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n [Music] [Music] welcome to True Crime garage wherever you are whatever you're doing thanks for
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listening I'm your host Nick and with me as always is a man who knows that the most appropriate response to you know
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what I mean is I know what you mean here is the C you know what I mean mate it's
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good to be seen and good to see you thanks for listening thanks for telling a friend
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[Music] today we are very happy to be featuring Melancholy by the hardworking guys and
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Ladies down at tactical Brewing Company Melancholy is a watermelon sour when I think of warm weather there is nothing
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better than a slice of watermelon or maybe half of a watermelon all to myself well this is a sweet thirst quenching
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both gluten and lactose-free way to cool down on a hot day ABV 5% garage Grace three and 3/4 bottle caps out of five
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let's give some thanks and praise and some cheers to our friends first up a big shout out to Mando pesh from Assante
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Minnesota and a triple cheers to our friends Chris Doug and Shani in Orlando Florida everyone we just mentioned
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contributed to the garage beer fund and for that we thank you yeah bwe R in beer
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run for everything True Crime Check out true Crim garage.com and make sure you sign up on the mailing list so you're in
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the know and Colonel that's enough of the Beers N all right everybody gather around grab a chair grab a beer let's
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talk some true crime West Memphis 3 West Memphis [Music] 3 Damen Eckles and Jason baldwi Jesse
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Miss Kelly who West Memphis [Music] 3 they were just 8 years old Steven Branch Michael Moore and Christopher
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buers found murdered hog tied and naked in a drainage dit in West Memphis West Memphis
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[Music] 3 the state stands behind the conviction 2016 and if my math is correct here captain
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that was about 8 years ago when we first covered the West Memphis 3 case in a three-part series it was one of our
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first three-part series that would be episodes 40 41 and 42 and we re-release them refill style here in the garage
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this week and we hope that you enjoyed listening to those for either the first or second time maybe you've listened to
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it for the third time but this case always stays on our minds it's one of the red light cases as the captain likes
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to call them and it's one that we because of our fascination with this case tend to Circle back to longtime
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listeners of off the Record will know that this has been kind of a revolving topic amongst many other cases on that
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show and we thought that we would take a little look at how we did it back in 2016 throw it under the microscope and
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give our thoughts on our coverage but also things that we have thought and discovered since then and have a open
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discussion about the West Memphis 3 case and how it is and how it stands in the year 2024 yeah so for listeners that
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don't know my definition of a red light case is simply that you you might lean towards somebody's innocent or guilt but
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there might be a point of evidence or a piece of information that just kind of bothers you sits with you funny where
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you go well I think they're Innocent but this piece of information bothers me and
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if I could just clear that piece of information up I'd have more clarity on the case a red light like the stop
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stopping and traffic red light it's a moment when you end up with an extra 2 or 3 minutes of downtime that you did
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not anticipate and some of these cases some of these true crime stories pop into your mind
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and it doesn't have to be at a red light it could be anytime that you find yourself with extra time to think and
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these cases that that just stay in the back of your mind and maybe they nag at you and like the captain said different
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details and different moments in those cases and in those stories that kind of stick with you ones that you just find
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yourself constantly thinking about and this one has no shortage of the those details and the other thing too here
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captain we're talking about a case from 1993 when the murders took place in a trial that took place for the most part
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in 1994 there are so many different details in this case that one could argue for
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Guilt of the West Memphis 3 the teenagers innocence for the three or undecided and I think this case in
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particular has throughout time the pendulum has shifted sometimes the pendulum is it seems like the majority
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of people think they're guilty then it switches to the majority of people think they're Innocent but it seems like once
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people take a a side they take that side hard and they are not willing to budge from that which has always really
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fascinated me because uh initially looking into this case as a child it was like of course these guys are innocent
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and then the more I dove in and it's so fascinating like you said I mean we covered this case so many years ago
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sometimes it feels like yesterday sometimes it feels like 20 years ago yeah I had a music teacher one time
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asked me I was about 18 years old at the time he said on a scale of 1 to 10 how well do you think you know music and at
