You still dont really know what happened to these kids. Almost 30 years ago, three eight-year-old West Memphis boys were found murdered and three teenagers were charged in the murders. 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. Although Damein Echols had a teenager's typical disdain for authority, he nevertheless trusted that the system would work in his favor. 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. Replacing Burnett was Circuit Court Judge David Laser. 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. 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. Im not the judge. They werent telling me I was lying, even if they may have been saying that in their minds. The cult part of the Commercial Appeals headline signaled how the case would be defined by both the media and prosecutors. But the list of people who have looked at the facts of the case and come away believing Baldwin, Echols, and Misskelley are innocent is long. Echols said in 2012, he will never give up his mission to exonerate himself. 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. February 27, 2023 (76 years old) View obituary. Nobody was saying, This is an outrageous case that needs to be looked into.. 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. La Mirada, California. Timeline Of The West Memphis Three Victims, Motivations For Investigating The West Memphis Case. Stevie Branch, Michael Moore, and Christopher Byers were best friends. Jesse was gonna take it anyway. hangyermoon 2 yr. ago. We were mainly in it for the aesthetics of filmmaking, but the last scene of Paradise Lost, when Damien is chained up and sent away to death row, that was just heartbreaking and devastating for us, Berlinger says. 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. Leave a sympathy message to the family in the guestbook on this memorial page of Terry Hobbs to show support. William Holford Griffiths. The idea of killer teens in the Christian South, not any greater sense of purpose, was mainly what intrigued Sheila Nevins, then the head of HBOs documentary division, when she spotted a story about the case on the inside pages of The New York Times. 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. Little kids will be looking under their bed 'Damien might be under there! In this first confession, Miskelley often agreed to details suggested by the police or attributed to prior statements which he did not make. Making his way through the muck on his hands and knees, Ridge soon discovered clothing twisted around sticks and thrust into the ditch's bottom. No explanation has yet been given as to why such a seemingly important lead was dropped. Searching obituaries is a great place to start your family tree research. La Verne, California. On the surface, 18-year-old Damien Echols, an intelligent, but psychologically troubled teen with interests in Wicca and extreme music, fit the profile. The state of Arkansas continues to attempt to prevent this testing from happening., New technology and advances in science would now allow us to test DNA in amounts so small that it would have been previously impossible. Dan Stidham, the original attorney for Misskelley, who would also work on Baldwins and Echols appeals, says he has the answer. 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. 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 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. Get an all-access pass to never-before-seen content, free digital evidence kits, and much more! Its evidence that Damien Echols attorneys wanted to do new DNA testing on. Except this was 1996, and home internet was still in its infancy. Hobbs says his book is 25 years in the making, adding it is called Boxful of Nightmares for a reason. Auburndale, FL - TSGT Terry Lee Hobbs, USAF, ret. Maines won the lawsuit; police have never named Hobbs a suspect or charged him in connection with the killings.). 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. In February, Netflix released Berlingers Crime Scene: The Vanishing at the Cecil Hotel, a docuseries that looked at the 2013 death of Elisa Lam, a Canadian student who died while vacationing in Los Angeles. (At one point, Sauls says, it landed on Yahoos list of the top 100 websites.) It's one. The community's worst fears were confirmed. Terry. But they were saying that he was about to die.. He said Boxful of Nightmares is his memoirs unedited. 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. 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. They procured the domain WM3.org and made a website, updating it with whatever information they could track down. November 03, 2021 November 4, 2021 . 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. Update: I was totally wrong. Check out never-before-seen content, free digital evidence kits, and much more! The third put forth the unusual theory that the killings were committed as a cult ritual. Hes since parlayed the popularity of the show into a booming podcast network and documentary deal with Oxygen. You need corroborating evidence.. Terry Hobbs was born in 1958 and grew up in Northern Arkansas. 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. 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. WEST MEMPHIS, Ark. Im not the jury. I couldnt not watch it at this point. 