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Welcome to True Crime Garage. Wherever you are, whatever you are doing, thanks for listening. I'm your host Nick and
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with me as always is a man with a closet full of guns and a freezer full of meat,
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but he's fresh out of toilet paper. He is the captain. No poo poo paper for you, my friend. It's good to be seen and
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good to see you. Thanks for listening. Thanks for telling a friend. This week we are very very excited to be
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featuring one of my favorite beers. We have featured this before, but there is great cause to bring it back. Ladies and
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gentlemen, trumpets please, five out of five bottle caps for Dortmunder Gold from my friends at the Great Lakes
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Brewing Company. This is an award-winning flagship logger that now, as of just this month, is available in a
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beautiful 12-oz and 16-oz cans. My, how we have come a long way and today we are toasting with one of our
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favorites to some of our favorites. First up, cheers to Amber in Humble, Texas. Amber says the beer
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that she's buying, that she's providing to the beer fund, Captain, is for you because of your awesome takedown of
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Scott Peterson. The cheating turtle, yeah. Scott the piece of [ __ ] Peterson. And a big shout to Christie in
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Melbourne, Australia. Next up we have Jennifer in Salem, New Hampshire. And a big shout out to Lori in Dallas, Texas.
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Next up we have Emily in Chicago and last but certainly not least a big cheers and thank you to Katherine in
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Orlando, Florida. Everyone we just mentioned went to truecrimegarage.com and contributed to this week's beer fund
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and for that we thank you. Yeah, we thank you and thanks for joining us. We know it's tough times.
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It's tough here in the garage. Keep your distance. Keep your distance, Colonel, or I'll
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sock you in the mouth and that's enough of the business. All right, everybody gather around
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at a safe distance, grab a chair, grab a beer, let's talk some true crime. The murders of Stevie Branch,
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Christopher Byers, and Michael Moore, all just eight-year-olds, was the genesis of a triple homicide
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case that is typically known today as the West Memphis 3. However, the phrase West Memphis 3
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refers to the three teenagers convicted of killing the three little boys. On May 5th, 1993,
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in a town west of Memphis, and appropriately named West Memphis, Arkansas, the three 8-year-old boys were reported
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missing. Initial police searches that night were limited. A more thorough search for the boys
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began the next morning at 8:00 a.m. After 1:00 p.m., the boys were found, but not to a good end.
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All were dead, found submerged in muddy creek water. Each boy had been stripped in what has
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been commonly referred to as hog-tied each with shoelaces belonging to the boys.
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The drainage ditch contained two of the children's bikes and the clothing that the boys were
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wearing when last seen alive. The clothing was mostly turned inside out and twisted around sticks and stuck
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in the mud below the surface water. The Frank Peretti autopsies indicated that Christopher died from multiple
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injuries and possibly bled to death. And Stevie and Michael died from multiple injuries and drowning.
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They were murdered. The bodies and evidence concealed in the muddy waters located in a small patch of woods known
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as Robin Hood Hills. Almost 1 month later, on June 3rd, at 2:44 in the afternoon,
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Detective Brian Ridge and Inspector Gary Gitchell got 17-year-old Jessie Miss Kelly to
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confess to being involved in the murders. A confession filled with inconsistencies, errors, and statements
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that go against some of the very basic known facts of this case. Jessie implicated 16-year-old Jason
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Baldwin and 18-year-old Damien Echols as the assailants, rapists, and murderers of the three boys.
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The next morning at a press conference announcing the arrest of the three teenagers,
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Inspector Gitchell was asked by a reporter, "On a scale of 1 to 10, how solid do you feel your case is?"
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Gitchell smiled and replied, "11." Legendary FBI profiler John Douglas later called this moment "that golden
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nugget of law enforcement theater." In 1994, the three teens were convicted of the
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murders. David Burnett was the presiding judge. Damien Echols was sentenced to death.
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Jason Baldwin was sentenced to life imprisonment. And in a separate trial, Jessie Misskelley Jr.
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was sentenced to life in prison plus two 20-year sentences. The HBO documentary Paradise Lost: The
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Child Murders at Robin Hood Hills documented the case and the two trials. The now famous film, which was followed
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by parts two and three, inspired justice advocates to unite and take action. An army was formed.
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Men and women, some of them celebrities, some of them from far away, all united for one common cause
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to free the West Memphis Three. But if the West Memphis Three were innocent, then who committed the
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murders? Many, after watching the documentaries, grew suspicious regarding two of the
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parents: Christopher's adoptive father, John Mark Byers, and Stevie Branch's stepfather, Terry
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Hobbs. Both looked guilty for different reasons. Following a successful decision
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regarding newly produced DNA evidence, the West Memphis 3 negotiated a plea bargain with prosecutors.
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In August of 2011, they entered Alford pleas, which allowed them to assert their innocence while acknowledging that
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the prosecutors had enough evidence to convict them. After having served 18 years and 78 days
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in prison, Judge David Laser accepted the pleas and sentenced the three to time served, and they were released.
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In a packed courtroom, Judge Laser spoke from the bench. Quote, "I am aware of the controversy that's
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existed. I'm aware of the involvement of the people in this case. I don't think it will make the pain go
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away to the victim families. I don't think it will take away a minute of the 18 years that these three young
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men served in the Arkansas Department of Corrections. What I just described is tragedy on all
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sides. And I commend the people in the case that have assisted toward the end of
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seeing the justice is served to the best that we can do. It took nearly 20 years
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to write just some of the many wrongs in this case. But somewhere along the way of this long
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journey that took the valiant efforts of so many, something was lost and almost forgotten.
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The three little boys that were killed and lost their lives that day, the families of these three will never
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get them back. So, this is not the best we can do because there is still time to get
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justice for Stevie, Christopher, and Michael, the forgotten West Memphis 3. Bob, how much did Paradise Lost 1 2 and
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3 play a part into your look into the case? Was it any type of inspiration for selecting this case?
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Uh take us into to the Bob Ruff world a little bit on why you chose the West Memphis 3.
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Yeah, you know what's funny because Paradise Lost, the entire trilogy, did play a big role in why I selected the
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case for Truth and Justice, but in a weird kind of way. Um you know, I would I I study wrongful conviction cases
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because that's what I do for a living, right? So, it's um I I always go into these big famous ones and study them
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just to look for, you know, patterns and things to look for cuz we get we get hundreds of cases
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every month submitted to us to look at. And so, I I like to see, you know, what you know, is there a jailhouse snitch
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involved? You know, there's is there not much physical evidence? Is there, you know, a potential wrongful or a false
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false confession? There's a lot of little patterns that happen. So, I was just watching the documentaries just to
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get an idea of what the case was about. And what inspired me actually to to cover the case on Truth and Justice
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was actually the fact that after I watched the series and I was trying to talk to to Mike, my
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producer and and co-host about it, I couldn't remember the names of the victims.