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the time because I was young and naive and arrogant I was like I'm a about a eight I and and I'm probably not going
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to get to a 10 I just want to get to a nine and then if somebody asked me that question today how well do you know
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music one out of 10 I'd say probably a two and when we covered this case so many years ago after we were done
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because we it was such a deep dive and not just the Deep dive but then I got to sit beside you to hear your Deep dive
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thoughts and when we got done I thought you know I really understand this case I
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might not be able to definitively say that they're innocent or definitively say that they're guilty but I really
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understand this case and I know all these things that maybe the the average public doesn't know about this case now
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however many years later if you ask me how well do I think I know this case I'd say I have I have studied this case I've
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done Deep dive after Deep dive there is probably not a YouTube video that I haven't watched on this case there's not
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a podcast that I haven't listened to on this case there's probably not a book that I haven't read about this case and
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I still feel like my knowledge out of a one to 10 is maybe a two or a three I think that that's the nature of this
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story and not really I don't think that has anything to do with you and and here's why I think that a lot of the
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literature that has come out about this case over the years starting with the devil's not and then all the stuff that
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was on the internet remember this is this case is happening and Paradise Lost one two and three are coming out on HBO
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and the internet's really taking off and blowing up with message boards and blogs
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and everything else right I think all of the everything that you can read and research with maybe the exception of the
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Callahan website is a lot of it is facts that also contain opinions of the writer
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correct so I think given given that the nature of this true crime story not the case itself but the nature of this
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True Crime Story is always leaving the person in doubt I think to me that that's a sign of intelligence because I
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don't love when I'm talking to different individuals on certain cases and they're
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so hardcore nose to the Grind this is what happened and here's why and then they followed up with like three or four
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really lame examples of why they are right this is one of those cases to me I I do have a strong opinion on on guilt
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or innocence in this case but I also try not to let it Cloud anything because this is one of those cases that
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fascinates me so much that I'm always in Search and always hungry for more information and I'm happy to consume it
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and go into it not allowing my personal beliefs from the information that I've already consumed to taint the new
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information that I'm taking in now when we covered it back in 2016 Captain one thing that I liked about the way that we
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did it was we spent so much time on the timeline because there's a lot of markers in that timeline that can be set
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in stone right they're pretty much fact where there's a lot of debate in every detail of this case the timeline can be
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at points pretty definitive so our first episode the Robin Hood Hills murders is
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what we titled that one really focused on that May 5th 1993 date and between the hours of 8:00
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p.m. and 10 p.m. when three sets of parents called The West Memphis Police Department each reporting their sons to
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be missing and part two we got and we we kind of fanned out a little bit from there we dive back into the timeline a
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lot of this was spent on the timeline of the parents of each of the victims themselves their movements on the night
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that the boys went missing and the morning when everyone's out searching for the boys before Unfortunately they
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are found in that ditch right we also got into uh some of the different confessions and introduced the suspects
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Jesse misskelly Jason Baldwin and Damen eals and Then followed that up in part three when we went into the lives and
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timeline of Jesse Jason and Damian and then started to ask ourselves in the audience as well are these three guys
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guilty and if these three teenagers are not guilty then who is and we discussed Mark buers at length we discussed Terry
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Hobbs at length we also discussed one of the details in the case that still bothers me maybe more than any other
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detail in this case is the strange man seen at the Bojangles restaurant and the fact that the evidence that he left
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behind was lost by law enforcement yes not collected on night one and then when they return and collect blood scrapings
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off of the bathroom wall then those blood scrapings they never seemed somehow they got lost from the time that
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they were collected to the time that they could be sent off to the lab to get us some more information about that
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blood evidence yeah a lot of what we did Captain as said was timeline and for good reason and I think that is key
