00:00:00
from amazing five-bedroom two-story homes to Beautiful two-bedrooms with office space celebrity hommes has the
00:00:05
perfect home for you our homes come with amazing features faulted ceilings sprinkler systems quartz countertops
00:00:12
designer light packages and more plus celebrity homes is proud to offer our new exclusive closing package get a
00:00:18
refrigerator washer dryer garage door opener instant access to Wi-Fi professionally installed blinds and up
00:00:23
to $3,000 towards closing costs yes it's all included visit celebrity homes omaha.com today
00:00:31
the living room is where you make life's most beautiful memories but your sofa shouldn't be the one remembering them
00:00:37
the new life resistant high performance furniture collection from Ashley is designed to withstand all the spills
00:00:43
slip-ups and Muddy Paws that come with the best parts of life Ashley high performance sofas and recliners are soft
00:00:50
on Trend and easy to clean shop the high performance furniture in store online at
00:00:56
ashley.com Ashley For the Love of home [Music] [Music] I don't want a holy life of prayer and
00:02:07
contemplation I want a life of strife lust striving seeking struggling and debauchery I'm not content to settle for
00:02:17
one experience when there is a whole lifetime of experiences to be had I'm so hungry for knowledge that I live several
00:02:24
lives at once to acquire a Catholic and a Buddhist a reader and a writer a sinner and a
00:02:30
philosopher a husband and a father a Native American and a white man I no longer have any desire to fit into any
00:02:37
one [Music] category the canvas on the altar was also given to me its calligraphy
00:02:48
translates to Moon beams pierced to the bottom of the pools yet in the water not
00:02:53
a trace Remains Not a trace remains I have two definitions for the word magic the first is knowing that I
00:03:03
can affect change through my own will even Behind These Bars the other meaning is more experiential seeing Beauty for a
00:03:10
moment in the midst of the mundane in the movies it's always the other prisoners you have to watch out
00:03:18
for in real life it's the guards and the administration they go out of their way
00:03:23
to make your life harder and more stressful than it already is as if being on death row were not enough
00:03:30
they can send a man to prison for writing bad checks and then torment him there until he becomes a violent
00:03:36
offender one of our laurian mind's greatest inventions was moonwater another prisoner once
00:03:43
discovered me making moonwater and said it was so illogical it nearly drove him insane for months afterward he would
00:03:50
stomp his feet in frustration and Bellow this [ __ ] is crazy it makes no sense that [ __ ] is making my head hurt for
00:03:58
some reason the thought of it seemed to hurt his mind then again he was a little
00:04:03
unbalanced to begin with moon water can be made only once a month on the night of the full moon after the sun goes down
00:04:12
and the moon rides High you fill a container with water and set it on a window ledge so that the moon cast a
00:04:18
reflection in it you must leave it there all night so that it catches as much of
00:04:23
the moon's light as possible you have to remove it right before morning so that the Sun's light never touches it
00:04:30
it must then be kept in a dark place my wife and I did this every full moon for years and we would take a
00:04:37
single sip of the water at the same time each night while thinking of each other
00:04:42
in that moment we were United no matter how far apart we might be you take a single sip each night so that you have
00:04:49
enough to last the entire month for every way the system attempts to separate us we can't help but seek out
00:04:55
new ways to pull ourselves together in the end hatefulness and ignorance always fail in the face of intelligence and
00:05:03
love the proof is in the moon water Moon beams Pierce to the bottom of the pools
00:05:09
yet in the water not a trace Remains Not a trace Remains Not a trace remains [Music]
00:05:31
welcome to True Crime garage wherever you are whatever you are doing thanks for listening I'm Nick your host and
00:05:36
with me the only State Certified death metal summer camp counselor the captain rock and roll
00:05:46
hooo oh I just blew up my V my vocal cords it's good to see you and it's good to be seen yeah welcome to the
00:05:53
Afterparty we are sitting here staying up late garage is open it's starting to cool down outside love the summertime
00:06:00
nights well we had to do a part three of this because it's just so huge and we I
00:06:07
don't even think we're going to cover all the details anyways but we're going to do our best this would have to be
00:06:14
like a 20 parter and I just yeah Captain if you weren't so long- winded we would
00:06:18
have been able to get through this in in two episodes I try to keep my mouth shut
00:06:21
for these but we want to put out uh another episode two episodes in one week uh as a thank you to all the support
00:06:29
that we've got in season 3 and the growing of the show being in Rolling Stone magazine everything that you guys
00:06:36
do for the show it's beautiful we appreciate it and uh we're trying to give you back as much as you give us so
00:06:43
thank you for joining us each week in the garage and thank you to the to our good friends who signed up on the
00:06:48
mailing list and joined the True Crime garage Army and I want to thank Wesley from San Diego California for his
00:06:55
donation huge donation providing the beer and bringing the beer to Afterparty it's very special thanks brought the
00:07:01
beer not just for us but for everybody he rolled in a keg and if you want to support the show just go to True Crime
00:07:07
garage.com we have old episodes bonus episodes uh we sell t-shirts and stuff like that so let's just get done with
00:07:14
the business and let's get right into part three West Memphis yes this is episode three I recommend listening to
00:07:21
them in order but you're welcome to listen to them in any order you see fit so if you want to start with this one
00:07:26
welcome to the Afterparty where we left off the police had just picked up Jesse mkelly Jr they brought him to the police
00:07:34
department and they were going to interview him now they're interested in him because he knows of some characters
00:07:40
that they are interested in Jason Baldwin and Damen Eckles yeah and this is a list that was put together by the
00:07:46
juvenile officer and he basically came up with a list of about eight people that he would say that maybe would have
00:07:52
something to do with these mured and Jesse is interested in talking to the police because one he seems to be a bit
00:07:58
of a helpful character and two uh he has recently found out that there is reward
00:08:04
money and if he knows anything about this case he should tell them uh so that he could help him and his family get
00:08:10
receive that money it's about 10 a.m. when they pick up Jesse misskelly and take him to the police department now
00:08:17
this is approximately a month after the murders so the heat is on for the police
00:08:22
and they need to solve this thing soon because there's Panic there's been three boys that started off missing they were
00:08:28
found dead they were found terribly mutilated and this crime needs to be solved yeah the crime happened on May
00:08:35
5th and now he's being interviewed on June the 3 so they have him and they're talking to him they're going to question
00:08:42
him and they ask him one thing that I found interesting Captain is that they came up with with the help of the FBI
00:08:49
they came up with a list of questions that they should ask people now the some sometimes this is somebody that maybe
00:08:54
they just knocked on their door or maybe that's somebody that was of interest and
00:08:58
they brought them to the police department but they tried to ask most of the people about the same questions and
00:09:04
first thing they want to know is uh does does he know anything about the murders
00:09:09
or has he heard anything about the murders well Jesse would explain to them that he he knew of the murders because
00:09:15
he was on his way to work and he had heard on the news he was going to go do a roofing job and he had heard on the
00:09:22
news that the boys were missing so we can assume that this is May 6th this is not May 5th
00:09:29
because it's being reported in the news now he says that same day he had come home and when he was done with work a
00:09:36
friend of his had told him that the boys had been found so we do know that this is May 6 because they were found in the
00:09:42
afternoon that day right does he know anything about Damen Eckles or does he know anything about Jason Baldwin and he
00:09:49
says yes I know them I know I know Jason Baldwin he's a nice guy and we we've been friends from time to time and I
00:09:56
don't really know Damen Eckles I know who he is I think he's kind of weird uh but I know he's a good friend of Jason
00:10:02
Baldwin's and after they get talking to him for a while they they ask him if he would like to take a polygraph test and
00:10:09
he agrees to it he says he would have no problem doing so and of course they need
00:10:14
again to get the permission from his father they find his father his father's at like a fast food restaurant and he
00:10:21
signs he says yeah sure no problem I'll sign the paper and so now they have permission to give him the polygraph
00:10:27
they ask him only about six or seven questions I don't have them in front of me but basically it's simp it's simple
00:10:33
questions things like uh did you do you know anything about the murders have you
00:10:38
heard anything about the murders do you know who killed these boys yeah it's a questionnaire that they had and in
00:10:43
within those questions they're going to sprinkle in things that may or may not have anything to do with the case that
00:10:48
they're looking into and one of those questions that they ask him is have you ever done drugs um and he basically says
00:10:56
no to most of these questions he doesn't know who killed these boys he doesn't know uh much about the murder no he's
00:11:02
never done drugs and they come back to him and they explain to him you are lying we are know we know that you're
00:11:09
lying but how do we know this machine that we have right it tells us that you're lying secret machine it it's
00:11:16
actually your it's hooked up to your brain and your brain is telling us that you're lying yeah well this confuses
00:11:23
Jesse and he let's go back Jesse's a simple-minded guy yeah so for the people that uh want to point out that the West
00:11:32
Memphis 3 are innocent you will hear them say that he has an IQ as low as 68 or 67 right for the people that want to
00:11:40
say that they're guilty sometimes they report that his IQ is as high as 79 or 80 so it all depends on what side of the
00:11:47
fence you're on and some people like to say like he's has a handicap I don't I don't like to think of him like that I
00:11:53
just think he's very simple and that's the way I'd like to view it so he's confused by being told that he's lying
00:12:01
and they point out to him well we know that you've done drugs because we've seen you sell them and he explains to
00:12:06
them I've never sold them but okay yes I have done drugs so now they're getting him to admit to some things and they
00:12:15
start with what we're going to call an interrogation what I'm going to call they started with questions they moved
00:12:21
on to the polygraph now they're going to say they're questioning him more this is
00:12:25
an interrogation and they believe that he know knows something of these murders and he knows more than just hearing
00:12:33
about it from his friends right so he starts to agree with some of the things that they're telling him and he's going
00:12:41
to start off by telling them that yes he was he was in Robin Hood Hills and he had been there before and he got there
00:12:49
around 900 a.m. yeah and that well he says he woke up at 9:00 a.m. but then he got there about 12 well the the first
00:12:58
the first state portions of the questions he says he was there as early as nine yeah and they will they will
00:13:04
coax him a little bit more and that eventually moves to noon yeah and online it's kind of hard to find but there's
00:13:11
there's two recordings one of the first confession the first statement made and then the second one but you can also
00:13:17
find the one that happened about a year or so later so if you're interested in those those are available on the
00:13:24
internet real quickly I'm going to try to go through the his first confession I'm just going to sum it up real quick
00:13:29
yes and we'll go through uh some questionable things with it but basically he says that that he met Jesse
00:13:35
and I'm sorry that Jesse had met Jason and Damian at Robin Hood Hills and he had got there in the morning time and he
00:13:42
walked he walked there and the other boys had walked there as well and he states that that's when he saw they saw
00:13:49
the three kids and they hollered at him to come into the woods Damen hollered at
00:13:54
him and so the kids come in there and he says that um he saw Damien hit the one boy and bruise him up real bad yeah uh
00:14:03
he says that Jason starts to attack one of the other boys um and then at this point the police are already they're
00:14:11
concerned about this potential confession that they're getting because they know that the police they know that
00:14:17
the kids were at school that day there was no way for them to have been there at 9:00 a.m. or yeah or even if you go
00:14:24
with the 12:00 they're not going to be out of school by that point and he then says well the boy skip school yeah well
00:14:32
he starts off by saying that he didn't go to school I well I didn't go to school and they go well yeah but the
00:14:38
boys were in school and he goes no they skipped school right and um so they're walking him further down the road and
00:14:46
further down on this confession and he starts to get a little more elaborate with what he sees uhuh and he starts to
00:14:54
say you know they they want to know if there was anything sexual going on and he explains that uh that they Damien and
00:15:02
J Jason started screwing them and stuff I believe is pretty much what he said yeah and basically what he's saying is
00:15:09
that they were trying to and then well he said well what do you mean by that he said well that they pulled off their
00:15:15
pants so he was just assuming that they were going to try to screw the boys and then he goes well what makes you so sure
00:15:23
that that is what Daman was going to do and he's like well Daman had his pants unbutton and at some point it's a little
00:15:30