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. He died on April 4, 2019 in Panama City Beach, Florida, USA. It is with great sadness that we announce the death of Terry Lee Hobbs of Auburndale, Florida, born in Winter Haven, Florida, who passed away on August 16, 2021, at the age of 56, leaving to mourn family and friends. 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. Inconsistencies in Terry Hobbs' alibi, as well as revelations about subsequent violent acts, have also led many to believe that he may be the actual killer. This is a story of justice delayed and justice denied. A theory held is that Terry Hobbs was the one who actually killed the three boys and had pinned it on the Memphis 3 boys. She said it was one of the highest-rated pieces they had. There are no events scheduled. Mojo was right. 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? Despite an offer of a reduced sentence, Misskelley ultimately recanted his statements and refused to testify against Echols and Baldwin. When Alex Sinofsky is asked about his fathers work on the film, he recalls the frequent trips and long hours spent editing film on a Steenbeck he kept in the house. When it didnt, the praise heaped on Paradise Lost felt hollow. At the time of the West Memphis Three trial, Griffis claimed to have given seminars to 38,000 police officers all over the globe. The story felt personal for all of them, but especially Sauls: He had grown up in Florida and Georgia as an outcast obsessed with art and reading some of the same books Damien Echols had. A statement he made to the producers of Paradise Lost: The Child Murders at Robin Hood Hills did little to help his public image. there are no assignments to cushion your grade, so either pass or fail. The next to be found was Stevie Branch, quickly followed by Christopher Byers. My first thought is, I hope this dude isnt trying to pull me into some type of escape, Baldwin says nearly a quarter-century later. (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.). 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. 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. 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. Branded the, What has never been definitively answered, however, is who committed the 1993 murders, and , Due to marital problems stemming from Stevies death, the couple divorced in 2004, reported, The test results showed that no genetic material on the crime scene evidence was a match to Echols, Baldwin or Misskelley, reported the, 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, "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, 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, 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. (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. The sneaker ligatures in which Terry Hobbs' DNA was found in," Soury said . Explore. 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. I think we were the first internet sleuths, but we were not internet sleuths.. 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. Baldwin is the co-founder of the legal advocacy organization Proclaim Justice. So advocacy and diligence become tantamount, because most people in a similar situation to the one he was in dont have the benefit of filmmakers and musicians fighting on their behalf. I'm not stupid." 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. And yet Hobbs was not interviewed at all in the months after the crimes. People would drive by and yell at us, Theyre going to burn in hell, Sauls says. A graveside service will be conducted on Wednesday, March 17 at Cloverdale Memorial Park beginning at 11am. He was an actor, known for Sleepaway Camp II: Unhappy Campers (1988), Fast Food (1989) and In the Heat of the Night (1988). This family in-fighting led to him shooting his brother-in-law. The second postulated that they had been slain by one or more strangers. Echols' disdain for authority, penchant for black clothes, and propensity to make shocking statements didn't help his plight. 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. Titled West of Memphis, the film, directed by Amy J. Berg, presents an overview of the West Memphis Three's 18 years in prison, the revelation of new evidence, and explores the possibility of an alternate suspect. 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. Not everyone believes that the West Memphis Three are innocent of the killings of Michael Moore, Stevie Branch, and Christopher Byers. The killings came at the peak of the so-called Satanic Panic, a time of heightened worries about ritualistic abuse. But I had to. This is the true story of the West Memphis Three murders. "Everyone has a story and this just happens to be mine," said Hobbs. When the case was given the option for DNA evidence, everyone but Terry Hobbs said yes. Boxful of Nightmares is the personal memoirs of Terry Hobbs, the stepfather of one of the children murdered. In 1996, a screener for Paradise Lost passed her desk. Last year, I noticed that Terry went missing. Two of the West Memphis Three's most ardent supporters were director Peter Jackson, best known for The Lord of the Rings films, and his partner Fran Walsh. Share Memories & Support the Family. 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. I never foresaw that they would in turn save us.. His net worth has been growing significantly in 2021-2022. (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.) According to Devil's Knot author Mara Leveritt, the investigation of the murders was divided along three lines. 