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because remember another key component to this case is even though we get kind of some different answers and some
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different opinions stated throughout time in this case from medical examiner Frank Paretti he admits having trouble
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narrowing down the time of death that's why we spent so much time on the timeline itself and the
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that are known in this case close to this case and what we know about their timelines for that evening and that
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night because one could examine the timeline of events and really start to put put together a window of time for
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that time of death which we know is so important to any homicide investigation well and we believe that these victims
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bodies Christopher buyers Michael Moore and Stevie Branch were submerged in water for at least over 15
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hours which this is going to be the reason why this case probably gets talked about to the end of time because
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what do we know about water water destroys evidence and it destroys some of the processes that we need to take
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scientifically to get a time frame and that will make this case I think talked about till the end of time I think
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you're exactly right the the true lack of any real physical evidence in this case at the crime scene where the boys
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are found yes there is some physical evidence but I I think that if anyone were try to argue that there's a
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mountain of physical evidence they clearly don't know this case there is such little physical evidence at this
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crime scene a lot of it due to where the boys were found how they were placed in
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the water and again that leaves us going back to that timeline and we can really
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shrink that timeline largely in part because the three victims were found less than 24 hours after they were last
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seen yes Michael Moore Christopher buers Stevie Branch one thing about May 5th the day that they went missing we do
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know that all three attended school on that Wednesday at Weaver Elementary in West Memphis
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Arkansas and as far as attempting to put together an alibi we also know that Jason Baldwin attended school that day
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the three victims were hanging out riding bikes and a skateboard around the neighborhood Hood they are spotted by
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several people that evening and it's reported that the last sighting of the three may be their last scene riding two
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bicycles on the Service Road next to the interstate around at approximately 6:30
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p.m. that evening yeah I believe that I would have said there was um individuals
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on bicycle and skateboard and when we say that there was eyewitnesses that saw these three kids throughout the neighbor
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Hood you go okay well yeah a couple people saw them so we got a we got a good grasp over 30 eyewitnesses that can
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tell you I believe I saw the boys at this time if you go through all those eyewitness accounts you can almost draw
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a map and draw a diagram of where we think these boys were at at what time and then where did they go next and then
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we know all this information until they go into the woods I think we can say with some level of confidence here that
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all the boys were missing by 8:00 p.m. that night right as we established in the previous episodes Mark buers was the
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first to report his son missing we know according to statements that Stevie Branch was supposed to be home back at
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home at 8:00 P.M but he does not return so then we have parents calling in reporting that their sons are missing
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this all seems to be we we get statements from each of the parents of oh this was the last time I saw them and
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this is what I was doing and what they were doing at the time that that I did see them so John Mark buers calls in
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roughly about 8:00 pm and the key parts of the timeline are this for me this call from buyers at 800m Dana Moore
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calling in at 9:24 p.m. and then we don't have a time stamp for this one but we know that it took place short after
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the 924 Dana Moore call is the call that's reported by Pam Hobs to be Terry Hobs
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calling via pay phone but the complaint given by Pam Hobs yeah and looking back on our coverage I I think we well one I
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I think you did a great job listening back I went this is why this guy is the goat of True Crime podcast period and
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people need to recognize that other other podcasters need to recognize that and when they should
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invite you on their show more often to hear your thoughts and uh CNN Fox News all those people they they should call
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bu enough do our garage show busy enough do with the garage show and I I enjoy doing the garage show so this this takes
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uh this Takes the Cake everything else secondary well so listening back I went okay well this guy is really smart or
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he's just editing it very well and then I was like why the heck why the heck am I on the show episode 40 some we should
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have realized oh this guy just doesn't have what it takes 700 and some episodes later we're still damn fools but looking
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back on it now and I think I've or I hope I've groaned as as an individual and somebody that's trying to create
