himself. Bakken and Sauls say they tried to avoid offering theories about the case publicly, opting instead to try to work through official channels. You need corroborating evidence.. To bolster their assertions that the killings were related to occult activity despite virtually no evidence prosecutors brought in their own so-called expert on cult murders. Family and friends are welcome to leave their condolences on this memorial page and share them with the family. . 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. Find the obituary of Terry Hobbs (1957 - 2021) from Caldwell, ID. I'm not stupid." Quality. 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. 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. 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. Hobbs says his book is 25 years in the making, adding it is called Boxful of Nightmares for a reason. 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/. The cult part of the Commercial Appeals headline signaled how the case would be defined by both the media and prosecutors. In May of that year, police discovered the bodies of Michael Moore, Stevie Branch, and Christopher Byers in the Robin Hood Hills, a small wooded area near the I-40/I-55 exchange. The bodies had been removed from the water and placed on the adjacent embankment, possibly disturbing physical evidence or otherwise contaminating the scene. A month later, authorities arrested Baldwin, Echols, and Misskelleythree teenagers who lived in trailer parks near West Memphis and had previous run-ins with the law, though nothing rising to the level of murder. With the area secured, Detective Bryn Ridge volunteered to search the ditch. Wading into the murky water, Allen unknowingly dislodged the pale, grotesquely arched form of Micheal Moore. Berlinger and Sinofsky, the latter of whom died in 2015 at age 58, were able to gain incredible and immediate access to seemingly everyone the case had touched: the families of the victims and the accused, the judge, the lead investigator, members of the community. With a large population of fundamentalist Christians, the American South was particularly subject to occult paranoia. Rather, they were fighting for something they believed in. Auburndale, FL - TSGT Terry Lee Hobbs, USAF, ret. Also, law enforcement chose not to focus on the victims' families as the starting point of the investigation as is the norm. In the joint trial of Baldwin and Echols, which took place separately from Misskelleys, Berlinger and Sinofsky filmed the surreal moments that juries were actually present for: a rundown of the books Echols checked out of the library, a parade of band T-shirts worn by the pair, a copy of a Blue Oyster Cult record found in Damiens girlfriends house that became evidence because of the word cult and song titles like Dont Fear the Reaper. What the cameras couldnt capture, however, was the introduction of physical evidencethe prosecution didnt offer much of that aside from a knife that was never directly linked to the crimes and fabric threads deemed microscopically similar to items found in Baldwins and Echolss homes, an assertion that has been questioned in the years since the trials. Well theres been a lot of things that happened over the years. 2012 West of Memphis (Documentary) Self - Steven Branch's Stepfather. 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 OBITUARY Terry Roland Hobbs, 62, of Sweetwater, passed away on Saturday, September 11, 2021. In 2004, Vicki Hutcheson recanted her trial testimony, stating that she had lied on the stand. 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? Sign up forOxygen Insiderfor all the best true crime content. McCaughey says her sister is very upset. West Memphis is pretty much like a second Salem," Echols stated in the 1996 documentary Paradise Lost: The Murders at Robin Hood Hills. There also were issues with other details he provided, including how the victims were bound and whether the boys were raped. In 2009, three witnesses filed affidavits claiming they saw Hobbs with the murdered boys the night they disappeared, contradicting Hobbs previous statements to police, according to CNN. 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. They werent connected in any direct way, Bakken says. 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. 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. Few celebrities at the time did as much as Henry Rollins, however. He retired from the US Air Force, and he was the Deputy Supervisor for Polk County Supervisor of Elections. Make a life-giving gesture As the movement to free the West Memphis Three gained traction, a number of celebrities joined the cause, bringing the case under more scrutiny. Case Details. 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. 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. 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. Berlinger says that after months of filming, the parents of one of the victims raised the issue of payment. After ending his first marriage, he wed Pamela Hicks Branch in 1986, when her son Stevie was almost 2 years old. 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. 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. Im not the jury. When the case was given the option for DNA evidence, everyone but Terry Hobbs said yes. 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. 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. Create your free profile and get access to exclusive content. 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. Hide Self (6 credits) 2012 48 Hours: Hard Evidence (TV Series) Self. 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. Attorneys for Echols have submitted a formal request to inspect the records that are available, involving cataloguing of the evidence as well as information on the loss of the evidence. When it didnt, the praise heaped on Paradise Lost felt hollow. Paradise Lost is a narration-free documentary filmed with a journalistic remove. Rollins not only gave interviews to keep the effort alive in the press, he organized a string of benefit shows and released an album featuring Iggy Pop and Chuck D, with proceeds going to the defense. In 1996, a screener for Paradise Lost passed her desk. 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. Investigators never found any evidence that tied him, Jason Baldwin, or Jessie Misskelley to the murders of the boys, Stevie Branch, Michael Moore, and Christopher Byers. Its something that Baldwin couldnt envision when he first agreed to let the documentarians interview him in jail in exchange for an honorarium, or even when Mojo played that VHS tape for him in 1997.
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