unclear to me if it's if it it wasn't during the interrogation but there was multiple interrogations and there's
00:15:37
different parts that are recorded of the confession right but some things that may have scared Jesse into opening up or
00:15:45
to creating a story to tell them the police use some tactics here they had uh gell Gary gell the lead investigator he
00:15:55
had drawn a circle and he put three dots inside of the circle and he put X's all
00:16:00
around the circle and he told Jesse he said you see the circle those three dots inside well that's you Jason and Damian
00:16:09
those X's all around the circle those are police now do you want to be inside that Circle or do you want to be outside
00:16:16
of that Circle right and he says well I want to be outside of the circle and gell would go on to show him a picture
00:16:24
of one of the Dead Boys yeah now later Jesse would say that this shocked him that that he had saw a picture of of the
00:16:31
face of one of the Dead Boys and he could see that he was all beat up and he was all bruised up right and he probably
00:16:38
had never seen a picture of a dead person let alone a dead child before well hopefully he he never did well this
00:16:45
shocks him well if it couldn't shock him anymore than this shortly afterwards gel
00:16:51
would play a audio tape for Jesse Miss Kelly and what it is is it's a child's voice and he says one sentence the the
00:17:02
boy on the recording says nobody knows what happened but me this terrifies Jesse he doesn't know
00:17:11
what to think of the picture he doesn't know what to think of the recording he doesn't know who's in the recording or
00:17:17
why it that was said well he's going on and on into this confession and it's a lot of back and forth you people have
00:17:25
seen this bits of this confession in the movies in the documentaries you can find
00:17:30
some of it online and those documentaries are Paradise Lost or west of Memphis and I don't know that we're
00:17:36
going to go into every bit of it because we'd be here for another no we'd have another Afterparty after this one I mean
00:17:42
look if you're really interested in this case start with the paradise loss it's not going to give you a bunch of
00:17:47
information I mean start with our start with our podcast obviously uh I'm actually pretty proud of what we've done
00:17:54
so far with the first two parts with the the facts that we're putting out and uh
00:17:58
but check out those documentaries than the west of Memphis and then you were telling me if you're really into this
00:18:03
case you want to check out Devil's notot yeah the devil's not was a book that came out I believe it was definitely
00:18:09
after the first Paradise Lost movie and I believe before the second one I actually think that the second one the
00:18:16
second Paradise loss that starts to implicate maybe John Mark Byers as having been the perpetrator of this
00:18:23
crime uh the devil's not hints around that quite a bit anybody that's read that knows what I'm talking about and
00:18:30
maybe Paradise Lost got that idea from the book and then they recently made a movie uh called Devil's not and I heard
00:18:37
that they changed the the screenplay a little bit because they wanted to have it match with the new evidence that has
00:18:44
come out um but anyways there's this confession and it's very questionable now to me the first statement giv
00:18:54
sounds it sounds like my gut is telling me that he's telling the truth but they're they're also leading him and
00:19:03
then all the information that you know we you you just gave beforehand it just makes you question why is this kid
00:19:10
confessing at all well and when you say the first statement what you're referring to is there's multiple
00:19:15
recordings of the confessions right and you're talking about the first confession that's recorded in its
00:19:22
entirety sounds what you said what it sounds it sounds legitimate to me like my gut is telling me that he's that he's
00:19:30
telling the truth that's my thought but uh nothing else makes sense to me okay well the as far as the confessions go
00:19:40
and I've listened to them in their entirety and I and I know you have as well and I will say let's just go
00:19:46
through some things that are of question okay now these might be things that point towards his guilt or things that
00:19:53
might Point towards him being innocent or that the police are leading or what have you the first thing the obvious
00:19:59
thing that stands out in most people's mind is the times right the time doesn't make any sense with the the
00:20:06
prosecutions um timeline throughout the confessions that were taken on this day the times Jesse will change times eight
00:20:17
times he will give eight different times of day for when he first met up with Damian and and Jason right and then the
00:20:23
investigators are always leading him later in the day they're trying to get away from that 9:00 they're trying to
00:20:29
get away from that noon the investigators know that the boys were last seen around 600 or 6:30 p.m. so
00:20:34
they need they need Damian Jason and Jesse to have met up with those boys at that time or later right not at noon so
00:20:42
as we said Jesse starts off saying nine and then 9 becomes noon and then noon becomes after after after work it was
00:20:50
after work it was about 5:00 well Jesse did you have your watch with you that day no right well then you might not
00:20:57
know what time it was uh you said it was five or six now we're up to six and then
00:21:01
later it becomes seven or eight yeah was it light or was it dark and then gell says well that sums it up because Jesse
00:21:08
says well it was it was getting dark which we we had reported in the first episode that the Moon that the the sun
00:21:15
went down Moon came up about 7:41 that day it's like my favorite line or one of my favorite lines in the movie from
00:21:21
Perks of be and Wallflower the main character asks his dad for a $50 bill the dad says $20 what do you need
00:21:29
for it's like they did the same thing to them it's like uh was it four or five was it okay so five okay was it dark and
00:21:37
then we just keep pushing it back well real quick this is how we got to 7 or 800 p.m. as far as Jesse's concern once
00:21:46
they had got to 5:00 yeah at some point the investigator says now earlier you had told me it was more like seven or
00:21:54
eight and there is no part on any of those Apes now maybe this was a discussion that was off off the tape off
00:22:03
the Record but there was no discussion that was being recorded where Jesse had said earlier that it was seven or eight
00:22:10
now he's leading him up to seven or eight and exactly what you said that the police ask him now was it seven or eight
00:22:15
and Jesse's response is not seven it's not eight he says yeah it was seven or eight right right you pick and not only
00:22:22
that you could pick either one and you'd still be considered guilty there is no right answer unless you're the police
00:22:29
so we have the times there the times are confusing the times are are a problem for the police department and they're a
00:22:37
problem for for Jesse's confession the other part is when they start talking about the boys being tied up now the
00:22:44
police want to know um you know how how were these boys tied up well Jesse says they were tied with rope and that he at
00:22:53
no point does he ever indicate that he understands that the hands were tied to to the ankles remember we said that the
00:23:00
right hand was tied to the right ankle and so on right and he says that their hands were tied with rope what color
00:23:07
rope it was brown rope he says well that's what color rope is and well this is a problem because we know that they
00:23:13
were tied up with shoelaces yeah and they weren't tied with their hands behind their back so again it's it's
00:23:19
this weird thing where it's like okay okay so keep going and not only that Jesse explains that uh they they
00:23:27
couldn't have been hand to to ankle because they they were trying to run the one boy had taken off running right so
00:23:36
they can't run when you're tied hand to ankle and he's the one that went and got
00:23:39
the boy and stopped him so at some point the police have to have him stop the confession and he's going to have to go
00:23:46
through it again because they weren't obviously tied with rope we got to get that right on we got to fix some things
00:23:53
so there's some other problems okay so what one thing that uh just had said was that Jason and Daman had started
00:24:01
screwing them and stuff meaning the victims okay well here's the problem with that we
00:24:09
know how the boys were tied right if they were going to be sodomizing the boys it's probably close
00:24:17
to Impossible with how they were tied without getting into specifics um he does talk about oral sex he asked if
00:24:25
anybody was having oral sex and he does say that dami and Jason were having uh sticking their thingss in their mouths
00:24:32
of two of the boys um he said that they were holding them by the ears now that that is a
00:24:41
problem for Jesse because there are there are injuries to some of the boys if not all of them that would indicate
00:24:49
an act like that occurring Well yeah if you go against science yes uh the police
00:24:56
want to know did Jason well first of all they want to know did Jesse rape any of
00:25:00
the boys and he says no I didn't do any of that one thing you'll notice in these
00:25:05
confessions is that Jesse is constantly he will tell a portion of the story and then he'll say and then that's when I
00:25:12
left and then later they'll get him to tell more of a story and then he go always refers back to the and then
00:25:18
that's when I left and then he'll tell a little bit more and then that's when I left he's constantly trying to get him
00:25:25
out himself out of that or this is the end of the the story now they want to know if any of the uh here's some
00:25:34
problems that they have with Jesse's story when they're talking about the rape of the boys now you will hear more
00:25:40
than one time Jesse will say that Damian raped Myers and both of them raped branches okay so now he's starting to
00:25:48
get the names of the victims wrong he's referring thought you just got him wrong
00:25:53
no he's referring to buyer I I don't know if he's referring to more or buyers but he says Myers right which is kind of
00:25:59
a smashing of the two and then he talks about both of them raping branches um but there's a problem for here's a
00:26:10
problem for Jesse at some point he doesn't realize this but I think he's trying to confirm their story or put
00:26:19
validity to his story he says at some point that the mo boy got away and started to run and that Jesse went and
00:26:27
caught him and brought him back well now he's just implicated himself and he's he's gone
00:26:33
from having witness to rape and murder to now being involved in the actual killing well one he's not doing
00:26:41
anything to stop these attacks happening but then when the one boy goes to get away if it wasn't for him bringing him
00:26:49
back then that boy would have lived exactly based on Jesse's story and not only that maybe whatever was going on
00:26:56
would have stopped because some some Got Away anyway he he's now implicated himself uh the police want to know if
00:27:05
Jason or Damien went down on any of the boys now why do they want to know this well we went through some of the autopsy
00:27:13
and we we're not going to go through it in its entirety because it's it's just too much to take it's you can find it if
00:27:20
you really want to read it uh but one thing that I will point out for you is that there were abrasions there were
00:27:26
damages to uh Stevie Branch's penis uh he had had some bruising on it and they wanted to know if somebody had gone down
00:27:34
on any of the boys because this was something they would have expected something had to happened for him for
00:27:40
those bruises to occur yeah and I mean those bruises would also just be with any sexual
00:27:47
abuse okay so let's talk about something that he had said early in the get-go he
00:27:52
said I'd seen Damian hit this one boy and bruise him up real bad okay well I do believe I do believe that this crime
00:28:02
took a certain amount of time to to occur the way that the things that were done to these boys and the way that they
00:28:09
were left in the woods I believe that it would have taken a certain amount of time for this to occur what I find
00:28:16
strange is here and I'm I'm obviously no doctor Captain I'm just hanging out in the garage with you no you're not a
00:28:22
doctor but to say that he bruised him up real bad I you usually don't punch somebody or hit somebody and they bruise
00:28:29
instantly I I I don't know Jesse's definition of bruise but it seem my definition of bruise is usually
00:28:35
something you see well after the fact yeah but I I don't know I think if you hit somebody I mean they they're going
00:28:41
to get splotchy you know red splotches and stuff the other thing they wanted to know who had a knife Jesse did you have
00:28:49
a knife no nope who had a knife did Damien have a knife nope Jason had a knife yes he did he had SE several
00:28:57
knives uh not not there but he has several knives he has several knives but what knife did he have with them at the
00:29:03
crime scene it's a pull out lock blade so it's it's the kind of Blade that you when you pull it out that it'll lock
00:29:10
into place well Jesse's asked uh you know to describe the knife and he yes he says it's a lock blade and he says it's
00:29:17
about 6 in it's a it's a blade that's about 6 in and what kind of blade is it well the problem with this is he says
00:29:27
it's a regular blade blade right now again I don't know Jess's definition of bruising I don't know his definition of
00:29:33
a regular blade but when I hear somebody say regular blade I'm thinking of a flat
00:29:39
single-edged lock knife the problem with that is they firmly believe that the injuries that were that were suffered by
00:29:50
Christopher buers right when they cut off the scrotum they believed that it was a serrated knife that would have
00:29:58
caused that wound that would have removed that portion of the body he never describes a serrated knife it's a
00:30:06
normal [Music] knife the evidence keeps pouring in at this point the facts are undeniable it's
00:30:23
an open and shut case Monopoly go is the most fun you can have in a mobile game everyone is still talking about Monopoly
00:30:31
go for a good reason it is an absolute hit millions of people pass go every day because this game is always bringing
00:30:40
something new to the table like countless crazy tournaments you can join with your friends as partners or teams
00:30:47
or timed events offering bonuses like massive multipliers or rent frenzies to help you get huge rewards and there's so