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content that changes the landscape of of the world essentially I mean sometimes we're
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covering cases just to get people to talk about a description of a of a suspect or
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hey here's a a picture of a vehicle can you identify this and maybe it can give law enforcement leads looking back on
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this coverage the only thing I would say that I think we i' do differently is I would have just focused strictly on the
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timeline spaced it out properly and I think I would have left some of the other things alone because I think
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they're too some of these things are too big to get into a 45 minute discussion on and if somebody ask me today hey I
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want you to cover the West Memphis 3 case definitively as a podcast I would say it would probably at least take 30
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episodes it's just a whale of a case and and you brought this up I believe on off
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the Record the fact that this case was adjudicated so then once that happens we have access to all these files and once
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you have access to all those files the small picture that is painted in the media's eyes becomes a lot larger yeah
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and then you have to sift through a lot more information and so when you have a case like West Memphis 3 that was
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adjudicated there is so much information to go through and I think to do its Justice to the victims the victims in
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this case just to remind anybody that doesn't know or Christopher buers Michael Moore and Stevie branch and I
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think to do your due diligence on this case it would take again and it wouldn't be just 30
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episodes I think one of the things I'm so impressed by what you did all those years ago was I I think some people
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forget we don't have a staff we don't have writers what's coming out of your mouth is what you wrote down what you
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researched for good or bad for good or bad but also the time period it's not like we were able to spend six months
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only researching writing these episodes this is happening within days and every episode that we cover and so when people
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go oh man you guys just put out a three-parter or a two-parter I can't believe how much information you guys
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put out on a weekly basis uh yeah applaud Nick applaud the goat because he's doing this each and every week
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trying to do his due diligence and trying to be respectful to those victims and tell their story in a just way and
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that takes a lot of time and effort and so I just applaud you I know I sound like I'm kissing your ass um don't get
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used to it my friend it's really amazing when you stop to think about it for a second how much content we have put out
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and and how little time frame we have to do it in in between each episode I get asked
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all the time like what episode are you up to now and I'm always like I don't know 700 and something like we we a long
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time ago we stopped focusing on the number of episodes because we've we've been doing it for so long and thankful
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that we have a great audience that allows us to do our garage show every week it's the smartest audience in the
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world I appreciate everything that you just said you know you're you're you're spot on you are spot on because I was
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going to say if we're covering this today and there's going to be somebody in their car going yeah idiot you are
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covering it today but if we were to be be looking at this case for the first time in the garage with a garage
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presentation you're exactly right there's no way we would have done just three episodes on it and this is one of
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those cases that even though it is adjudicated one I feel like we're still learning information about this case all
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of these years later and two when you go through the files especially all the stuff on the Callahan website where you
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go okay well this is everything this is everything and you the answers got to be
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in here somewhere and if I dig long enough and deep enough I'll find the answer I'll find that Smoking Gun and
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the problem that you will run into in this case is that does not exist if if if that is somewhere I am yet to see it
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and I have not spoke to anybody that has I think that that is one of those ERS the kick in the pants with this case
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right that you go okay like yeah I watched Paradise Lost and I assumed many years lat you know watching it as a kid
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is you walk away with a different interpretation than you do as an adult but for me anyway Captain walking away
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from revisiting Paradise Lost as an adult I walk away going well of course they skewed it to to present as if they
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were innocent or others may be guilty it makes for a better show it makes for better entertainment but then you go
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through everything on the Callahan website and I mean we're talking these are police interviews we're talking
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these are tips that were called in yeah I mean other than this Miss Kelly confession and of course there's a wide
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range and spectrum of persons thoughts and opinions on the Miss Kelly confession but you go without that that
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I don't see how this case was adjudicated yeah there's there's just nothing for me anyway there's nothing