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And and and and it bugged me a lot and I really started to think about it and I started to look, you know, to do a
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little more Googling and things and I just found that all of the media attention always
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focused around the West Memphis 3, you know, Damien, Jason, and Jessie. And and our
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show we try to be very victim centric, you know, and and base on the victims not only
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you know, to to try to give them a voice, but at the same time that is, you know, critical to any real
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investigation. You should always start with a a very thorough study of victimology
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to help develop a profile and it just seemed like that was never done in this case and certainly in the media, you
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know, while those of documentaries were amazing and so was West of Memphis and and they accomplished an an amazing goal
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of freeing the West Memphis 3 that never would have happened without them. They I didn't feel like there was enough
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justice given to the victims and that's why we you know, we named our our season
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5 on the podcast and the TV series The Forgotten West Memphis 3 because they seem to have gotten lost in a lot of the
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shuffle. What do you think you learn by studying these three victims? Well, the biggest thing that I learned
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by studying them is that my perception and the perception of I'll say casual observers of the case because there are
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certainly people that have been digging into like documents for for decades now.
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But but the general consensus always seemed to be that there were three boys who were just
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out playing having a great afternoon and then they ended up kind of stumbling into however
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they were killed. Uh you know, and of course back in the you know, the '90s they with the satanic panic they assumed
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they stumbled into a satanic ritual killing. Uh but then you you know, then later it became they
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stumbled into something else or they look at like the the Bojangles man or you know, maybe it was some you know,
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some transient trucker or somebody. But what I found when I studied the victimology, I was shocked and we spent
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I think three full hour episodes going through the 140 page door-to-door notes in the case from the the canvassing
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after the bodies were found. And what I found when we started to piece all of those sightings together is
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that the boys actually weren't together most of the day. First of all, you know, you
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had Stevie and Michael were together for a minute for a little while and then Christopher was alone and then maybe
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Christopher and Michael and Stevie was gone. There's definitely a big gap in time when Stevie was was missing in
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action when I which is when I believe he actually returned to his house for a short time.
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Uh you know, and then they they only became got together right before they went into
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the woods. And then and then of course the revelation we find in the notes that one of Chris's friends reported that
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that Chris straight told him that you know, he was upset because his daddy whipped him and that he was running
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away. And so the the big I I think the the thing that I learned most was that these boys didn't stumble into
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anything. They were running away from something and that dramatically changes the course of the investigation. Now,
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obviously you are covering this case many, many years after the fact, but when the initial
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uh documentary was planned to do the first Paradise Lost and they received permission to film or record both of the
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trials that were to take place, the documentarians went in there with the idea that these three teenagers were
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guilty. Like that was a juicy enough story in itself. And then once they're viewing the the trials, they start
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hearing the evidence and and the uh eyewitness testimony and so on and so forth and they start going, well,
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there's something that's not right here. This this doesn't appear to be the actual case and then of course Paradise
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Lost turns into almost this movement to try to free the West Memphis 3. When you went into this,
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and of course, we understand it was years later, but did you go into it with with the idea of, okay, these guys are
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completely innocent, or maybe Mark Byers had something to do with this, or Terry
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Hobbs, or I mean, did you go into this with anything uh prior thought uh of what knowledge you had of the case, or
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did you not really have an opinion of it at all until you started looking into it?
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Oh, I I definitely had an opinion, but I tried to yeah, I I tried to approach it from a
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really unbiased perspective, because now, you both of you guys, I I know um uh definitely Captain. I don't know, Nick,
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were you Were you a big fan's not the right word, but were you really interested in the case for for
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years to come, or was that more just Captain's thing? Yeah, I mean, it's always been one of my
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uh pet cases, I guess. It's It's one that's so easy to get sucked into. Um and actually just knowing that we were
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going to talk today pulled me right back in. I mean, it's one of the most fascinating cases out
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there. Right. It really is. So, when you watch, and and and I guess I'll I'll ask
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you and Captain, cuz I I want to I want to know if I'm alone in this. After you watched if if if you watched
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them in order, after you watched part two of the Paradise Lost series, who did you think was probably the most
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likely suspect? So, that's what's so interesting to me about Paradise 1 and 2 is and I might
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have had a different opinion after watching the first one than maybe most. I watched that first one on HBO when I
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was a kid. I don't know how many times, and I always walked away from the first one going, "You know what? I actually
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think these three teenagers did it." And then, of course, you watch Paradise Lost
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2, and it looks like Mark Byers he just time and time again comes up looking guilty and more guilty and that
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he was the one that did it and of course he's also this large loud imposing man.
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Uh he's also an authority figure to Chris and the other boys as well. He might know the area. I mean there's
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just so many reasons why you can go all right, well maybe maybe he looks good for this. Right. And and that was
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exactly my experience. I was wondering Captain, do you have did you think the same after you watched part two? Well,
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after I watched part one, my first thought was that I feel Jason Baldwin is very transparent. He's very believable
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in everything he's saying. I I I believe 100% that he had nothing to do with the
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crime. Then when you look at the confession with Jessie Misskelly it it doesn't really
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line up with what the crime actually was, but I could never get over the boogeyman comment from Damien Echols.
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Oh yeah, the end. At the end of part one, he's like, "Well, now I'm going to be known as like the boogeyman of West
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Memphis and kids are going to say, well, maybe Damien's under my bed or he's in the closet."
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And that to me didn't seem like something a innocent person would say. Oh, for sure.
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I mean really kind of spot on with what you think Captain. When I watched part one, I thought maybe they're innocent.
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Um definitely I felt like Baldwin was innocent, but Damien I wasn't so sure about. And then after I watched part
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two, I was convinced that Mark Byers was the was the murderer. I mean 100% I I remember coming in because I watched
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these late. It was 3 years ago. I remember coming to the office and telling Mike. I was like, "Dude, holy
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[ __ ] That that this this guy this guy killed him. The the the adopted father killed
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him. I mean he had his teeth removed and blah blah." You know, all the different
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things from there. I was convinced after part two that it was that it was Mark Byers.
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And that's, you know, that's kind of why I was, you know, when you asked if I had
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to kind of an opinion, that swing from there, then of course after three, everybody thinks Terry
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Hobbs did it, right? You know, that's that's kind of what they left you with. And then West of Memphis.
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And so for me it was like, okay, I need to approach this from a completely unbiased perspective because
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Joe Berlinger just just [ __ ] me up in three documentaries in a row. Because, you know, I didn't watch them as they
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came out. I I watched all three of them back-to-back over the course of a week. And I watched, you know, based on the
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way they were produced, I went from thinking, oh, maybe they're guilty, Jason's probably innocent, to oh my god,
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it has to be Mark Byers, it's obvious, to part three was like, oh no, it has to be Terry Hobbs, it's obvious. I was
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like, man, if I'm if I'm being swayed that much by the media, there's got to be a lot more to this case than the way
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they're presenting it. And so that that really led me into taking a completely unbiased approach
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and try to look at the investigation, which is what we did in season five, when we covered Truth and
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the West Memphis Three, is to go all the way back to ground zero and just basically start a brand new
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investigation and see where it leads us. Well, I became a big fan of yours when you were covering Serial.