00:30:56
many Rewards to discover rare stickers you can trade with friends to complete albums delightful emojis to taunt people
00:31:04
with when you raid their riches unique playing pieces and so much more the verdict is in with Monopoly go there's
00:31:12
something new to discover every time you play so don't miss out go download it now free on the App Store and Google
00:31:21
play do you want to set your child up for success of course you do that's why you need to check out ISL learning today
00:31:30
ISL learning is an online learning program for kids covering math language arts science and social studies ISL is
00:31:39
designed to help them really understand and master topics in a fun way it's powered by Advanced algorithms ISL gives
00:31:48
the right help to each kid no matter the age or personality there's one site for
00:31:53
all kids in your home prek to 12th grade kids could use it at at home on their computer or on an app on your phone or a
00:32:01
tablet no more grading those worksheets ISL grades everything for you one in four students in the US are learning
00:32:09
withl ISL is used in 95 of the top 100 school districts in the US I love recommending ISL learning kids can learn
00:32:20
at home or on the Go and all my friends and family that are using it absolutely love it cuz it's so easy to set up and
00:32:30
so easy to use and even the kids that I've recommended it to their parents have told me hey Captain thank you I was
00:32:37
having problems in math and my parents couldn't help me butl could do you want to keep your kids back on track or do
00:32:45
you just want to get your kids ahead do so with ISL learning make an impact on your child's learning getl now and True
00:32:54
Crime garage listeners get an exclusive 20% % offl membership when you sign up today atl.com
00:33:04
garage visit xl.com garage to get the most effective learning program out there at the best price check out xl.com
00:33:15
garage today warmer sunnier days are calling fuel up for them with factors no prep No
00:33:22
Mess meals meet your Wellness goals in time for summer thanks to the menu of Chef crafted meal with options like
00:33:29
calorie smart Protein Plus and keto factors fresh never frozen meals are dietitian approved and ready to eat in
00:33:36
Just 2 minutes so no matter how busy you are you'll always have time to enjoy nutritious great tasting meals with 35
00:33:45
different meals and more than 60 add-ons to choose from every week you'll always
00:33:50
have new flavors to explore crush your Wellness goals this may with dietitian approved meals and ingredients that you
00:33:58
can trust make your day Delicious from breakfast to dessert stay fueled with easy nutritious options treat yourself
00:34:07
to restaurant quality meals that feature premium ingredients like filet Manan shrimp and black and salmon I am new to
00:34:15
factor and I have been loving every minute of it I have a problem and it's called lunch some days I need a pack of
00:34:23
lunch and some days I work from home whether I'm at home or whether I'm on the go factor is fueling my lunch from
00:34:30
now on head to factor meals.com truecrimegarage 50 and use code True Crime garage 50 to get 50% off your
00:34:39
first box plus 20% off your next month that's code truecrimegarage 50 at factor meals.com
00:34:49
truecrimegarage to get 50% off your first box plus 20% off your next month while your subscription is
00:35:01
[Music] active they Probe on they want to know were were any of the boys dead when you
00:35:13
left cuz he remember he keeps saying that he left now the first couple times no all the boys were still alive when he
00:35:19
left and eventually they get him to the point where he says that yes uh the buyer's boy you know he basic they have
00:35:26
three pictures they have a picture of each boy out on the table and a lot of times he doesn't refer to the boys by
00:35:33
names he'll just point at one of the pictures and say that boy right um and he points at a picture and he says that
00:35:39
boy he was dead they killed him before I left well the investigators might have got tired of him saying the wrong names
00:35:46
and so that might have just been like you just need to point from now on because you calling them Meyers and
00:35:51
stuff doesn't work for what we need you for well and you know what's interesting
00:35:55
to me was at one point ear early in the confession he calls he refers to the buyer boy as Moore which the strange
00:36:04
thing about that was the police and the medical examiner early in the investigation had confused those two
00:36:11
boys as well I always found that strange it doesn't mean anything but I always found it odd that that two of the boys
00:36:17
were confused by multiple people anyway he says that yes the buyer's boy was killed before he had left and they asked
00:36:23
how how he was killed well he they choked him they choked him with the hands and then they choked him with a
00:36:29
stick a little stick yeah and then they threw him into the water and he I believe he says that he
00:36:36
saw him still twitching or his feet still kicking yeah one of them was kicking once he was thrown into the
00:36:42
water and he's referring to the buyer's boy there's a couple problems with that well we don't really know who he's
00:36:46
referring to yeah we do because he says that one right there and gell says you're talking about the buyer's boy I
00:36:51
know but what I'm saying is for for most of the uh interrogation he's switching them up so
00:36:58
okay but for this instance he's talking about he's he's pointing to Christopher buyers now the reason why this is
00:37:05
important is because out of all the out of the three victims when you refer to the autopsy report there was a lot of
00:37:12
damage done to all three of these boys there was more damage done to Christopher buers than anybody else but
00:37:19
one of the few body parts that was not damaged on Christopher buers was his neck there was no indication of having
00:37:26
been choked Strang l or choked with a stick on his neck right and furthermore he didn't drown he was the only boy out
00:37:34
of the three that didn't have water in his lungs he wasad assume that he had died before he put put in the water he
00:37:41
was dead before he was put in the water but according to Jesse he's kicking he was kicking he was still kicking he
00:37:47
would have been exactly he would have been alive and he probably would have inhaled some water at that point yeah
00:37:52
according to the autopsy report Christopher buers died from multiple injuries and had bled out which uh makes
00:37:59
me really feel bad about my gut instincts when I think about what my gut was telling me when I first heard the uh
00:38:07
first interview with them now some things that don't work out well for Jesse in my opinion is they're he he's
00:38:13
asked how did they keep the boys quiet and he says well they they held their hands over their mouths and then at some
00:38:19
point he says that they stuffed their shirts into their mouths well this is this is interesting to me because it's
00:38:26
is not something that I've heard anywhere else um and it wasn't a question that they were specifically
00:38:32
asking him you know did you put a shirt in their mouth right you know there were
00:38:36
other points in these in this confession where he's being led clearly being led but once in a while he's offering up
00:38:42
information without having been led to this answer and this is one of the do we have any proof that they had shirts on
00:38:49
their it could be something he saw in a movie no you're exactly right but what I'm getting at is the people that point
00:38:56
out over and over again that the West Memphis 3 are innocent they will constantly say that oh he was being led
00:39:01
on every single question he wasn't no some of the stuff he was coming up with on his own whether he had seen it or
00:39:06
whether he was making it up at that point now the other problem that I have with his confession that doesn't look
00:39:12
good for Jesse is that he does admit that only one of the boys uh had their penis removed that that were was
00:39:22
castrated but this is also a month afterwards and how many rumors are happening in that town the reason why I
00:39:28
have a problem with that is as we reported in in our first episode what was reported in the newspaper the day
00:39:35
after the boys were found doesn't matter what's reported I understand but what I'm saying is the the what's reported in
00:39:41
that newspaper is what starts off everybody's General understanding of what the police found and that
00:39:48
understanding is that all three boys were sexually mutilated that's what was stated in the newspaper that doesn't
00:39:54
mean that they didn't hear other rumors at month later but what I'm getting at is that's one of the things that you
00:40:01
need to look at that's one of the things that the police were holding close to themselves they they were they were
00:40:06
ashamed that that information had gotten out but they knew that that when they find the right person the right person
00:40:14
would know that only one of them was cast I mean there's yeah one's castrated but one there is abuse to the one of the
00:40:22
kids genitals but keep in mind 4 hours earlier Jesse Miss Kelly knew nothing about this crime so for him to come up
00:40:31
with with something like this and be spot on he goes straight from knowing nothing to knowing something that maybe
00:40:39
only the Poli doesn't mean he doesn't know anything he just answered that he didn't know any he didn't know anything
00:40:45
at the time that doesn't mean he doesn't know something answered as I I get that
00:40:51
what I'm getting at is that this is a problem for Jesse mkelly wouldn't you agree that he knows he knows he's
00:40:57
reporting a fact that is he's reporting something to the police that is fact that the general public may not have
00:41:05
known as fact after this confession is there anything else that you want to touch on in the confession captain no
00:41:12
okay so after the confession the other boys are promptly arrested and now charges are being filed
00:41:20
against all three of them mhm and we're not going to go through all the details of the arrest and how this all went down
00:41:26
but you can imagine what's going on and and most of you out there have seen the Paradise Lost movies or the west of
00:41:31
Memphis movies and and this doesn't go down like you know normal situations they're not giving people the right to
00:41:39
call home right away uh Jason Baldwin's parents don't even know where he's at for a while uh so it's kind of going
00:41:46
down a little funny they're arrested at night and according to Arkansas law they're not really supposed to issue a
00:41:54
warrant for arrest for a nighttime process and that has to that has to have special circumstances and those
00:42:03
circumstances would be that you you would think that the the perpetrators would flee that you would think that
00:42:09
they would try to destroy evidence or that they could uh conspire together to to form a story or you know create a
00:42:17
story of innocence and you don't think this gives them enough reason to arrest them at night no and a reason why is
00:42:24
this was a month later if you're worried about evidence being destroyed well it's
00:42:29
been a month if you're worried about them coming up with a good story doesn't matter though cuz you know within that
00:42:34
last month if you're Damen Eckles and you're Jason Baldwin your buddy that was with you uh he's not being put into
00:42:42
question you don't think it would get around town oh you know they they got uh Jesse misskelly in there and they're
00:42:48
questioning him and if you if you heard that and and you were involved in this wouldn't that give you some time to
00:42:54
start getting rid of stuff one of the boys was a uh the other the other 18-year-old the
00:43:00
adult never had a driver's license or Jas Baldwin was 16 yeah Miss Kelly was 17 right but there's not probable cause
00:43:08
to believe that the two of them have the ability to flee and you and furthermore any any general intelligence
00:43:16
would tell you that they've already had the opportunity to destroy evidence and they've already had the opportunity to
00:43:21
conspire to come up with a good story well I get that but also if these boys were involved they brutally murdered
00:43:30
three kids so the Public's at risk I'm not saying that it shouldn't have happened I'm just saying that it's not
00:43:37
normal it's abnormal for them to issue a warrant for arrest for an evening for the for the nighttime I agree with that
00:43:44
I'm just saying that if if I'm the cops and I find out through a confession or whatever that somebody murdered kids I'm
00:43:51
going to go pick them up as quick as I can yeah you have to get a judge out of bed or away from dinner that night to
00:43:58
come in and issue the warrant and then you go and you apprehend the the the one child and then the the the man uh the
00:44:08
other thing here is one thing we should point out that that goes against this this is bad for the police um they did
00:44:16
spend about 12 hours that day with Jesse Miss Kelly only 41 minutes of that time
00:44:22
ended up on tape or being recorded yeah that's not good that's not good for the police uh the the bad thing for the
00:44:29
people that believe that the West Memphis 3 are innocent would be you know a lot of people point out well they
00:44:35
interrogated him for 12 hours well that's not really the case they picked him up at 10: a.m. and by 2: p.m. he was
00:44:42
he was spitting out of confession right um I don't really love the tactics of showing the picture of the Dead boy
00:44:48
maybe that's General procedure I don't know but uh the strange voice of the boy saying I'm the only one that knows what
00:44:55
happened uh seems there's a lot of questionable things seems odd to me they were definitely a fishing well they've
00:45:02
got the boys they've got them arrested the West Memphis 3 Damen Eckles Jason Baldwin Jesse Melly now they've got to
00:45:08
try these guys right so it's decided that they're all going to be tried as adults and they're going to have two
00:45:14
separate trials which is complete [ __ ] for Jason Baldwin being 16 yeah yeah i' I've always thought actually
00:45:21
that probably Jesse and Jason could have been charged as as youths yeah well Jesse definitely just mentally yeah I
00:45:30
mean anybody that that would have taken some time or if they would have evaluated him further I mean that would
00:45:35
be the logical thing to do what they decide to do they're going to um try Jesse Miss Kelly by himself because um
00:45:43
there there's a certain law and I don't know which it is but unless he's willing
00:45:46