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 Roland Hobbs September 11, 1959 ~ September 11, 2021 (age 62) Terry Roland Hobbs, 62, of Sweetwater, passed away on Saturday, September 11, 2021. He could have been me, he told Rolling Stone in 2011. On the evening of May 5, 1993, 8-year-olds Stevie Branch, Christopher Byers and Michael Moore went missing in West Memphis, Arkansas. the only grade you receive is from quizzes, exams, and the final. For Rollins, it was a moral imperative: Id find myself up at 3:30 a.m. thinking about Damien. Terry Hobbs, Actor: Sleepaway Camp II: Unhappy Campers. Id like to see this put to rest. In November, Judge David Burnett, who had presided over the trial, was elected to the state senate. However, under pressure, leading questions, and scare tactics, Misskelley wove a contradictory story that first placed him at the crime scene as an eyewitness to the murders and then as an active participant. All three had been submerged face down in the mud, stripped naked, and bound with their shoelaces. 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. 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. Spotting a small, black tennis shoe in the water, Jones radioed for help. 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. 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. The bodies of Branch, Byers, and Moore were found in a drainage ditch in West Memphis May 6 . According to Griffis, black hair, black T-shirts, and black jeans were signs that a kid was in league with the devil. Make a life-giving gesture In August 2011, Jason Baldwin was pulled from his prison cell under confusing circumstances once again. October 13, 2018 - Happy 94th Birthday Terry! 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. Sign up forOxygen Insiderfor all the best true crime content. Their bikes were found by a pipe nearby. Published by The Commercial Appeal from Jun. Over the years there has been lots of speculation and finger pointing as to who was responsible. 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. 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. 2011 Paradise Lost 3: Purgatory (Documentary) Self - Stepfather of Stevie Branch. Here's when clocks will 'spring forward' in 2023. 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. Terry Hobbs, Todd Moore, and Dana Moore still maintain that Damien Echols, Jason Baldwin, and Jessie Misskelley murdered their sons. Misskelley, who reportedly had an IQ of 72, changed his story several times, and only a small part of his statements was recorded. Jessie took a polygraph. 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. In West Memphis, Hobbs worked as an ice cream delivery man and Hicks worked at a restaurant. Berlinger and Sinofsky began to take notice. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. Rather, they were fighting for something they believed in. So much progress had been made in the fight for new trials, most notably a November 2010 Arkansas Supreme Court ruling that ordered a hearing on new DNA analysis and other evidence not considered in 1994. He just didnt know it would take another 14 years to happen. She also stated that beyond the single meeting at her trailer, she had no further contact with Echols. Please also read our Privacy Notice and Terms of Use, which became effective December 20, 2019. They began attending appeal hearings and visiting Baldwin, Echols, and Misskelley in prison. After ending his first marriage, he wed Pamela Hicks Branch in 1986, when her son Stevie was almost 2 years old. 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. Terry Hobbs USAF Ret. The first and likely simplest gauge is continued interest in the case. The judge ruled that Hobbs could not establish actual malice, and ordered Hobbs to pay Maines legal fees amounting to more than $17,000, according to the Associated Press. Updated: 9:42 AM CDT June 11, 2019. But its closing moments point to how the filmmakers felt: that a horrific tragedy had just been compounded by a monumental miscarriage of justice. He retired from the US Air Force, and he was the Deputy Supervisor for Polk County Supervisor of Elections. We made a promise early on that we would never pretend to be law enforcement or detectives, Sauls says. 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. 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. Everybody Id come in contact with was hostile to the truth, Baldwin says. 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. 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. Also part of the plea was the provision that the three could not sue the state. "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. 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. 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. '", In 1999, a more mature Echols explained the comment. Berlinger says that after months of filming, the parents of one of the victims raised the issue of payment. The Latest CD: 92 YEARS YOUNG: JAMMIN' AT THE GIBBS HOUSE. On Aug. 11, 2011, the West Memphis Three entered the courtroom for the final time. 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. It just needed a catalyst. (Shortly after Villegass acquittal, Baldwin had something of a full-circle moment with his client: He took him to a Metallica show in El Paso, Texas, where they hung out backstage on the invitation of Lars Ulrich.).