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And I really liked the approach that you took there where you you had a thought process and then you
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kind of try to prove yourself wrong. And I always I always like taking that approach, but to me West Memphis Three
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is very similar to the Adnan Syed case where people look at the case and we are presented from these documentaries,
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we're presented all this cast of characters. And people always see like you said,
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are the teenage boys guilty? Yeah, or is it one of this the stepfathers? And everybody seems to
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have strong opinions of the characters that are cast for us. It seems like not too many people look outside that cast
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of characters. And it it seems like there's no new cast of characters in West Memphis 3
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in the last 20 years. Right. Well, when you see the I know we're recording this before you see the series
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and you're airing it after. But but hopefully you'll you won't have that opinion after this weekend because
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we have you know, I had to you know, you're you're right in the term cast of characters. I I don't you know, it makes
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it seem like it's a story, but one of the things I wanted to do was get away from the the sensational you
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know, the cameras always on Damien, right? And you know, through Paradise Lost it's Damien and John Mark Byers are
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our key characters. And it's because they're the most interesting, right? When you're watching
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it you know, you you know, Damien is saying things like well, I'm going to be the
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boogeyman under their bed and Mark Byers is blowing up [ __ ] pumpkins and and you know,
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lighting bonfires at the at the discovery site. But there's there's a lot more important characters, I think
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that that if you've never seen on on TV before. You've never seen it in the documentaries, you've never seen it
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anywhere, you know, we have you know, I don't know how you want Do you want me to uh
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mention Do you want me to spoil some of what's coming up since they're going to hear it after or no?
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Well, how about we just since since it's going that route, how about we just dive
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into some of the details of the case and get your opinion on some of those Okay.
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question marks. And if it comes up, it comes up. If it doesn't, we'll force you into it here at the end. Um Sure. I'd
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hate to spoil it too early in our discussion because we got a lot of questions, a lot of things on our mind.
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It's rare for us we we think we know the case very well. We covered it on True Crime Garage a long time ago. Um we it's
00:23:04
way too big to cover it in in just a few episodes. We tried in three, but all we
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really thought that we achieved was we pointed out a timeline that came from from very credible sources and from
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police reports and and eyewitness statements and so on and so forth that seemed to indicate that it would have
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been very difficult, almost impossible on the timeline for John Mark Byers to have
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committed the crime especially by himself. We we found a timeline that seemed to be that he was with somebody
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else and and a a whole different batch of people along the way pretty much most of that evening and night. So
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um I think the first thing and this is really good for people that don't know the case very well. Um but but we're
00:23:53
excited to get to talk to you cuz we feel you know this case really well and that's why we want to get your opinions
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on these things. But for the people that don't know the case well one thing I think the public may have trouble
00:24:05
grasping, but they do need to understand as it's very important to how things played out the way they did. So
00:24:13
I think if you could kind of talk to this a little bit, but we need to have an understanding of the level of poverty
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here in regards to the three boys that were arrested for the murders and in regards to the lifestyle of the
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three young victims because the the three that were arrested they were extremely poor unfortunately
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and the three victims were a little more middle class. Um could you talk and expand on that a
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bit? It the what's interesting really is that a little more middle class I guess is a
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good way to put it. But the the entire you know Captain used the term cast of characters earlier and
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if you look at it like that the entire cast of characters here they're all you know, at the poverty line or below.
00:25:02
The including the victim's families, you know, you so you have definitely the the three convicted, you
00:25:08
know, they're they're living in very uh low low-rent trailer parks, you know, and
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and I've been out to these places. They haven't changed much since then. Um definitely on the lower income scale. Uh
00:25:23
but but even the three the three victims, you know, you had you know, the the the Byers, you know, everybody was
00:25:28
working. They had jobs and they were getting by. But these people definitely weren't
00:25:34
thriving. And you had interesting situation in just about every family, you know, you had you know, we we had on
00:25:41
our show we had Don Moore who's Michael Moore's sister who had never been interviewed before and she was on the
00:25:46
podcaster in season 5. And she gave us a whole new look into the the household of the Moores, right?
00:25:54
So they their issue their sense like it was alcoholism. She said it you know, both her mom and dad were alcoholics. It
00:26:01
was an abusive situation and so that wasn't the you know, the the the picture I had when I was studying victimology of
00:26:08
what that household looks like, you know, you go across the street to the Byers household and you know, again,
00:26:12
they're getting by but they're they they struggle a little bit financially and you have
00:26:17
uh you you have some drug addiction both on um Chris Byers' mother's part and his
00:26:23
adopted father. And then you go down to the the um Stevie Branch's household, the Hobbs
00:26:29
household. You know, you had you had Pam and Pam and Terry were both working. They seemed on the surface to be the
00:26:34
most stable but then we find out later that there's uh possibly or allegedly some abuse
00:26:38
that's going on there and then also maybe some some drug use down there as well. So you you had nobody was in
00:26:45
nobody was in good shape so to speak as far as in their household. Either they're
00:26:50
struggling financially, they're struggling struggling with substance substance abuse, or they're struggling
00:26:54
with physical abuse in in all of these different communities, but but most but definitely the three that were
00:27:00
convicted, uh Damien, Jason, and Jessie, they they were throwaways for sure. And when
00:27:07
I say that, I mean that they were as you said they were extremely poor, much more
00:27:11
so than the three victims. And once they were targeted by police, whether they actually believed they did
00:27:17
it or if they were in fact targeted, that's up for speculation, but once they were targeted there was there was nobody
00:27:24
there to to fight for them. They didn't have any money, they didn't have lawyers, they just, you know, they were
00:27:28
they were throwaways. They were people that I think the powers that be in in particularly the West Memphis Police
00:27:34
Department thought you know we can lock these people up, close this case, everybody's going to be happy, and
00:27:40
no one really cares what happens to these three kids. Well, I'm back to one of the things you were saying before
00:27:46
that when you're looking at the victimology like you said, it changes from here's these three boys hanging out and
00:27:55
they stumble upon something. As you were saying, you were getting into the idea that they're running from something. Uh
00:28:04
what evidence did you find? Could you find evidence to back that up? Yeah, well, I mean
00:28:11
a big part of it is the fact that we we find some weird anomalies throughout the
00:28:15
sightings of them throughout the day, where they're not together. They disappear. And then when you when
00:28:20
you we study So, let's look at it Stevie Branch in particularly. Stevie was probably the most
00:28:27
well-behaved of the three, based on what we see from, you know, school reports, you know, we had sounds like, you know,
00:28:33
what we would call today, Chris Byers and Michael Moore both suffered from from ADHD, which I can relate to. I have
00:28:38
a 9-year-old that has the same issue. Um tend to be a little more mischievous. But, you know, Stevie was a rule
00:28:44
follower, and he pretty much stayed out of trouble, and he was told that he needed to be home by you know, before
00:28:49
4:30, 4:45. Um and and so you had to believe that he's going to do his best to make that happen. And then the
00:28:55
sightings seem to indicate that that did happen. You know, they disappeared. And
00:29:00
then you have there's some medical evidence that Stevie has partially digested green vegetable like food in
00:29:07
his stomach. Well, that that can only occur for about an hour, hour and a half before it moves past that stage in the
00:29:12
stomach, which means somewhere along the lines he went and ate some vegetables. Which would be a good indication that he
00:29:18
he did go home. But then he left again. So then so then why is he he leaving? Now, we don't know, but it it seems like
00:29:26
and then if you take Jamie Clark Ballard's statement, which you know, I don't necessarily think is entirely
00:29:30
credible, but she she reports that she sees Terry yelling at him to to get back down there. And and just the fact that
00:29:37
Stevie leaves again after dinner and then what we learn later in his victimology study that we have there
00:29:42
there has been reported abuse from uh his stepdad Terry Hobbs, and that's come from some family members, but also
00:29:49
uh and and people that I've interviewed outside of the family uh have have have told us the same
00:29:55
thing. That you know, they they they were always kind of afraid for Stevie because of some beatings that he would
00:29:59
take from Terry. So so there's some indications with Stevie. Christopher is easier because we he literally went to
00:30:07
kids name is Bobby Posey's house in the door-to-door notes, and I have spoken with Bobby Posey. We hear from him in
00:30:12
the TV series. You know, and and he he goes to tell Bobby that his daddy had just whipped
00:30:18
him and that he's running away. So there's there's no we don't have to speculate about if Chris Byers was
00:30:23
running away because he told that told his friends that he was running away. We have other witnesses that we that we
00:30:29
hear from in the TV series that say that they saw them with sleeping bags heading
00:30:32
towards the woods. Uh and and and Michael Moore was always kind of the leader of the group. There's not so much
00:30:38
with him as far as was evidence other than some things his sister told us about, you know, the the situation in
00:30:44
the household and and some potential abuse that could have been happening in the house household. Again, that's
00:30:49
according to her. I don't I that's not verifiable, so I would say alleged abuse that happens in the household. So, all
00:30:54
that together and then with the sightings that put them in different places at different times and then kind
00:30:59
of coming together and then going to a place where where they know they're not supposed to be and the fact that Stevie
00:31:05
would go there when he really knows he's supposed to be at home at that point, it
00:31:10
to me is a those are all great indicators that they were running away from something. They weren't They
00:31:16
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thirdlove.com/garage for 15% off today. And one of the boys, one of the victims,
00:35:49
was it Michael Moore that was known to be afraid of those woods? Uh Chris Byers. Chris Byers.