to implicate the other two that he's confessing about then he has to be tried separately so first of all they have
00:45:54
Jesse's trial okay now and this is covered in Paradise Lost one yeah they do they spend a lot of time covering his
00:46:03
case um and and you can see him it's strange you know you see him he doesn't ever really look at the jury he doesn't
00:46:10
look at the well his lawyers tell him to keep his head down so he just looks down
00:46:14
at the ground the whole time and they they later on they wanted to get a public opinion on his his you know what
00:46:21
they thought of how he carried himself in court you know because going into this he was looked at as kind of a local
00:46:27
badass is somebody as a as a boy that like to get in fights and because he wants to be a wrestler yeah he was kind
00:46:32
of a tough kid and a lot of people were shocked when he showed up the court and he's like you said he's only like 5 foot
00:46:38
tall and they see this very small kind of Meek looking person 51 or something like that yeah and and and he gets there
00:46:46
and he spends the entire trial staring at his shoes MH he doesn't look up at anybody as you said the lawyer told him
00:46:53
to do that public opinion was was kind of uh on the fence about that they while some of the people thought that it made
00:47:00
it look like he was scared and intimidated uh which made him look almost innocent um other people thought
00:47:07
that it made him look disinterested or uh you know kind of kind of disassociated with what was going on I
00:47:15
believe Jesse was scared though oh I think he definitely was scared 100% I mean he's locked away he he just wants
00:47:22
to go home to be with his family there's a lot of talk about how like he had a lot of issu
00:47:27
uh separation anxiety from his mother when he was younger so can you imagine what's going through his head now he's
00:47:33
in jail with with no family yeah and there there's some problems going on too outside of the Court his defense
00:47:40
attorney uh stum is is having problems with Jesse when he's trying to put together the case why because Jesse is
00:47:49
when his when Jesse's father is around Jesse's innocent he he he pleads that he's innocent when his father leaves
00:47:57
he's telling his attorney that he's guilty and he he continues to confess to his
00:48:03
attorney what ends up occurring we're going to make this shorter than it than it should be but what ends up occurring
00:48:09
is that the attorney figures out that that Jesse doesn't understand that the defense attorney works for Jesse right
00:48:16
that that he's trying to help him out exactly he figures out that Jesse thinks that the attorney's just another
00:48:22
detective that he's a cop and so he's treating in all fairness he kind of looks like a cop I mean had the beard
00:48:28
and the he exactly he look he looks similar to most of the detectives that Jesse probably spoke with at some point
00:48:35
and I think you had told me that it was through Jesse's father that Jesse's father pointed out to to Junior that
00:48:42
that this guy works for you that he's on your side we're all on your side here and you need to tell the truth yeah well
00:48:48
I think this uh well there was a bunch of stuff going back and forth but even his mom you know was trying to tell him
00:48:55
like look these people are here to help you Jesse ends up being convicted and he's convicted and he's sentenced to
00:49:03
life in prison plus 40 years right and so after you're dead they just leave you in prison for 40 years yeah and and and
00:49:11
then they figure it out 40 years from now yeah but the reason for that I hate to be that that's my cellmate do you
00:49:18
know the reason for that sentence no so he received one he received the life off
00:49:24
for the one murder and then 20 for each yeah because one of the boys he said he caught and brought back and that was
00:49:32
Michael Moore so he received a life sentence for the death of Michael Moore plus 20 years for Stevie Branch plus 20
00:49:39
years for Christopher buers now January of 1994 there is a knife that is presented
00:49:47
to the uh police it's not presented it's uh it's mailed to the police I believe they fedexed it to them h so what knife
00:49:57
is this this is the knife that John Mark buers gave to some of the people I thought you were talking about a
00:50:02
different knife yeah there's lots of knives in this case um and actually I think that when we went through the
00:50:08
evidence that was submitted throughout the time of this investigation it was like what 18 or 19 knives were submitted
00:50:13
as evidence at some point or looked at sent to the crime lab for analysis and one of those knives was a knife that was
00:50:20
given to the people that were recording and videotaping the one of the paradise LW ceran yeah and it was around
00:50:28
Christmas time and John Mark buers had given had gifted them a knife and at some point the person that received the
00:50:34
knife thought that it looked to have been used that maybe there was something on it and this item Could Be Blood well
00:50:40
they decide the good people at HBO decide that they should turn the knife into the police department the police
00:50:46
department then in turn gives it to the crime lab and they are able to determine this is quite strange they're
00:50:54
able to determine that the blood there is blood on the knife and that the blood matches that of Christopher buers well
00:51:03
this is a problem because it's found in the possession of John Mark buers they would go on to ask John Mark buyers
00:51:09
about this knife and how he had received it and what he had done with the knife and would there be any reason why well
00:51:15
it matches but it doesn't match like exactly right it's just the type it's the same type right but for the purpose
00:51:22
of their questioning it matches Christopher buers okay so they're going to interrogate and and interview John
00:51:29
Mark buers about the knife they want to know why that the boy's blood would be on the knife he doesn't know he doesn't
00:51:35
know that there there's no reason why there should be any blood at all they don't bluntly ask him about Christopher
00:51:40
buers he he's he goes on to say that maybe he was using it to cut deer meat or maybe he had used it to cut himself
00:51:47
well using it to cut himself on accident while he was cutting the deer meat might
00:51:51
have saved him a bit because they would later find out and later determine that the blood
00:51:57
that was on that knife also matched his and while this is curious because they're not they're not father and son
00:52:06
biologically that we know of exactly not reported that way exactly but but they he did started seeing her when she's
00:52:13
pregnant so and they have so they end up having similar similar blood now we should be we should point out here that
00:52:20
you're exactly right captain that all that they did is what what is referred to as an alpha test on that which which
00:52:26
really breaks it down they didn't have much DNA testing at the time and all that does is break it down and say that
00:52:33
you can eliminate this person or that person you can't eliminate these other people mhm and so I'm sure that it
00:52:40
probably matches more than just John Mark and Christopher buyers but this was something that they were looking into uh
00:52:47
during the course of putting together the case against Damian and Jason and this is interesting too because there
00:52:55
was another knife that was found before that and that was the knife that was found in the water in the Ponder or lake
00:53:03
behind Jason Baldwin's trailer mhm now this was not a lock knife was it captain no it a called a survival knife so the
00:53:12
blade doesn't bend it just handle and blade yeah it looks like Rambo's knife right yeah like a and this this would be
00:53:19
like a seven or 8 inch blade this is a big Blade the problem with a few of these things too is one one with the
00:53:26
6-in blade that is discussed in Jesse Miss Kelly's confession and this big giant Rambo knife that's found in the
00:53:33
Water behind Jason Baldwin's trailer these are giant knives these are Big knives okay the injuries that were
00:53:40
miniature swords the injuries that were stained to by these boys some of some of
00:53:45
what could be looked at as potential stab wounds uhuh none of them none none of them penetrated the boys more than 2
00:53:52
in so that's a bit of an issue you got all these big giant knives that we're testing now it's not to say that you
00:53:58
couldn't just pick at somebody or or or or lightly go at it but it's improbable in my mind before we can get to the
00:54:07
trial of Damian and Jason there is another confession by Jesse after he's convicted and he's driven by the
00:54:14
deputies to the prison he will offer another confession to these deputies I think at this point he just likes uh the
00:54:22
attention the deputies would go on to uh report what he says to them and I'm not
00:54:27
going to go through the whole uh confession but there are some changes to his story he says that he met up with
00:54:33
Damen and Jason after he got off work um and that things went down a little bit different that they were hanging out in
00:54:39
the woods in the water they had seen the boys Damen called the boys over and Jesse and Jason were hiding and after
00:54:47
Damen grabbed one of the boys the boys started attacking Daman and that's when Jesse and Jason started beating the boys
00:54:54
with sticks most of his confession after that would be about the same he would tell the deputies this again though we
00:55:01
got to point out is according to the deputies mhm uh he would tell the deputies that he lied to the police in
00:55:07
his original confession about the times because he wanted to see if he could trick the police and he also lied about
00:55:14
the rope and he knew that it was shoelaces that had tied the boys but this was recorded I mean so we could go
00:55:22
back and listen to it this this confession was given on the ride from the courthouse to the prison right but
00:55:29
then there was another confession that they they recorded when they were trying to make the deal yes that that would be
00:55:35
a third confession that was given to uh the prosecuting attorneys as well as his
00:55:40
defense attorney Jesse would lat later state that he only gave this confession to the deputies that were driving him to
00:55:47
prison because that they promised him that they would drive his girlfriend to see him in prison if he told them what
00:55:55
really had happened and they had also told him that uh if he didn't if he didn't confess and he didn't testify
00:56:02
against those other boys that what's going to happen is while he's locked away in prison that Damian and Jason was
00:56:08
going to get to his girlfriend uh so regardless he offers up this confession to the deputies and we don't know if it
00:56:16
actually happened or if the deputies made it up uh but as a captain had pointed out there was another confession
00:56:22
that was given to uh the prosecutors as well as the defense attorney and during that confession there is one thing that
00:56:28
comes to light that we haven't heard so far is that he explains that he had been
00:56:33
drinking that day yeah and he was drinking whiskey a couple themes come up Bo he's drinking whiskey boys are
00:56:40
drinking beer and that he also mentions now instead of just running and catching
00:56:46
the kid that he actually actually takes part and attacking the kid yeah that he's be he's
00:56:52
helping to beat up some of the boys and he's even holding some of the boys while
00:56:56
they're being hit by the by uh Daman and Jason uh and he would also say that back
00:57:01
to the whiskey though he would tell the tell them that he was drinking uh Evan Williams I believe was the name of the
00:57:08
brand of whiskey now uh I'm just going to stop you right here cuz if you can find this recording this is very hard to
00:57:16
listen to Back to the whiskey that J Jesse was drinking he says he was drinking that day he says the brand of
00:57:23
whiskey was Evan Williams and now Vicki remember Vicky Hutchinson she would go on to say that she had gave that bottle
00:57:31
to Jesse because he had helped her with something to pay him back and he says that after he left the scene of the
00:57:38
crime that he was walking home and that he had thrown the bottle at an overpass or near an overpass and had broken this
00:57:47
on the side of the U the overpass there and stum his defense attorney refused to
00:57:54
believe that Jesse was guilty and the prosecutors and the investigators were trying to convince the defense attorney
00:58:02
that he was in fact guilty right and so what they did was they went with stum to
00:58:08
go find this broken bottle and they were able to recover at that very overpass that Jesse had mentioned they were able
00:58:15
to recover the neck of a Evan Williams whiskey bottle weird that is weird the big problem with that is remember we had
00:58:23
said earlier that that in that interstate is one one of the most traveled freeways in the United States
00:58:29
and they find this bottleneck about a year after after the crime had taken place a year after the time that he said
00:58:38
he had thrown it now Evan Williams is not a terribly uncommon bottle of whiskey mhm I mean it's well known and
00:58:45
it's probably better known in that area we should try to drink more Whiskey on the
00:58:50
show it' be fun more we'd have a lot of fun on those episodes well we've got to talk about the second trial and the big
00:58:57
thing that comes out in the second trial just beforehand I believe ofense the day
00:59:02
before Jesse says I'm not going to testify against Damian and Jason right now the there we got to be clear here
00:59:10
because Jesse was offered a deal he was going to be offered a reduced sentence of 40 years they're going to get away uh
00:59:18
a life in prison plus 40 years just down to 40 years so and he was only and if you look at par lost the prosecution
00:59:27
states to the family if he doesn't testify we don't have a case that's what they
00:59:34
say and a lot of people would point out well let's think real quick because I I believe Jesse would have been 18 by this
00:59:41
time so he would have been 58 after he served 40 years he would probably get out and be alive or he could you know
00:59:48
after good behavior or whatever might get even more reduced after that point but regardless he doesn't take the deal
00:59:55
a lot of people would point out that this points towards their innocence and I would point out that no this is
01:00:00
probably just a a tactic of legality that his his defense attorney is going to tell the him this is what I would
01:00:07
tell my client look for you to be guilty uh if if they have nothing on Daman or Jason other than your confession then