00:35:55
Yeah. Yeah, he was terrified of the woods according to his uh to Mark Byers and to his brother, who
00:36:00
we also hear from in the TV series. So what you're saying is it's not just one of the victims that was
00:36:09
quote-unquote running away, but possibly all three of them or friends trying to help their friend out.
00:36:15
Oh, your dad whooped you, you can't take this anymore. I'll help you out. I'll I'll run away with you. Yeah, you know,
00:36:22
this is kind of somewhat speculation on my part, but my theory is that it's kind of a Stand by Me type of
00:36:28
deal, you know, where the you know, the kids are kind of rising up against the you know, the grown-ups and taking
00:36:33
matters into their own hands. I think that, you know, they get this is my theory is that Chris was fed up and
00:36:40
running away. I think that something I I think that Stevie I'll be I'll be honest
00:36:44
with you. I think Stevie did go home and eat. And I think that he left and he was
00:36:47
scared. And I think that Michael more than likely was the one that said, "Hey, I"
00:36:52
cuz we have we have no in the door-to-door notes. Michael actually told a little girl that lived up near
00:36:56
the pipe bridge that he's going to go over to the other side of the bridge to the woods behind Mayflower to his secret
00:37:04
hideout. So I think I think Michael becomes the kind of the savior, the leader that says, you know, these the
00:37:10
other two are are they want to run away and get away from their parents. And And
00:37:13
Michael says, "Well, here, I can I know a spot. Let me lead the way." and takes them over there.
00:37:18
And John Mark Byers, he he admits that he hit Chris that day, that afternoon. Um that
00:37:26
he he disciplined him. Right, yeah. And then we have hold on. I'm kind of I'm kind of trying
00:37:32
to digest all this as we as we go through this here. So that's that's what I find very
00:37:39
interesting at least about the the Robin Hood Hills portion of it. Like do you believe that the boys were killed at
00:37:47
Robin Hood Hills? I mean, from the autopsy, it appears that two of the boys drowned. So of course two of them likely
00:37:54
died there, but um this is a pretty brutal attack. Do you think that from the evidence that
00:38:01
we see, that you've reviewed anyway, did this all take place in Robin Hood Hills?
00:38:06
Uh 100%. I I don't think there's any There's a million theories out there. Uh but after
00:38:13
the thorough studying we've done of the case and then the new team of experts we
00:38:16
brought in for the TV series, it seems it is a matter of fact a Rebecca Sue that was our new forensic pathologist
00:38:24
that came in and looked at the autopsy, you know, her her determination was that
00:38:28
that all three boys died of drowning. That that you know, there were there were some other injuries, a couple of
00:38:33
head injuries, but basically all of the brutality that we see on the boys was all postmortem animal activity. That
00:38:42
this was a this was not as as complicated as a crime as we think. But the another big misconception is for
00:38:50
people that and you know, I in one of our episodes I just mentioned it's funny that my
00:38:56
my perception of those woods and where the boys' bodies were found mostly came from the the the movie adaptation of
00:39:04
Mara Leveritt's book The Devil's Knot. When we see that I'm sure you guys have probably seen that, right? Yeah. Yeah.
00:39:10
Yeah, it's you know what you know at the beginning when it shows them riding their bikes and they kind of they go
00:39:14
around the barrier and go into the woods and it shows them going through this remote forest back to this creek in the
00:39:19
middle of this huge forest. But that's where I thought this thing occurred that the crime occurred.
00:39:26
But the reality of it is this was a tiny little patch of woods about the size of
00:39:31
a football field. You can literally, I've done it, I've stood there and done it, stand in the backyard of a house on
00:39:38
the other side of the bayou and throw a rock to the place where the boys' bodies
00:39:43
were found. I mean this crime occurred right in the middle of there's a operating truck wash
00:39:48
to the west. There's a there's a major interstate to the north. To the south is the Mayfair apartments and then there's
00:39:54
a a row of of houses with backyards about right up to the bayou. So the idea that that this could have
00:40:01
occurred anywhere besides there is is really in my opinion preposterous because that means
00:40:07
this is where the the search efforts are focused, right? Not necessarily across the pipe, but in the Robin Hood Woods
00:40:13
just south of the bayou, south of the pipe. Some people were in the woods north of the pipe where the bodies were
00:40:19
actually found. So, the idea that if someone killed these boys or captured them somewhere
00:40:24
else, and they need to either a hide the bodies or go, you know, take them somewhere else to finally kill them,
00:40:31
that they would just that the place they would choose is this tiny little patch of woods where the only way you can get
00:40:37
to it is either to park on the highway and walk in, to park at the truck wash and walk in, or walk across the pipe
00:40:43
bridge in front of the Mayfair apartments carrying these bodies to conceal them right in the heart of the
00:40:48
search efforts is is is bananas. There's just no way that would have happened. I
00:40:54
think the only reason the boys' bodies were concealed where they were found is because that's where the crime occurred,
00:41:01
and once it happened, I think that the individual and I do think it was a single individual, once the boys were
00:41:06
dead, they knew, "I've got to get I've got to hide these bodies and I need to create distance. I've got to I've got to
00:41:12
I've got to make sure nobody finds these bodies at least long enough for me to get out of here and
00:41:17
then appear to be doing something else." That's the only reason I think the bodies were concealed where they were is
00:41:23
because there was no other choice. No one's going to choose that spot. It's a terrible
00:41:27
It couldn't be a worse place to choose to dispose of a body when that's where everybody's looking for those boys,
00:41:34
especially considering a mile down the road is the Mississippi River and there's a million places you could drop
00:41:39
those bodies and they'd never be seen again. So, you're saying, and I and I hope I got this correct, but you're
00:41:44
talking about that there's evidence that Stevie ate something before the crime occurred. Yeah, so in
00:41:52
the autopsy, there is a notation that says the other So, so the boys from their parents
00:41:59
reported that none of them had eaten since their meal in school, their lunch, you know, 11:00 12:00 in the afternoon
00:42:05
or 12:00. Well, so Christopher and Michael's stomach contents are empty, which is
00:42:10
what you would expect. It takes, you know, there's a there's a range of time, but for, you know, active 8-year-old
00:42:17
boys with healthy metabolisms, the average is like an hour and a half to 2 hours it takes for food to move, you
00:42:25
know, to become digested and move out of the stomach or lumen as it's as it's noted in the autopsy, into the
00:42:31
intestines. So, Stevie, they when they when they open up his stomach, there's there's quite a bit of what they call
00:42:39
partially digest green vegetables in his stomach, which means so he you know, I believe that our window of when the boys
00:42:48
were killed is between 6:30 and 7:30 p.m., which would mean so on the front end of that 6:30, if you go back hour
00:42:55
and a half to 2 hours, that means that no later than no earlier than 4:30, Stevie had to have eaten some
00:43:02
vegetables. And it could have been as as late as as 5:30, 6:00 even, that he ate
00:43:08
some vegetables. Do you think his family members are just misremembering or do you think that's more nefarious on on
00:43:16
stating he he never ate anything? I don't think it's nefarious on saying he never ate anything,
00:43:21
but they but the issue is so he he leaves at 3:30, right? With with Michael Moore
00:43:26
is when Michael comes down and get on their bikes and go. And so the the issue is even if Pam Hupps is or Pam Hicks now
00:43:33
is incorrect. She says he didn't eat any snacks, he didn't eat anything after school. Let's say she's wrong and let's
00:43:39
say he did, he decided to eat some broccoli as a snack after school. That still, because it's 3:30 is the
00:43:47
time he leaves, if he never returns home again, by 5:30, that's that food's gone
00:43:53
from his stomach. So, even if she's wrong about that, it still wouldn't be partially digested in his stomach. You
00:43:59
know what I mean? So, so at some point he had to return. So, I believe I'll say this that I'm very very
00:44:06
confident in in stating I I 100% believe that Stevie Branch, contrary to what's been stated by his stepfather at the
00:44:16
time, Terry Hobbs, I believe absolutely that he did, at some point after 5:00, return home and
00:44:25
eat. And then he left again. Now, I don't I do not know if Terry was there and knows that he did
00:44:34
that. So I'm so I'm not saying that Terry's lying in the fact that he said that he never
00:44:38
returned home and ate. I don't know that, but what I do know, or I feel very confident in saying, is that Stevie did
00:44:44
in fact return home and eat at some point and then leave again. And in fairness to the victims' families,
00:44:51
it's my understanding that they weren't properly interviewed. From my understanding, actually, it may
00:44:58
appear even in 1993, a couple of them were not sat down and you know, they didn't participate in a
00:45:06
thorough interview. Oh, that's 100% correct, and that's that's another part of why I decided to take the case, cuz I
00:45:12
feel like if we go back to the beginning and do this thing right, that maybe the
00:45:16
answer's been there all along. We do a proper investigation, and that's why we took it on the podcast and the TV
00:45:21
series. But as I mentioned, you know, that that starts with a proper investigation, starts with victimology,
00:45:26
and then you start with the people closest to the victims, and you work your way out in concentric circles. That
00:45:32
was never done in this case. So, Mark Byers was interviewed multiple times, gave recorded interviews, but that was
00:45:37
because he went to the police. He He's the one that that initiated that. Pam Hobbs was spoken to a couple times.
00:45:46
Uh you know, you have you have you have cursory conversations with with Dana Moore and Melissa Byers.
00:45:53
Uh Todd Moore was never interviewed by police. And Terry Hobbs was never interviewed by police at all. Not not
00:45:59
like a little bit at all, which it which is which is baffling that they would and
00:46:04
it's because they jumped to an a conclusion. They jumped to an assumption when they when they saw the
00:46:10
boys come out and they saw how mutilated their bodies were, which we now know was
00:46:14
due to animal activity, but that back then they didn't know. And they decided this was that satanic
00:46:18
ritual killing they knew was coming. Damien Echols is is the kid that that would do something like this and they
00:46:25
got such tunnel vision that they never did the basic basic steps of a proper investigation, including not just not
00:46:34
interviewing the family, but in the door-to-door canvassing, they never even went door-to-door in Stevie Branch's
00:46:40
neighborhood at all. Not his neighbors, no one around there. We know now Pat and
00:46:48
we know now Captain had asked earlier about uh uh evidence indicating that that they
00:46:54
are actually running from something. You know, we know now that that Stevie was seen by a woman named Betty Johnson on
00:47:01
16th Street riding his bike south that afternoon alone. That's one of the reasons we know that he went home.
00:47:08
It well, the only reason we know that wasn't because of the West Memphis Police Department, it was because of a
00:47:13
newspaper reporter that started knocking on doors in that area asking people if they'd seen the boys and she said,
00:47:19
"Yeah, I saw Stevie by himself on his bike riding south on 16th Street that afternoon." The police
00:47:25
had no idea that happened because they never asked anybody in the area. Tell me if I'm wrong about this, but
00:47:31
there's I've seen where there was sightings of you know, one boy, two boys, Mhm.
00:47:38
three boys on their bikes and possibly even four boys on their bikes. And a lot of people
00:47:45
think that fourth boy could have been uh Vicki Hutchinson's son. Right. I which I do I don't believe that
00:47:51
by the way. But did you see any reports of of four boys together? Yeah, there were there were there were a
00:47:57
few reports of four boys together. As a matter of fact, in our timeline that we put together based on all those
00:48:02
door-to-door notes, I I show that that I called him mystery boy, but there you know, one of the big sightings was when
00:48:08
Narlene Hollingsworth sees the boy and sees, you know, that She says she sees three boys on bikes.
00:48:15
And so people think, "Oh, that's the West Memphis. It's the three boys." Except for Chris didn't have a bike,
00:48:18
especially not that time in the afternoon. He wasn't on a bike. So, that third boy is actually a fourth
00:48:24
boy, and she describes describes him as being heavy-set with dark hair. Well, that doesn't describe either of
00:48:29
the any of the three victims. They were all thin. So, so that sighting along with a few others is who, you know, we
00:48:35
deemed mystery boy, and you actually hear from, you know, we figured out who that was and actually interviewed him on
00:48:41
the the TV series who the mystery boy was. Um and then there's another, you know,
00:48:46
other sightings where there's four boys going into the woods right before they're killed.