01:00:16
they can't convict those two guys and as soon as those two guys get off then guess what we're putting into the appeal
01:00:23
process your case and if you go and testify against them it's going to make it much harder for us to appeal your
01:00:30
case later right so he's not really he's not really to me it doesn't present innocence by not testifying against
01:00:39
those guys but I will go further to say that it also does not present that he's guilty either right let's talk about the
01:00:46
evidence that they do have right Captain let's we don't we no longer have this confession and this is what they've
01:00:52
based the whole arrest off of when they went and picked up Daman and Jason so we
01:00:58
have no confession now so what evidence do we have well let's point at Daman first okay so there are some people that
01:01:06
say that they had heard or overheard him saying that he was involved in the case
01:01:12
he would come out many many years later and kind of explain this and one thing I
01:01:17
want to point out I think he's kind of spoton with his explanation of this and I'll tell you why afterwards but the
01:01:22
general story is is that he was at a softball game he was seen at a softball game and he had made reference that he
01:01:29
had either knew what had happened to the boys or he had been involved in killing
01:01:35
the boys right and the reason that he says that this came about was when he went to the softball game people started
01:01:42
kind of pointing at him and looking at him and he could hear them talking about oh there he is that's the guy that
01:01:48
that's the weirdo that killed those kids that's the that he's a Satanist and he's
01:01:52
got an Ault and he and his Ault his cult killed those boys right but Jason Baldwin kind of talks about this that
01:01:59
you know even though that Daman was different and most people saw him as different that it would kind of became a
01:02:05
joke like Daman liked to pack his lunch so which is not a weird thing he just didn't like school lunch so then all the
01:02:14
boys or girls would say oh what you got in your lunch a cat and then Daman would
01:02:19
just go meow you just go along with it but it wasn't like he was being mean or rude or they were even being that rude
01:02:25
it was just kind of of a joke like this guy is just a little different but we seem to like him well and he liked being
01:02:31
strange and he liked poking fun at people and if you thought one thing of him he was happy to let you think that
01:02:37
MH and why why do I believe his explanation this goes back to that Polaroid picture that was taken of him
01:02:44
that police were going around and they were showing this to people and asking if they knew if he was in a cult or if
01:02:50
he was a Satanist or if he was involved in the murder of these boys right you show that enough people now you're
01:02:56
you're like a celebrity in your small little town yeah you're you're you're putting a face and a name to the crime
01:03:02
and people know nothing about this crime and at some point they start talking amongst themselves well he must be
01:03:07
involved because the police showed me a picture and said his name so I absolutely believe that the people at
01:03:14
the softball game said that about him and I bet you he retaliated with something that he probably shouldn't
01:03:19
have said you know they gave him just enough rope and he hung himself well so what other evidence do we have regarding
01:03:26
Daman well there was the knife that was found in uh the lak shore trailer park uh ponded or or L yeah but that knife
01:03:35
was thrown there a year before the murders even took place that that's what they would end up figuring out but they
01:03:41
would still present this as potential evidence in the case now again I don't believe there's no reason to believe
01:03:49
that that knife was involved in this case and furthermore the according to Jesse Miss Kelly's every single one of
01:03:56
his confessions the knife was Jason's it belonged to Jason Jason brought the knife Jason was the one that used the
01:04:02
knife most of the time during the murders however nobody at no point had ever said that that knife that Jesse
01:04:10
described did not match the one that was found in the water right now who what did it match it matched a knife it
01:04:17
matched Rambo's knife and it also matched a knife that several people had pointed out that Damian was known to
01:04:23
have possessed or carried at one point right and based on Jesse's confession Damien didn't use a knife but again it
01:04:31
doesn't matter if I have a Rambo knife or not because that's not the knife that was used in the confession and it was
01:04:36
probably not the knife that was used in the crime at all they they do a lot of hearsay stuff I mean when they have him
01:04:43
read these quotes from one of his journals or one of his folders and he's quoting like he's writing down quotes
01:04:50
from William Shakespeare and Metallica and what's so wrong about that like what that's that's not evidence of anything I
01:04:58
wrote down plenty of Metallica quotes when I was in high school well I don't think you call them quotes though is
01:05:03
they're lyrics but but anyways the point is that you know that's something that you know Damien seems like a guy that's
01:05:11
constantly searching for knowledge so I think it started way back then even though he was a shitty student but I
01:05:19
they use that against him in this trial but it's not evidence it's just speculation or hearsay there were was
01:05:25
eyewitness testimony against Daman somebody had seen Damian near the scene of the crime on May 5th now who was that
01:05:34
that was his girlfriend that was her aunt that had seen him the problem with this eyewitness testimony was that she
01:05:42
never says that she sees Daman with Jason or with Jesse M she sees Damian with her niece Domin well that's a
01:05:52
little strange because at no point in Jesse Miss Kelly's confession is Domin ever present so is this
01:05:58
evidence or is this just something that that might point to him being innocent that of mistaken identity I believe that
01:06:05
the aunt would be able to easily identify the two the two kids you know uh domon and and Damian but did she just
01:06:15
get the the wrong day you know did she just get yeah it could have been it could have been any day what was what
01:06:21
was Damian's uh Alibi for that night he was well he there's a bunch of different
01:06:28
versions but the I think the one that they settle on is that he was talking to some girls on the phone yeah there's a
01:06:34
few things to back up his Alibi for that evening he was with Jason and they had gone to Jason's uncle's house to cut the
01:06:43
grass yeah well this is confirmed by Jason it's also confirmed by Jason's Uncle now this would have taken place
01:06:50
well before the boys had disappeared though because Damien had said that at some point either his father or his
01:06:56
mother had come and picked them up and taken him home on the way home they stopped and they completed several
01:07:02
errands before they got home he says that he believes that he was picked up probably about 5:30 from Jason's uncle's
01:07:09
house now one thing that kind of goes along with his story though is remember they're running errands well one of the
01:07:16
errands is it Damien had been to several Mental Hospitals he he and he was being
01:07:21
treated for depression right so he had a prescription that needed to be picked up
01:07:26
now we [Music] can't we can't say with certainty that Damen was the person that picked up that
01:07:32
prescription however the pharmacy did provide proof that that prescription was picked up that evening that's close
01:07:40
enough and and Daman had said that and that they had stopped on the way home to pick up this prescription this was one
01:07:46
of the errands that they were running and this was this also goes with his mother's story and his father's story as
01:07:54
well yeah it's also kind of goes with Jason's Story as well too yep and you're exactly right once Damien got home he
01:08:00
said he spent the evening at home on the phone with two girls from Memphis Tennessee player player well and the
01:08:09
girls from Memphis Tennessee would say yes we spoke to Daman that evening what's another thing against Damian well
01:08:16
there were some fibers that were found at the crime scene there was a red fiber and there was a green fiber now police
01:08:22
would be able to they remember they searched all of these suspects homes and trailers and during the search they were
01:08:29
able to come up with a fiber that matched the green fiber that was found at the crime scene they found this fiber
01:08:35
in Damian's trailer right however there is a side note there it it it was I don't know what the fiber was from they
01:08:44
don't specifically list what the fiber was from however it was mentioned that this would not be an article of clothing
01:08:51
that would have been worn by Damian that this had come from some kind of green green shirt what I'm getting at is it's
01:08:58
it may not have been a man's shirt it may not have been a shirt that would have fit him at the time he was waiting
01:09:03
on a child to be born maybe it was a piece of child's clothing um so for whatever reason that they don't
01:09:10
specifically say where that fiber came from now they do say the fiber match however the defense would point out that
01:09:17
you could walk into any Wallmart and find a green fiber that would match that fiber that was found or possible you
01:09:25
could walk into any of the victim's homes and probably find a fiber that would match that well that leads us to
01:09:32
the red fiber right so there was a red fiber that was found and this they when they searched Jason Baldwin's trailer
01:09:40
mhm they found a red fiber that matched that fiber right again this was from an article of clothing that would probably
01:09:47
not have been worn by Jason Baldwin do you know what they found that red fiber from it was a red woman's bathrobe it
01:09:55
was his mother's bathrobe so unless he wore the W his mom's bathrobe down to and it could
01:10:01
transfer right right these things can transfer you're exactly right Captain however I mean it's not super likely and
01:10:09
again this red fiber was again another fiber that you could find anything in Walmart yeah or go to the three victim's
01:10:17
homes and try to find that same fiber see I'd I'd have more weight on that if they could tell me oh yeah we went to
01:10:23
the victim's houses and we couldn't find a match to this the thing about Jason Baldwin is other than Jesse
01:10:32
melly's uh confession in that red fiber they had nothing linking Jason Baldwin to this crime right and that's
01:10:40
why they tried him together they tried them together and and the thing is I think bu by association if you would
01:10:46
have tried Jason Baldwin by himself without that confession I don't know how you would get a guilty I don't know how
01:10:52
you get a guilty verdict no well I don't know they got a guilty verdict anyways other than what came out later do you
01:10:59
want to talk about that of course but real quick they are both convicted they are both found guilty and Damen Eckles
01:11:07
receives the death penalty and Jason Baldwin receives life imprisonment after the trial the movies start to come out
01:11:14
we have documentaries coming out we talked about the Paradise Lost movies we talked about the west of Memphis
01:11:20
documentary there's these books coming out well but after the paradise loss documentaries come out it kind of it
01:11:28
goes from a Witch Hunt to hey maybe these guys are not guilty of this crime and a bunch of celebrities start getting
01:11:36
involved people like Johnny Depp Eddie veter the Dixie Chicks and they start raising money for their defense now it's
01:11:43
reported and here's what I hate about this report 10 to 20 million that's a big difference to me so either way it
01:11:52
was a lot of money that was raised am I crazy or does Eddie veter keep popping up in all of our like every other case
01:11:57
we cover he's he's involed eventually Eddie will be on our show I mean he was in the Brian Schaefer case and now he's
01:12:03
in this one yeah he's maybe he's just a true crime fan Eddie thanks for listening thanks for listening um yeah I
01:12:11
believe Marilyn Manson was involved too and you also had uh who was the Black Flag guy I don't know if uh Henry
01:12:17
Rollins I don't know if Marilyn Manson was involved I think there was some pictures and stuff taken afterwards once
01:12:24
they got out and then people started saying how much he was involved I don't know how much he was involved well Damen
01:12:28
Eckles said that uh he was that that Manson was a supporter uh financially as well as emotionally and whatever I
01:12:36
didn't hear that uh but but the reason being was that you know most people but if he said it I agree with him well in
01:12:41
in the public eye Marilyn Manson's not a uh welcomed figure amongst uh most people especially the religious groups
01:12:49
yeah I like him though and he's welcome in the garage yeah but the thing is Damen Eckles is trying to prove that
01:12:54
he's not a because he was basic he was basically proven guilty because it was speculated that he was into Satan and he
01:13:02
was Marilyn thanks for the donation but uh I can't talk so befriending somebody like Marilyn Manson and bringing him to
01:13:09
the Forefront then it looks a little like maybe you are a Satanist not saying that Marilyn Manson is but but it was
01:13:15
agreed upon and I think it might have even been Marilyn Manson's idea was that how about I support you from behind the
01:13:22
scenes because me being involved might might look bad for you yeah yeah totally makes a lot of sense so these guys get
01:13:28
involved Natalie Ms was involved I said Dixie Chicks did you um I included all of them it might have just been her but
01:13:36
so they get involved in this money is being raised and what they're trying to do and this is good because they're
01:13:40
looking for evidence to point to the fact that they're innocent they're also looking for you know little loopholes in
01:13:48
the system they're they're looking for everything but they're also hiring investigators to start questioning
01:13:54
people now in Paradise loss like we said they go after buyers and then if you watch
01:14:00
west of Memphis they go after Hobs the problem with both of these individuals is there's not a lot of evidence that
01:14:08
links either one of these two there is a ton of speculation there is a ton of character uh I don't want to call it
01:14:17
character assassination because I think some of these people are just weird people but it's stuff that attacks their
01:14:22
character just like they did with Damian which is not real evidence you're exactly right exactly