00:48:51
So, there's another potential uh fourth boy. But, I don't think that it's I mean, well, for example, for starters,
00:48:57
as I said, we we know who that fourth boy was now. Um but, I've never believed it was it
00:49:02
was um Aaron Hutcheson because it the the the evidence now, it's been a little while. You may know more about it
00:49:07
than me now cuz it's been a couple years since I studied it, but it seemed to be
00:49:11
pretty clear that Aaron Hutcheson went home that day after school. He wasn't in the and he didn't live in that
00:49:16
neighborhood. He lived out in the trailer park. So, he wasn't even around that afternoon.
00:49:20
Right. And he gives dozens of different stories as to what he says he witnessed or saw
00:49:28
when he supposedly saw the kids being killed. Right, which is it's it's awful what what the police did to that poor
00:49:35
boy. You know, what what they put him through. And I mean, he he names different
00:49:39
suspects in each one of the stories, too. The the the suspects don't even remain the same. Um and then he he says
00:49:46
certain things took place on the victims or to the victims that we know just by the the autopsies did not did
00:49:54
not occur at all. Right. Regarding the timeline that you're piecing together, one thing
00:49:59
that's always stood out is that Pam Hobbs, uh you said now Pam uh now Pam Hicks,
00:50:08
her and Terry Hobbs's timeline for that night never really seemed to match up 100%.
00:50:16
We It's my understanding that Pam Hobbs worked that evening and that Terry drove
00:50:21
her to her place of employment and then picked her up at the end of her shift that evening.
00:50:28
With your with your movement of Stevie Branch, do we have him leaving their house, if
00:50:36
he fact did return to the Hobbs household, do we have him leaving before Pam goes off to work, before Terry has
00:50:45
to drive her to work? No, I I don't think there's any question that he hadn't returned yet
00:50:49
before Pam went to work. I mean, that was is pretty obvious from, you know, from
00:50:54
Pam's statements herself that, you know, she was upset because Stevie wasn't there, that Terry was upset when he got
00:50:59
home cuz Stevie wasn't home when he was supposed to be. Uh they left and then she first finds
00:51:04
out something had happened when Terry picked her up from work. I don't see any you know,
00:51:09
I'll say this, I believe her 100% that that's what happened. There's no reason for her to to lie about that. And and
00:51:16
sadly, we all saw Pam's reaction when she found out what happened to Stevie, you know, it was you know, it was it was
00:51:22
on you know, the news, it was on the Paradise Lost series. Um so, yeah, I I I don't think Stevie I
00:51:28
I think that was the issue. I think that personally, this is and again, I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm giving you a theory here,
00:51:35
but I believe that Ter- that Terry and Pam left to take Pam to work and Stevie probably ended up coming home shortly
00:51:43
thereafter. You know, kind of missed them. And and the question is did Terry ever come home then after he
00:51:50
dropped Pam off and and have some interaction or communication with Stevie or did Stevie leave again before Terry
00:51:57
got back? Now, when you watch these documentaries and when you study the case which
00:52:06
and I'll keep going with our theme of characters, which character were you most interested in and
00:52:15
and what did you what do you think you learn by talking to them? As a suspect or as a like a personality? Well, not a
00:52:22
not as a suspect, but just just anybody uh as far as the documentaries go. I mean like if I was
00:52:28
you know, I rewatched uh Paradise Lost 1 2 and 3 recently and I'd go if if I could talk
00:52:36
to anybody, I'd like to talk to uh Damien. I'd like to talk to Terry Hobbs. I'd like to talk to Mark Byers. Those
00:52:45
are the first three individuals I'd I'd want to interview. Right. Yeah, and I've
00:52:49
interviewed all Well, I haven't interviewed Terry, but um I I don't know if I can I can if I can
00:52:55
point one out, but I guess I can walk through a few of those like you mentioned. So,
00:52:59
um Damien uh I really like Damien. You know, I when I went to go meet him at first and
00:53:04
interview him I was I I shockingly I was or or stupidly, I guess, I was surprised to find out that
00:53:11
he's pretty normal guy. You know, because he's you know, his his his character that we've seen on TV and
00:53:18
and kind of his character we see in his social media and stuff like that. You know, he's into this ceremonial magic
00:53:23
stuff, which seems very mystic and and and very artsy, but you know, I've sat around talking about football with
00:53:30
Damien. Every anytime I'm in New York, I usually try to catch up with him and Lori and we'll go out for pizza and you
00:53:35
know, last time we were there we went you know, we went we went to a pizza place,
00:53:38
Damien's favorite place. We had pizza, that hung out for a couple hours. And then he he took me to a place called
00:53:43
Insomnia Cookies cuz he swore they had the best cookies in the world, and they were the best cookies in the world. Uh
00:53:50
and so I guess my what was what was interesting to find out with him is that he's
00:53:54
he's a Damien's a normal guy. Like he's he he he's interested in something that a lot of people don't necessarily
00:54:01
relate with, which is, you know, his uh I don't even call it a faith or religion, but his that ceremonial magic
00:54:07
that he's that he's into. But, you know, regardless whether you were can relate with that or not, he's
00:54:13
he's a very personal, very normal guy, doesn't like talking about the case, just likes just chatting about life, and
00:54:18
I I I enjoy Damien's company when I'm when I'm around him. Um Jason Baldwin has kind of surprised
00:54:25
me the other way. He seemed like very a very much a vanilla kind of character, but then when I when I went down and and
00:54:31
actually met with him, and and we you we went out to lunch and then interviewed in person, he's he's full of fire.
00:54:37
Actually, we just I don't know if you listened to it. Uh if either one of you guys did, but we just aired two-part
00:54:42
uh two episodes of an interview I did with Jason back in 2018 that nobody had heard before.
00:54:47
And and he's he's got fire in his eyes that I didn't know was there. Um He seems He seems extremely interested
00:54:57
in finding out who actually did this. Very much so. Of of the three where to me it feels
00:55:04
like Damien is more involved with his causes. Uh I think he's involved with the um the
00:55:11
innocent people being on death row or I don't know the name of it offhand, but um he seems to be very driven toward
00:55:18
that, where Baldwin seems fully vested uh invested in finding out who did this, clearing his
00:55:26
name. And he's one of those people that I mean, the interview is great, but, you
00:55:31
know, the captain and I have always kind of thought this, if Jason and Damien would have been tried separately.
00:55:39
And Jason would have been tried first. We find it very difficult that that they would have found him guilty. A lot of
00:55:46
that based off of his character and his personality. And of course that there just was no evidence. But um to hear
00:55:53
your interviews with him really takes his character as you said to the extreme because he does seem very
00:56:02
vanilla on the surface. But when he starts talking about the case or talking about
00:56:07
things that were going on in West Memphis at the time that they were charged with the crimes
00:56:12
he's one he's fascinating and two he's very dialed into what he was doing. And I found his
00:56:18
very detailed alibi to be incredibly one interesting and incredibly believable. Yeah, I agree on all on all
00:56:28
counts I agree. And especially the fact that if he wasn't tried with Damien, I think he for sure would have been
00:56:33
acquitted. You know, he was he was he was collateral damage really. Well, and I think that's one thing that gets lost
00:56:39
in the shuffle there is that we we have Jessie Misskelley who gives this this bad confession. He's offered a bit of a
00:56:47
reduced sentence because they want him to testify against Baldwin and Echols at trial one simply just to introduce the
00:56:56
confession to that trial. He says, "Look, I'm not going to testify against them basically because it's not
00:57:03
true." And then Baldwin gets the opportunity to testify against Echols and he turns it down as well. Where
00:57:12
it that shows something to the character of these still very young men, these teenagers at the time.