01:14:30
what they did to Damen and Jason and Jesse uh I mean other than the confession of Jesse but but what
01:14:36
happened to Jesse uh Jason and Damian I'm sorry is exactly what happened to Mark buers and then Terry Hobbs and
01:14:43
first of all what what did they have against Mark buers okay they point out that that they he has times of the
01:14:50
evening that he's unaccounted for well he talked to the police officer so much that night I mean he was around police
01:14:57
officers a lot he had a lot of communication with police officers he's asking police officers what should I do
01:15:04
cuz I don't know what to do in this point not only is he around police officers but we just went through his
01:15:10
timeline there's not enough time for him to have committed this crime and to hide
01:15:14
the bodies the way that they were hid they he was around other people almost that entire evening yeah he might have
01:15:21
had 10 minutes here or 5 minutes there by himself but that's not the amount time that it would have taken to conceal
01:15:26
these bodies now they go after him because of a few different things well there's a bite mark on Stevie Branch's
01:15:32
face they think it might be a bite mark it originally came out as a belt like Buckle Mark they thought it was a belt
01:15:40
buckle Mark and when I read the autopsy and from from the testimony of the medical examiner's office and both of
01:15:47
the trials uhhuh there was more than just that there there was not only a belt mark on one of the kids or what
01:15:53
appeared what could have been a belt mark on one of the kids but there was also definitely a bite or could be a
01:15:59
bite on Stevie Branch's face but they actually believe that there was more than one bite on his face there was
01:16:05
always this one bite that was talked about there was believed that there was multiple there was multiple attacks to
01:16:11
the face and several of them looked like they could have been bites that's crazy
01:16:15
now one thing that made him buyers look guilty was he had had his teeth removed or he had lost his teeth right and we're
01:16:21
we're uncertain about how he lost his teeth or why he did didn't have teeth or whatever people claim that because he
01:16:27
replaced his teeth that that was to hide his guilt well then also the bite mark there is a bunch of stuff online um
01:16:35
Terry Hobbs has partials he had partials at the time so partials are where they like make kind of Dentures but they
01:16:42
connect to other teeth and if you look at the imprint that it matches Hobs now I've looked at them it looks pretty
01:16:51
convincing the other problem is is we have to bring into the snap Happ Turtle thing there was marks on the ears nose
01:16:59
mouth possibly face and those might be consistent with uh postmortem bites by the snapping turtles now I should point
01:17:08
out here though that I don't think that regardless if this was uh injuries that were postmortem by snapping turtles or
01:17:15
if they were marks or bite marks or Damage Done to the face or bodies of the boys while they were still alive I don't
01:17:22
really think that snapping turtles being involved points to anybody being innocent no no no uh the the only thing
01:17:30
that it might point to is the the damage that was done to Christopher buers where
01:17:36
they had said that uh you know the removement of the yeah the castration the castration would be would be
01:17:43
something that would be done in a Satanic ritual um so that would be the only thing that might link to somebody
01:17:49
being innocent people also want to point out that Mark buers had uh had moments where he was violent before the boys
01:17:58
were killed he had a he had an instance where he had attacked his first wife um and that was on police record um she
01:18:06
said that he had threatened to kill her and that he was attacking her with a stun gun with like a zapper um and that
01:18:13
was a police record interesting choice of weapons yeah and and that he had been violent after I'll take the knife I'll
01:18:21
take the stun gun well no and then his wife dies mysterious death yeah and he says that uh you know that she died in
01:18:28
bed with him and people have always wondered about that as well um I I don't find anything there I don't see anything
01:18:36
there if there was something there the police would have I think would have dove into that a little more and I don't
01:18:42
think that uh if you review his history and Melissa byer's history they're not the most healthy people and what I mean
01:18:50
by that is at one point Melissa had been on she been using like heroin or some kind of strong drug um and they were
01:18:59
both known to be on and off of pills and maybe cocaine from time to time um so they had had a history of living hard uh
01:19:09
let's say and so it doesn't surprise me that she didn't live to be super old so I mean there's definitely some weird
01:19:15
stuff with Buyers but nothing that really points to him directly no because here's the thing I I don't care if
01:19:23
somebody was you know it's it's not a good thing to ever be violent but I don't care if somebody has a record of
01:19:27
being violent in the past or in the future it it all that matters is was he violent that day was he violent was he
01:19:35
homicidal that day and the problem that I have with that is yes he's a strange bird man there's no arguing that and is
01:19:43
he weird does he did he fail a polygraph test yes did he pass a polygraph test yes did he submit everything that they
01:19:50
asked him to submit yes he submitted blood hair fingerprints they didn't find anything of his ever at the crime scene
01:19:58
and furthermore we just went through a timeline in episode 2 that does not allow a window window of time to do any
01:20:05
of these Deeds also like you said he has to be homicidal that day and so then he
01:20:11
would have to talk to police officers multiple times and to cover up that he spoke to the police more than anybody
01:20:19
else during the search for these boys and not only did he not only he was he the first to call police he had spoken
01:20:27
to several police officers when he was out searching for his boy and not only that he came home at 11 or 12:00 at
01:20:34
night and called the sheriff's department and complained that they weren't doing everything that they could
01:20:39
do to find his son and the other boys right and if you're guilty of it you don't want to go hey cops cops we need
01:20:44
more cops and furthermore he was he was when they said that they were going to investigate the families people that
01:20:51
knew the boys people that didn't know the boys and either a gang or or a cult the the one person out of all the
01:20:58
families that they investigated and talked to more than anybody else was John Mark buers he spoke to them often
01:21:05
willingly and often why he likes to talk okay so what about the people that may or may not have known the boys well this
01:21:12
would be some of the miscellaneous people that the police had spoken to Mr Bojangles yeah so we got the problem
01:21:19
with the Bojangles restaurant the so so yeah real quickly the guy goes the women's restroom he's bloody he's muddy
01:21:27
he leaves some evidence behind they collect it and then they lose the evidence they conveniently lose the
01:21:34
evidence and nothing nothing's known about this guy and unfortunately before the police before rega Meeks can arrive
01:21:42
uh this person has already wandered off according to the manager I think there's
01:21:46
something there because there's some there's there's something about the timing of that you know she arrives
01:21:52
about 8:30 to go talk to the restaurant manager which is a strange time for me because I don't know the boys are last
01:22:00
seen about 6 6:30 it's starting to get dark around that time it's a window of about two hours yeah and nobody knows
01:22:08
who this person is he's not identified and there was an africanamerican hair found at the scene yes there was and
01:22:16
that that has never been fully explained but so it's it's very interesting interesting but it's just a big question
01:22:25
mark and then again we talked about the Vans there were there were multiple sightings of these strange Vans one one
01:22:32
black van was found parked on an abandoned property that was near the woods and that was spotted that night
01:22:38
that was actually spotted by John Mark buyers and several other people that had reported it to police there was also the
01:22:45
uh strange white man that was driving the white van uh some the white man and the white van some reported a young man
01:22:51
in a white van some reported an old man in a white we got a black man and a black van well there was reported a
01:22:58
black man and a white van with a with an Illinois license play okay get it together okay but all at the end of the
01:23:07
day it's a big question mark and we wish we knew more about Mr Bojangles yeah there were also the boys the teenage
01:23:15
boys that reported seeing coming out of Robin Hood Hills by Don Moore the sister
01:23:20
of Michael Moore and that would be the one white male and two black males yeah and we don't know that that means
01:23:27
anything and uh who knows who knows what time that was the girl is she's about 10
01:23:32
years old she's not able to give an accurate time well and it could not be an accurate statement it could have been
01:23:38
three white boys or it could been three black boys were not really for sure so that's just big question mark there but
01:23:45
then there was two gentlemen that left west of Memphis like 10 days after the murders take place and then those boys
01:23:53
head out to California so they uh track those boys down yeah so the the story with those guys about 4 days after the
01:24:02
bodies were found Chris Morgan and Brian Holland they were known in the area they
01:24:07
had prior drug offenses they were kind of on the police spotlight let's say uh they were aware of these characters and
01:24:15
these guys had taken off uh and they had gone for California and they arrested them in
01:24:22
California on May 7 17th 1993 this is an Oceanside now they they picked them up because they're concerned about why
01:24:32
would they what they're going to refer to is flee the area shortly after the murders well they took off about as we
01:24:39
said 4 days after the bodies were found they're picked up on the 17th and they're given polygraph exams now they
01:24:47
are asked similar questions that we mentioned which they don't have to take these tests but they do cuz they're
01:24:53
cooperating and they're doing that um what's it called the survey the FBI survey and
01:25:01
it's it's like we had said the FBI worked with the West Memphis police came up with this questionnaire they're
01:25:06
giving them similar questions that they gave to Jesse misskelly in the in his confession and uh they they come back
01:25:12
and they say well you're lying and uh we we've seen this before right we're going
01:25:17
to interrogate you further well at some point during the interrogation uh one of the boys and I
01:25:23
say boys because these are pretty young men I mean uh they're like 18 19 years old and uh one of them had said that he
01:25:32
might have known one or several of the murdered boys because he had previously driven a a ice cream truck and he had a
01:25:39
route in the neighborhood right so he that makes sense yeah he said that he may have known one or the one or all of
01:25:45
them uh and after at least seen them yeah and after being talked to for a while they held them there for quite
01:25:52
some time and questioned them for quite some time right uh one of them had a drug and alcohol problem um and he had
01:25:59
said that at times he would even experience blackouts and memory lapses um and he couldn't account for some of
01:26:07
his time at some point this interview becomes very heated and at some point he starts he stands up on the chair and
01:26:17
he's yelling at the officers and his exact statement is this do you want me to lie do you want
01:26:25
me to lie do you want me to say that I [ __ ] killed those boys okay maybe I killed them he says something to to that
01:26:31
that's not verba but he's he's yelling that's not a confession he's right he's yelling at these officers and and to be
01:26:38
honest with you if I've read the his whole statement MH I wouldn't say that I would do the exact thing but I I would
01:26:46
probably do something very similar you know because I've always wondered when you see these people being interrogated
01:26:52
and they're being and they know they're innocent and yet these people just keep poking at him and poking at him poking
01:26:57
at him I'm not saying that I would stand up and say yeah I killed him what I'm saying is I could see myself getting
01:27:03
angry and yelling back and and getting verbal and getting hostile with these officers well this actually happened to
01:27:09
me in eighth grade so here's the story this girl somebody throws a full pop can unopen at this little girl and it hits
01:27:20
her in the head and they said I did it so they p pull me down to the police or not to the police to the principal's
01:27:27
office and he's going to town on me right he's going he's saying you did this you know you did this he
01:27:33
polygraphed you and water board you and everything yeah and I'm saying I didn't do this I didn't do this and I couldn't
01:27:38
figure out how I knew I mean one I knew I didn't throw the can but but I knew for a fact that I I didn't do this and
01:27:46
then halfway through him yelling at me I realized I wasn't even on the bus that day I missed the bus and my father had
01:27:54
to take me to school so now I'm screaming I wasn't even on the bus and he's going yes you were and I end up uh
01:28:01
standing up throwing the my chair and then slamming his door on my way out and it broke the door uhoh and then I got in
01:28:09
trouble for that I I got suspended uh like in school suspension but it's [ __ ] anyways you're you're
01:28:16
falsely accusing me of something and I proved that I was even on the bus so I shouldn't got in trouble in the first
01:28:21
place and that proves my point I've always thought that at some point I wouldn't be able to take it anymore and
01:28:25
I would just kind of start yelling at the offic if if you're ever pulled in anywhere uh you should just always ask
01:28:32
for an attorney always ask for an attorney oh well they wouldn't let me I I was asking the principal no not you
01:28:37
I'm talking about these guys in California so here's the real story this is the story that we get told right but
01:28:44
what what we're not told and what what you will find once you dive into this particular part of the case is that
01:28:50
these two guys didn't just get up and leave they received ride from friends of theirs they rodee out there with several
01:28:57
friends of theirs that had was traveling elsewhere and dropped them off along the
01:29:01
way they didn't have any intention of living out the rest of their lives in California or On the Run they planned to
01:29:08
be in California for a few weeks or maybe a month and they wanted to return back to the Memphis area right so it
01:29:14
seems like Hey we're going out that way if you want to visit your sister which that's who they were visiting it was one
01:29:20
of the guys' sisters but hey we're going out that way you want to hit a ride and
01:29:24
not only that they willingly submitted blood and urine samples as well as fingerprints and they they sub they went
01:29:32
along with the polygraph they went along with the interview they went along with
01:29:35
the questioning just like Damen eoll and Jason Baldwin the only thing here is that when they submitted this evidence
01:29:41
to what could be evidence to West Memphis Police don't tell me they lost it they didn't lose it no they didn't
01:29:47
lose it they just there seems to be no they didn't do anything with it all right so they didn't test it well good
01:29:55
job there's plenty of other miscellaneous people to that are involved in this case but that it's also
01:30:01
like we said it's it's just minutia it's just small little incidences of people that had done things in the past that
01:30:07
they question you get about a paragraph worth of notes of an interview that was conducted by by police some of them
01:30:14
submitted uh blood urine uh fingerprints some of them submitted to polygraph test uh none of that seems to
01:30:21
have gone anywhere so now we have what we we're left with Terry Hobbs he's a big question mark well we're left with
01:30:28
Terry Hobs in the west Memphis 3 that's what we're down to so what are the problems with Terry Hobbs this comes
01:30:35
about when 2007 is this comes about before the Alfred play well yeah cuz they they go after buyers first and then
01:30:44
but they start doing tests and like I said the money that was raised they have investigators on the ground and I think
01:30:51
that's where it starts coming from they finally are able to test DNA on this hair sample this hair sample is found in
01:30:59
one of the shoelaces that is binding Michael Moore tying the hand to the ankle now this is it comes back and it
01:31:08
does not what does it do it it it does eliminate Damen Eckles it doesn't match Jesse Miss Kelly and it doesn't match
01:31:17
Jason Baldwin however it is not inconsistent with that of the hair of Terry H meaning it could be his hair but
01:31:26
it's not a exact match no and there's different matches as far as DNA goes so it's just it's not a exact match it's
01:31:33
just in the ballpark and let's talk about this for a second we have what are the percentages they come out and they
01:31:40
say it's 1 and a half% of the population would match this hair mhm something like
01:31:46
that okay so the population at in West Memphis at the time of 1993 is roughly between 25,00 and 30,000 people so that
01:31:56
means that that hair and just the people that live in that area would match Terry
01:32:01
Hobs plus 249 to 299 other people right it's still I mean it's it's suspicious though but then you talk about transfer
01:32:12
I mean one of the boys that was a victim was his stepson and then these boys were
01:32:18
known to play in his house so again that's something that can be transferred we're talking about one hair well and
01:32:26
that's also going under the assumption that Michael Moore was tied up by his own shoelaces one thing that we're not
01:32:32
able to figure out when we look at the evidence is what boy was tied up with what boy shoelaces and just because just
01:32:40
because they were each tied up with shoelaces doesn't mean that they were tied up with their own you're talking
01:32:44
about there there's a chance that that shoelace binding Michael Moore could have been Stevie Branch's shoelace well
01:32:51
and it would make a lot of sense why there's a hair of his stepdad on his shoe now there's another problem though
01:32:57
with Terry Hobs his friend David jacobe they find a hair of his on a tree at the
01:33:05
crime scene well remember with the timeline they both claimed that they were in those woods on the 5th looking
01:33:11
for the boys exactly not only do they both claim it but you also have John Mark Mark buers who who's very convinced
01:33:18
that the two of them are probably guilty he also says he's convinced now though but he was also convinced said the West
01:33:24
Memphis 3 were guilty at the beginning and he he does say in his statement to police at the time this is a statement
01:33:31
given in 1993 that he had saw Terry Hobbs multiple times in the woods when he was
01:33:38
searching Terry Hobbs was searching as well and that he couldn't remember for certain but he he might have had his
01:33:44
friend with him right this is the same friend that would be talking to them underneath the street light so there is
01:33:50
some explanation why those hair or fibers would have been found there yeah and then a lot of the other stuff if you
01:33:58
watch um west of Memphis it's just a lot of stuff that dives into his character and it seems like there's some shady
01:34:06
stuff going on there the problem is the source it's coming from it's coming from
01:34:11
Pam Hobs which is now his ex-wife and they were together for almost 10 years before she started making these claims
01:34:19
yeah at no point in 1993 when she talks to police does she ever say that Terry Hobbs is guilty of anything or suspects
01:34:27
him much bad about him and it's not till years and years and years later and now
01:34:33
mention that I feel bad for Pam Hobs because she seems like somebody and she has the right to you don't have to get
01:34:40
over this tragedy but she seems like somebody that is going to be permanently scarred haunted this event that happened
01:34:48
on May 5th uh changed everything and I don't think for the yeah it's definitely ruined her life and
01:34:56
um you know she's tried to go on but you can tell when she talks um that it's it's with her every day she carries it
01:35:03
around with her um and you have to I mean you it's yeah but she's carrying the burden more than a lot lot of people
01:35:10
would and I and I totally understand that cuz nobody could be in that no it's just impossible to put myself in her
01:35:17
situation it's nothing I've ever experienced and I I I can't believe that it's something that you get over I guess
01:35:23
that at some point it's something that maybe you have to just accept um but uh but it just seems like the a accusations
01:35:30
that she's coming out about Terry Hobbs are so far after the fact that it just hard to believe um so and then there's
01:35:39
talk in like west of Memphis again character stuff well he he shot one of her brothers yeah yeah yeah that does
01:35:49
that doesn't look good right no there's a lot of stuff that does doesn't look good and I well if we're going to bring
01:35:54
that up though we should probably tell a bit of the story of maybe why he shot the brother right well there was
01:35:59
altercation between him and Pam and then she again the day on the 5th calls her family and her you know like we said uh
01:36:09
Terry Hobs is looking and Pam hobbs' dad is is looking so she calls after this altercation and the dad and the brother
01:36:16
come out and the brothers were known to uh kind of harass some of the the female
01:36:23
um well not the females but what happened not the females but the the Pam comes from a big family she's got a
01:36:29
couple sisters she's got a couple brothers and apparently throughout the times growing up in an adulthood that
01:36:34
some of the uh sisters had had problems with boyfriends or husbands yeah and when those problems came up sometimes
01:36:42
dad was notified and sometimes dad showed up with the sons who were willing and able to uh confront and maybe attack
01:36:50
the boyfriend or husband of of the sister yeah of any of the sisters so and now this is what happened with Terry
01:36:57
Hobs and Pam Hobs there's an altercation according to him she got physical first
01:37:02
and then he got physical back um and either way it's not right on both ends yeah nobody should get physical with
01:37:07
anybody but a phone call is made to Dad and then the brother comes out and Terry
01:37:12
I don't know how exactly it went down at that point but but he kind of greets him
01:37:16
with a shotgun or not a shotgun but a a pistol or something he shoot yeah and he
01:37:20
claims that he was attacked and then he was defending himself now here's what we
01:37:24
do know is that there's Pam's side and then there's Terry side and somewhere in the middle is the truth and that's all
01:37:32
we know so there's just a lot of hearsay there's a lot of speculation all you have is this fiber not a fiber but a
01:37:39
hair sample um his timeline doesn't you know there are some spots in his timeline there's it's real weird and
01:37:47
here's the problem though with his timeline you know Pam gives a statement back in May of 93 mhm Terry Hobbs gives
01:37:55
no statement that's not through any fault of his own that's through the fault of the West Memphis Police they
01:38:00
never interview him they came by the house they interviewed Pam and Terry wasn't there that day so they never
01:38:05
bothered to get back around to interviewing Terry now furthermore when they interview Pam it's a short
01:38:12
interview there's basically a couple sentences to describe what she says that that she was doing and her husband were
01:38:20
were doing that day and they just take it as fact and they left it at that now so these reports were not coming out
01:38:27
there's not good reports coming out there's not a good solid interview of Pam hobs or Terry Hobs until 2007 and
01:38:34
this carries on to David jacobe as well he's not interviewed until 2007 yeah and
01:38:38
then they're re interviewed for the West uh west of Memphis documentary and then
01:38:44
the because of this documentary the police go back and interview Terry Hobbs and you can watch that whole uh it's not
01:38:50
an interrogation it's definitely uh a casual interview I wouldn't call it interrogation um you can watch all that
01:38:58
online I think there's definitely some stuff that seems fishy but at the end of the day where's the evidence this this
01:39:06
hair that matches so many other people and as far as transferring goes it makes a lot of sense so again another person
01:39:14
where there's just not not enough pointing at him and then the stuff that are pointing at the things that they do
01:39:21
point at him look where it's coming from what about the knife here's another knife that's brought into this case yeah
01:39:27
the the the pocket knife yeah Stevie Branch was Boy Scout yeah and so he had this little pocket knife and so Pam Hobs
01:39:37
claims that he would have had that pocketknife on him that day so then the boys are found and later on like a year
01:39:47
or so later she finds the knife and Terry Hobbs is like night Dan mhm and yeah she says that that Stevie would
01:39:56
not have gone anywhere without that knife here's a couple things about that first of all he came home from school
01:40:01
and he left almost immediately to go out and play after coming home from school so chances are they didn't take the
01:40:07
knife to school everybody knows you shouldn't carry a knife to school doesn't stop some boys but but I'm
01:40:12
guessing he probably didn't have it with him and he wasn't at home long enough to
01:40:15
think about grabbing it again then Terry hobbs' story is that he was messing around with a knife and he just thought
01:40:22
my boy doesn't need to have this knife he's messing around with it he's not being responsible with it and Terry Hobs
01:40:27
is not saying I took the knife from him on May 5th he's saying I took it to him prior to May right and that's something
01:40:33
again he's a stepfather so he's disciplining some you know I was a stepfather before so I I've had the same
01:40:41
situation one of my boys was messing around with a knife and I had to say to him hey can you can you not do that
01:40:49
that's not responsible this is not a toy and and I had to take it away and I put
01:40:55
it into a little box and then one day U my wife sees you know my ex-wife sees the knife and uh says what's this and I
01:41:06
had to explain the situation and it's the same situation as Terry hops another thing
01:41:13
that I want to bring up is how the police acted shortly after finding the bodies remember in episode one we had
01:41:20
said that all of the items all of the clothing that was reported to be on the persons of the missing boys all of it
01:41:28
was recovered with the exception of a single sock and two pair of underwear right so so that's all that was was
01:41:36
missing now later this was days after the bodies were found police went to the families and they had said could there
01:41:44
have been anything else with these boys that we didn't find could there be anything that you could think of would
01:41:50
any of them have had a pocket knife and specifically say pocket knife would any of them have had a billfold would any of
01:41:57
them have a pin on their hat or a pin on their shirt the reason why they're asking about these things is because
01:42:03
they want to know if they pick somebody up or they're searching somebody's home and they come across one of these items
01:42:09
they've found their person right no items there there at one point uh the buyer family says that they're that that
01:42:18
Christopher may have carried a bill fold with him at one point um I believe the mo family says that Michael may have had
01:42:26
a pin on his shirt or he may have had a pocket Scout stuff yeah exactly so there's a few things that are brought up
01:42:32
that they may have had none of the parents are able to say with certainty that that any other items that that that
01:42:39
weren't already located were on any of those boys Pam Hobs never mentions this pocket knife yeah it's something that
01:42:46
seems like it's always after the fact you know it's after the fact and now let's point the finger and so yeah is it
01:42:52
is Hobbs a little fishy yes a little fishy and with the bite marks I'm telling you if you look up the bite
01:42:59
marks and the partial he had it just looks I mean it looks like a Zach match it's not enough for me to say that he's
01:43:07
guilty I look keep looking into him maybe you'll find something maybe you'll get a confession one day I don't know
01:43:14
but uh there's not enough for me to point to him saying hey this guy's guilty that leaves us with the West
01:43:20
Memphis 3 now we have we all know that they took an Alfred plea what is that that means that they are going to con