00:57:20
You know, there's a lot of meta that you see in the documentaries when that part
00:57:24
when the trial's happening in Paradise Lost 1 and Baldwin's reaction to when when when his attorney,
00:57:33
I think it was Paul Ford, asks him after Damien testified, on camera he asked Jason, "So, do you
00:57:41
think that he's guilty?" And if you watch that scene, that scene right there is what convinced me that
00:57:48
Jason Baldwin has no clue what actually happened cuz you watch you could see it in his eyes that he was thinking.
00:57:54
And then I think his response was, "You know, I they sure made him seem like he did."
00:58:00
And it was like, "Holy [ __ ] he really doesn't know. That kid does not know who
00:58:03
killed those boys." Yeah, he does not know and and he's thinking it through because you see his it's almost his
00:58:10
reaction. You can read his mind and it's like he wasn't with Damien that that evening.
00:58:16
He wasn't with Echols that evening. So, he doesn't he's he's kind of clueless as
00:58:20
to He's not asked, "Did you and Echols do this together?" He's just asked, "Did Damien Echols do this?" And
00:58:28
he's going "Well, they sure made him look guilty." You almost see that he is about to say,
00:58:35
"Well, I don't know." And I think he was smart enough to go, "Well, they see they
00:58:39
sure made him look guilty." because that I don't know statement would have just been a an odd one for for the argument
00:58:47
against Damien anyway. Yeah, and it just to me it was like I could see you know, for me I I would see
00:58:54
in his mind him thinking, "Jesus Christ, did he do it? Like like maybe he did. I don't know. I
00:58:59
wasn't with him. You know, maybe he did do it. I don't know. They made him seem like he did. But, you know, again like
00:59:04
for me what I you know, what I'm looking at is not necessarily what that means for Damien, but what does it mean for
00:59:08
Jason?" And it was like obviously he didn't have anything to do with it. With it which again it's just one more thing
00:59:14
that even if that was the case, it it if it was just that Jason was innocent, it
00:59:18
does again tear the state's case down their entire theory down because it was supposed to be them together and
00:59:24
the confession had all of them together. Well, and how did his how did Baldwin's
00:59:29
alibi fall apart? I don't you know Because doesn't he claim that he he went with
00:59:35
with a different friend that's that's not really known to most of the people that have taken a a quick look at the
00:59:40
case. He went with a different friend to uh cut his uncle's lawn. And then I think I
00:59:49
And correct me if I'm wrong cuz I'm going off of memory here, but I believe that he he and the friend went and did
00:59:54
something afterward and Baldwin is saying, "Hey, I remember this date because I sold him a a cassette tape."
01:00:02
Um Mhm. that day and that, you know, as we discussed already, these kids are dirt
01:00:08
poor. He remembers that day because he one he probably did a chore that may have
01:00:12
earned him some money and if he didn't get paid from the uncle, he at he at the very least
01:00:18
receive some money for that cassette tape from his friend. Yeah, yeah, the the the friend that was
01:00:23
with him was uh Ken Watkins. Uh and I I think the issue is that alibi was and I'm working from memory, too, on
01:00:31
this part of it, you know, cuz when I when I did the case and we I looked at, okay, if I take this
01:00:35
investigation from the beginning and do it properly, where does it take us? Well, the problem with that is it never
01:00:40
takes you anywhere near the direction of the West Memphis 3. So, we had to kind of force that in to
01:00:46
go like, okay, well, let's see how they got here and why. So, I I've never really focused a whole lot on their
01:00:51
trial since then, but if if memory serves, it it had to do with the fact that when they questioned
01:00:58
Ken Watkins cuz you know, cuz Jason says tells his lawyers that, "Yeah, I I was with Ken Watkins after the lawn mowing,
01:01:04
Damien left with Damion." And then Ken and I went to Walmart and we played video games. And then he said, "Yeah,
01:01:10
you should have There was an Asian kid there, too. You should ask him." Whose whose name ended up being Don Nam uh was
01:01:16
the Asian kid that was there and he's like, "You These guys can verify my alibi." But then, you know, months and
01:01:21
months and months later when when Watkins and Namgyel interviewed uh before trial,
01:01:28
they they they don't confirm his alibi. They they don't remember it or they don't give the right information. I
01:01:33
don't remember the details exactly about it, but basically they didn't they didn't corroborate what what Jason had
01:01:39
said. So, I don't think they ever ended up testifying. Well, just to play a little bit of a devil's advocate here,
01:01:45
after I watched Paradise Lost 1, I started thinking, well, is is it as simple as
01:01:55
they had Damien on a list and that's it. And they just went with this and this kid uh had long black hair, listened to
01:02:05
heavy metal, and he's kind of a freak show, and we believe that this was done by a freak
01:02:11
show. Or was there is there a little bit more to it? Like you said, if you if you
01:02:17
investigate it properly, then you're going through the proper channels, but you're still going to have
01:02:24
a juvenile officer come forward and say, "Look, out of all the people in the town
01:02:28
that I think possibly could have done this, here here's a kid's name on the list that you might want to
01:02:34
look into." But you know, but the the problem with that is that like that's [ __ ] crazy. I mean, you
01:02:40
you know what I mean? Imagine in your town there's a murder, and the entire investigation is based on some dude's
01:02:47
hunch? Like, "Oh, I know a guy that would do this." You know, it's crazy. No, but I I
01:02:52
still I still think there that's reason to look into an individual. And then when you hear statements that
01:02:59
this individual also, which maybe he said it, maybe he didn't, you know, at a at a a softball game saying
01:03:07
that he that he killed these two boys and that he's going to kill more or two two more when before he's done.
01:03:14
Yeah, I I I think it's it's reasonable to believe that you should look into this individual. Yeah, I I I'll give you
01:03:20
that. I think that you know if someone's got this hunch or at least when that information comes forward like
01:03:26
the softball information, sure you look at him, but then there's a there's a there's a big chicken and egg
01:03:31
problem with Damien, too. In the fact like say say say that statement at the softball whether it happened or not.
01:03:37
Yeah, I I tend to think that maybe some version of it did happen. Uh but but it's because
01:03:43
I think it's because you know, he was in he was targeted. He was interviewed within hours of the boys being found. He
01:03:50
was harassed. The police were asking all of his friends, all of his family. They
01:03:53
were calling him in repeatedly to the point where this rebellious teenager is like screw these guys, you know, and and
01:04:00
and so I my opinion I think you know, Damien says he doesn't really remember that happening and he says he certainly
01:04:05
wouldn't have confessed to something he didn't do, but I don't think it's out of
01:04:08
the realm of possibilities if he was at a game or whatever there and you know, somebody's like, "Dude, I heard that you
01:04:13
did it." And he's like, "Oh, yeah, I did it. I killed them and I'm going to kill
01:04:16
some more." Similar to his boogeyman comment. Um but certainly once that you hear that
01:04:24
that you heard this guy confess to it. Yeah, you interview him. But would he ever would any of that have happened if
01:04:31
they weren't offering rewards to a bunch of poor people and harassing Damien and
01:04:35
spreading the word around town that it was Damien who did it, then would any of these statements have
01:04:41
ever come out? I personally don't think they ever would have. I think if they took this case and they and they and
01:04:46
they they waited until they had the proper medical evaluation and said, "Okay, these kids were were hit over the
01:04:52
head, drowned, and and buried there." Okay, so that's that every indication there is that this
01:04:58
is someone with a known personal relationship to the boys. The FBI was offering to help with profiling.
01:05:03
So, let's go interview and they should have already done so. Let's interview every single parent, every brother,
01:05:08
every neighbor, and let's start let's start piecing things together. And I think that if you
01:05:14
I I'm dancing here, but if I think that if you did that, if you start at the center
01:05:21
and work your way out very quickly the person or people whose alibis don't check out, that aren't where they said
01:05:30
they were, that have unaccounted for time and behavior would would have become very apparent
01:05:37
very quickly. We're in this mess we're in now 27 years later because that was never done. And if you do that, I think
01:05:44
that you never end up even even if some juvenile probation officer is like, "Well, I think that Damien
01:05:50
Echols was a Satanist." Well, if you waited for the proper evidence, you know that there was nothing about this crime
01:05:53
scene that indicated it was a satanic ritual whatsoever. Well, and there was what's weird about that that statement
01:06:01
of, "Oh, I heard Damien Echols say this at a softball game or whatever." I think it was in Mara Leveritt's book,
01:06:09
The Devil's Knot, where there's some some evidence to suggest that even at times maybe investigators were going
01:06:16
around town with a photograph of Damien Echols and they're asking individuals about the case, if they know anything
01:06:24
about the the murders, and they're also showing this photograph. That that's almost implying that this man, this boy
01:06:31
is is in somehow connected to the murders themselves. And you can almost see a situation where
01:06:40
because he knows he's being looked at and he's being harassed during this whole time
01:06:45
that that he's overheard discussing that with somebody and and they misconstrue it completely. And and you point out
01:06:51
something that's very very big here is the reward. The all these people are poor and now we got this money sitting
01:06:59
on a on a table up for grabs. If you have any information, tell us and let's put these put these devil worshipers
01:07:07
behind bars and and here's your your your pot of gold. That that money was never
01:07:14
officially paid out to anyone that we know of, right? And no one knows where it went.
01:07:20
They've they've been able to keep that pretty pretty tight-lipped. Uh well, yeah, it might have went to Vicki
01:07:25
Hutchinson. Who knows? Um question for you. You said something that I find very interesting. A lot of
01:07:32
people that think that the West Memphis three are guilty of this crime, a lot of people will cite that well, it
01:07:42
this is a crime that couldn't have been done by one individual. And you you stated earlier that you believe it was
01:07:48
done by a single individual. What makes you believe that? There there's a there's a lot of things
01:07:54
that have to do with the the profiling of the crime scene. You know, we've worked with with Jim Clemente doing
01:07:59
crime scene reconstruction and and studying the behavior exhibited here. Um and my own analysis was the same. People
01:08:07
think that one You know, how would one person kill three boys? But that's that's part of why the profile indicates
01:08:14
that this is someone not only with a known personal relationship, but also an authority figure to these 8-year-old
01:08:19
boys, which is pretty much any adult, right? Uh it's very easy to see say one boy gets
01:08:28
punished and which results in him being unconscious. And the other boys freaking out and for
01:08:33
that that single figure to to yell, you know, get your butts back here or come back or I'm going to do this or whatever
01:08:41
and and you could literally you know, as a as a I've said this before on the podcast, you know, as a as
01:08:48
a grown man myself, I could easily grab three 8-year-old boys by the you know, by the napes of their neck, by the
01:08:55
collars of their shirts, you know, one in one hand and two in the other and grab them and hold them underwater all
01:08:59
three at at same time. You know, it's not you know, I've wrestled around with my with my boy and his in in his
01:09:04
friends. You know, it's it it's so it's it's definitely not necessary for there to be three.
01:09:09
The forensics in the crime scene seemed to indicate that there was one. You know, that that it's the same kind of
01:09:15
patterns happening on all of them. People like to cite, well, this knot was tied differently than this knot. But
01:09:20
they were all a series of half hitch knots basically. You know, some of them were double, triple, whatever. But it's
01:09:25
basically the same type of knot. The boys are all tied up in the same way. You just don't see that that happen with
01:09:33
three different people, right? So so the boys were tied up in a very unique way with ankles to to wrists.
01:09:39
So what you're stating is with the the knots the the knots were the same type of knot
01:09:45
knots. It's just sometimes there were multiple knots instead of just a single Yeah, so a half hitch
01:09:51
A half hitch knot is a basic like the first knot you tie in your shoes, you know, over under and pull it tight. And
01:09:57
you know, a double knot and a triple knot and a quadruple knot. They're all They're all different variations of that
01:10:02
knot. But what what's more important is to look at the very unique way of how the
01:10:08
boys were tied. Right ankle to right wrist, left ankle to right wrist. That That was done, you know, no one
01:10:15
would direct someone to tie them in that particular way because there's no utility in it, right? It doesn't stop
01:10:21
someone from running. It doesn't It doesn't keep them from being able to untie themselves. It's not hog tying
01:10:27
like like some would say. It's It's pretty clearly this was done postmortem or at least post you know, when
01:10:33
someone's unconscious. I think Michael Moore did show a little bit of bruising from one of the ligatures, which could
01:10:39
mean he still had some amount of heartbeat left when that was put on. But the others show none.
01:10:43
So, you know, if there's multiple people and you're directing them, you know, do you say, "Hey, when you tie
01:10:49
them up, make sure you tie right wrist to right ankle, left wrist to right ankle?"
01:10:53
You wouldn't do that. You know, you're just going to you're trying to tie them up. In my opinion, the reason they were
01:10:57
tied that way was to create a smaller package to keep them under the water. So that they didn't they didn't reveal
01:11:03
themselves. I think it was probably a trial and error. I think they were probably put down. It didn't work and
01:11:07
then they took the clothes off and tied them up that way. That's kind of really getting into the
01:11:11
weeds, but the point is in my opinion looking at that that crime scene, the same person tied all three of
01:11:18
those boys up. The same person put all three boys into the water and the clothes. Everything is too uniform
01:11:25
for there to have been multiple people there. And also, I mean plain and simple,
01:11:31
two people can't keep a secret like this for that long. It's impossible. The only way a secret like this gets
01:11:36
kept is if only one person knows what happened. All right. Thank you guys so much for
01:11:56
joining us in the garage. We know it's difficult times, weird times, strange times, and we appreciate you and we're
01:12:03
going to keep going with the flying garage ship. And if you want to listen to our
01:12:08
coverage of the West Memphis 3, download the free Stitcher app. We have all of our shows on there and you can go all
01:12:16
the way back to July of 2016, listen to episodes 40, 41, and 42. Those are the West Memphis 3
01:12:25
episodes. Also, we've talked about West Memphis 3 I don't know how many times on
01:12:30
our other show Off The Record available on Stitcher Premium. Go to our website and you can click on Off The Record and
01:12:37
get a free month of listening. Until tomorrow, be good, be kind, and don't litter.
01:13:22
Oh.