01:43:27
they're going to uh say that they're guilty well no no they're they're they're going to claim their innocence
01:43:33
but they're pleading guilty yes and so the judge accepts their plea uh this was in
01:43:40
2011 and immediately after accepting their plea he sentenced all three of them to 18 years and 78 days right the
01:43:48
time served so the reason why this came about was because of all this new evidence that they're uncovering the DNA
01:43:57
and then we have the guy on the jury you want to talk about that real quick yeah
01:44:02
so the jury Foreman uh he was in charge of the jury he's going to lead all their
01:44:07
little meetings that they have and the problem that they have is they're able to figure out by reviewing the notes
01:44:13
that were taken by the jurors that at some point somebody had brought up the confession that Jesse Melly had given
01:44:20
right and if you remember us saying the confession was not allowed to try Jason or Damian it was not allowed to be uh
01:44:28
brought forth into the court it was not allowed to be discussed and you could not use that confession to weigh their
01:44:34
guilt or innocence right so when people saw these documentaries which are not complete it's not a bunch of facts it's
01:44:41
just it's a lot of these documentaries are entertainment based but when you see this and you go well
01:44:49
how the hell did they find them guilty there's not enough evidence well when somebody's saying there was a confession
01:44:56
saying that these three boys did it well that's probably why they were found guilty so are they guilty there are
01:45:03
people coming out and saying you know what they got off they got off pretty good well here's what's interesting is
01:45:08
when they're first arrested burn them hang them and then all of a sudden they're victims free them free them
01:45:15
people go back and forth and then they get out now everybody wants to now they're guilty again and there's people
01:45:22
like William Ram uh he did a documentary called Abomination he talks a lot about the
01:45:27
cult stuff again a lot of stuff he's bringing up is a lot of hearsay and speculation here's one of the things and
01:45:35
this is very freaky but talks about Daman eckl's having a spirit number his Spirit number being five what month did
01:45:43
these happen in May which is the fifth month what day the fifth month on a full moon when he's at the softball field and
01:45:51
he's talking about murders he says I killed these three boys I'm going to kill two more which would mean five so
01:45:58
if you go with this whole Spirit number or whatever yeah it's a little freaky but I don't know how much it adds up
01:46:04
it's it's just again a lot of speculation and dami Eckles seems to like to play uh I don't want to say
01:46:13
devil's advocate he kind of likes to play into people I think he likes to poke the Bear right is what he likes to
01:46:18
do but but can but you as you had said or we're trying to say I believe is it that whole Spirit number that whole
01:46:25
Spirit number thing is no different than convicting somebody because they have long hair or wear black clothes or you
01:46:31
listen to Metallica so therefore You're a murderer that's not how it works is there anything so do you think the West
01:46:37
Memphis 3 are guilty I don't think they are I mean I can't say that 100% because
01:46:45
his first statement just feels real but everything that Jason Baldwin says feels
01:46:51
real to me so my maybe my gut is just wrong completely and Baldwin has always claimed innocence and furthermore not
01:46:58
only that when when the prosecution didn't believe that the trial the second trial that of Damen and Jason when they
01:47:05
didn't believe it was going their way and when they lost the confession of Jesse Miss Kelly they went to Jason
01:47:11
Baldwin and offered him a bargain yeah they they were going to they were going to bargain and barter with him and they
01:47:17
were willing to get him a 40-year sentence if he would testify against Damen Eckles well and he also didn't
01:47:25
want to take the Alfred plead cuz he knew that once they took the plead that the state would then stop their
01:47:30
investigation now what I think my gut was telling me is that people fed uh Jesse Melly a little bit and he's simple
01:47:41
so I think he believed some of it and that's why it came off as authentic but I don't I just don't think that there's
01:47:49
not enough for me to say that they're guilty there's not enough for me to say they're 100% innocent either but uh they
01:47:57
weren't be they wouldn't be the first people that I want to dive much into and I do so those are my thoughts I think
01:48:03
Jesse's simple and I believe a lot what Jason Baldwin says as far as Daman Eckles I think he says some weird stuff
01:48:11
and pokes to bear like you were saying I I'm in your Camp man I I I believe that
01:48:16
there are there's a couple things that point towards their guilt and there's a lot of things that point to their
01:48:21
innocence I can't can't say that they're innocent can't say that they're guilty what I can say is I have a really hard
01:48:27
time believing that there was enough to try anybody here um I I maybe you could try Jesse mkelly but once that
01:48:35
confession was thrown out there was no evidence in my opinion against Damien or Jason and furthermore I believe that
01:48:41
Jason should have been tried separately I believe he was only convicted because he was tried with Damien and Damen was
01:48:49
convicted on his bad name and his bad reputation and yeah and he was also convicted on you know searching for
01:48:57
answers and when somebody is thirsty for knowledge this is not something that we
01:49:01
should be afraid of this is something that especially in an 18-year-old boy he's becoming a young man by searching
01:49:08
for answers and by searching for knowledge is how you're going to get there and there's a million people that
01:49:13
search for answers but they weren't in some um small-minded closed-minded town to get crucified for such and I've
01:49:22
always thought that Jason and Jesse should have been tried as children I understand that this is a heinous crime
01:49:27
and a horrible crime but as far as the Judicial Systems as I'm concerned yeah I'm not weighing the crime here what I'm
01:49:36
weighing is the people that are on trial and the evidence against them MH and there wasn't much there wasn't really
01:49:44
anything at all and I guess I would air on the side of caution that we're making
01:49:48
a big mistake here and we would better would be better off to try them as juveniles than adults they were both
01:49:54
juveniles and U I mean Jason was 16 and Miss Kelly was uh might not be dealing with a full deck yeah and I hope their
01:50:02
effort doesn't stop I know that they're out I know that they're free I don't know if their names cleared completely
01:50:10
because they took that odd plead uh plea deal I I know that the the public opinion with them kind of goes back and
01:50:19
forth guilty innocent and it always seems to be this everchanging thing these guys have the power I'm not saying
01:50:27
that they need to or should or have to spend any more time they spent 18 years in prison for something they probably
01:50:34
didn't do but they have the power to keep getting resources and saying it's not enough that we're out of jail it's
01:50:43
we need answers on this case and it's only going to come from pressure but that requires the state to try somebody
01:50:51
for this case and the problem with that is they already have three people that are on the books guilty and have been
01:50:58
convicted of no and I understand that but what I'm saying is is right now you got little sprinkles of evidence towards
01:51:05
Hobs you got a little sprinkle of evidence towards buyers you have a little bit of sprinkle of evidence
01:51:10
towards Mr Bojangles little little bit from West Memphis 3 that's not enough we need more we need we need something that
01:51:19
you know makes us go oh that's something we can't dispute I'll go on record here
01:51:25
and I believe John Mark bers got absolutely railroaded in this whole thing I believe that yes he's he's a
01:51:31
strange dude but there's some sprinkles of evidence there's some tidbits yeah there's some morsels and mor and it's
01:51:37
it's it's strange and it's a strange case however when again when I'm going to keep going back to the timeline of
01:51:44
that night and that morning there was just no time for him to do it whether you think he's capable or not there was
01:51:50
no time for him to do any of this and I will go back to that every single time I
01:51:54
think he got absolutely railroaded I think if the people that put together Paradise Lost 2 and if the author that
01:52:01
put together the devil's not now I want to go on record here the devil's not is a fantastic book If you like this case
01:52:07
you should definitely read your recommended reading that's my recommended reading however I think that
01:52:12
those two things railroaded buyers and I think that if that that author and the producers of that film would have spent
01:52:19
enough time looking at his whereabouts that evening and what they would never have made him a suspect they would never
01:52:26
even considered him and how much time did that waste how how much time did people look into this guy when they
01:52:32
could have been looking into somebody else anyways Terry Hobbs is the more likely suspect because there are some
01:52:38
times in his timeline that that would present uh some holes there's a little bit of holes there's not big holes
01:52:44
though I would be expecting to see big gaps we have that hair and that I mean again I think that's a transfer thing
01:52:52
that's what I believe not only that it matches 1.1% of the people in the area and everybody in the world and you're
01:52:59
talking about you're talking about what a football field or or two football fields away from one of the most
01:53:04
traveled freeways in in America and who's to say that somebody didn't stop off at the Blue Beacon and see these
01:53:11
kids and do something terrible who's to say that there wasn't a pedophile or some monster in the neighborhood that
01:53:17
that did something to these boys and the and the the uh African-American hair is
01:53:22
still not explained and that was found damn near on one of the bodies it was found in the sheet wrapping the buyer
01:53:29
boy now this case reminds me of OJ I mean yeah we did three parts of that but it
01:53:35
reminds me of OJ because it's so huge and there's so much to dive into and there's so much out there some just
01:53:41
[ __ ] but there was a lot tons of facts on this that you can find actual facts and actual uh evidence on this
01:53:49
case but I feel like I had a stronger op opinion before we started this case and
01:53:56
now at the end of it uh I'm just not super certain either way other than there's not much evidence to point
01:54:04
towards anybody I can't point to anything that would point to somebody but what I can point to is I believe
01:54:10
that had they taken this investigation and done it properly there was no reason to to assume that a gang or a cult or
01:54:19
Satanist were involved in this crime there was nothing that showed that at the scene to believe that well I mean
01:54:25
other than the fact that there's three victims and so if it's if it's one murderer they have to control three
01:54:31
victims exactly I get that but what I'm getting at is it doesn't mean that you're sworn into some gang or some cult
01:54:37
or your Satanist that that have to carry this out it just means that you got three or two screwed up individuals that
01:54:43
are homicidal Maniacs that that we've got to find yeah or one that's very clever so there in my opinion there was
01:54:49
no reason for the investigation to take that route and first of all if they would have spent the the proper amount
01:54:56
of time and taken the proper amount of notes and conducted the right interviews and collected the right amount of
01:55:01
evidence from all of the family members of the victims if they would have spent time on that then I I really believe
01:55:08
that we would have never discussed John Mark buers we would have never discussed
01:55:12
Terry Hobbs because I believe that those people along with the other family members would have been cleared in the
01:55:18
get-go from this thing and we wouldn't have to sit around and argue about this right or speculate because we don't know
01:55:24
there's just holes there's holes in their timeline but there's also just holes in the investigation and I don't
01:55:30
know that this means that somebody that didn't know the boys committed the crime
01:55:33
what I'm getting at is I don't believe the West Memphis 3 did it I don't believe that that any of the family
01:55:39
members did it I think that this is somebody that uh is either unknown to the police or somebody that they had
01:55:44
interviewed at some point in their investigation yeah and you told me about a week ago which made me so mad that you
01:55:51
don't know if this will ever be solved I I actually believe that it will never be
01:55:56
solved and and the reason being is because of that Alfred plea I believe that the state of Arkansas has no uh
01:56:02
motivation to solve this case this is off their books as far as they're concerned all right so we had to end it
01:56:09
on a big bang want to thank everybody for uh a great season two and onward and upward to season 3 yeah things are going
01:56:19
to be big and great and fantastic in season 3 can't wait and thanks for the support we're glad that we could put out
01:56:26
um two episodes this week yes we are as much as it pained me uh being in the garage with you all night long you kind
01:56:34
of smelled you were a little stinky in the garage well until next season be good be kind and don't
01:56:43
Litter thank you thank you that is why I won't do two shows a night anymore babe I won't
01:56:54
[Music] this show is sponsored by better help we all carry around different stressors big
01:57:40
and small when we keep them bottled up it can start to affect us negatively therapy is a safe space to get things
01:57:48
off your chest and to figure out how to work through whatever is weighing you down if you're thinking of starting
01:57:54
therapy I highly recommend that you give better help a try it's entirely online designed to be convenient flexible and
01:58:03
suited to your schedule just fill out a brief questionnaire to get match with the licensed therapist and switch
01:58:09
therapist anytime for no additional charge get it off your chest with better help visit betterhelp.com garage today
01:58:18
to get 10% off your first month that's betterhelp hp.com garage this show is proudly
01:58:26
sponsored by betterhelp check out betterhelp.com garage today