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really in those details okay just to be clear nothing in the details that are presented to us by HBO like the case
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files for as voluminous as the case file is right there's not a whole lot of great details in there for building a
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real true case of against anyone really in my opinion there's there are lots of interesting nuggets of of information
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and some detailed information throughout there but but I don't I don't go through
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that entire file and walk away from it going I know who did it and I know who they
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should build a case against because it's all right here I I I just can't do that
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not in good faith yeah I'm going to ask you to hold my beer for a second holding
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one of the rants that I have about this case is and this is going to sound maybe
00:25:00
sappy or maybe a A little vulnerable but I feel let down I feel let down by people like HBO which I hold in high
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regard of creating excellent content like I said looking back on our episodes I wouldn't have covered it the way we
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covered it I would have just focused on the timeline keep some of the other stuff out there I feel let down by other
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podcasters um people that have written books about about this I feel let down about this case because I think so many
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of the the information in this case that is presented is simply opinions wrapped
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up with a little bit of facts here and there and that bothers me I think we could all learn something from the great
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step Hawkin he proved something supposedly right scientifically everybody's like Stephen you you did it
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you you you Pro this Theory you're you're amazing and then the rest of his life he spent trying to disprove himself
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and I think that's a case that's this big that's what you have to do the moment those guys set out to make a
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documentary on this case and within seconds of meeting these people said oh within minutes of meeting these people
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we knew that they were innocent at that moment it's like maybe you should step away from the case and maybe you should
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or it's like maybe you should present it one way and then spend the rest of your
00:26:33
life trying to present the other narrative because I do think in this case our problem and I'm going to try
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not to be ranty and I'm going to try not to jump on a soap box a million times but one of our problems with crime and
00:26:49
the crime world the True Crime world is we think it that it's CSI that there is going to be a Smoking Gun and there
00:26:58
doesn't have to be and I and I heard it on this podcast and I I wish I could remember who said it but I thought it
00:27:05
was a brilliant analogy they said let's say you have a case where a kid threw a rock off of a bridge and it hit a
00:27:15
vehicle causing that vehicle to spin out and the person in that vehicle died that
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individual was wearing a glove so we have no DNA evidence on that rock but that kid lives in
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Arkansas and that kid wears Detroit Lion shirts every day a eyewitness said I saw
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the kid can't really make out what he looked like but he's wearing a Detroit Lion's t-shirt now on that evidence
00:27:46
alone you can't convict him but you can start building a case around that and I think that's what you have in this case
00:27:55
I do think you have pieces of information that when law enforcement heard they couldn't deny that
00:28:03
information they had to dig in more and then the more they dug in the more that they were finding yeses and yes they
00:28:11
found some NOS along the way but they found more yeses and I think because of the state of the world because of the
00:28:19
heinous nature of this crime I think there's some evidence that this crime could have been ritualistic in nature
00:28:28
that law enforcement had to then keep running with the suspects that they had that they kept getting more yeses than
00:28:36
NOS [Music] all right we are back welcome to my Soap Box cheers to you mates cheers to you
00:29:06
Colonel I you know it's 700 and some episodes and I never asked you to hold my beer can't believe that has never
00:29:13
happened I have consumed that beer and now it's gone I I was when I was in Glasgow uh
00:29:21
last weekend I was trying to explain to people when we first recorded how you would just get up from your chair walk
00:29:29
away from the mic and still talk and grab a beer go to the fridge and get a beer hey once we hit a th000 episodes
00:29:37
that's the format we're going back to my friend we're to go back to that and you
00:29:40
would get so mad you're like hey idiot we we the whole point of the show is we're on microphones and I was always
00:29:45
like look I've already worked like 10 or 11 hours today if I can't get up and get
00:29:50
a beer I'm not doing the show yeah I don't think we should do this anymore I think this is a lot of work and I and I
00:29:57
also assume that they I you know I thought there was like nine people listening so I thought that they would
00:30:02
just bear with me for the uh 3 minutes that it took me to get a beer but you no I think you you hit the nail on the head
00:30:10
with with your statement there leading into the break I also think maybe you you hit a lot of uh did a lot of
00:30:17
collateral damage maybe in that as as well but I no I think I think that you're right you know and then so let's
00:30:23
let's talk about some things looking at this case again I wanted to see if there
00:30:29
was anything that I could find that I didn't come across the first go round that intrigued and peaked my interest so
00:30:37
what I did was I started looking at what was going on in the local media between
00:30:43
the times of the murders them finding the boys and then the arrest when the arrests were finally made so roughly you
00:30:52
have about a one month time period between the murders in between we have somebody arrested for the crimes and
00:31:02
charged with the crimes what I one thing I failed to recognize and know and understand our first go round was that I
00:31:13
thought that this thing just became a media frenzy once the teenagers were arrested and once HBO got involved and
00:31:21
no on the local level very much like Deli and the yogurt shop murders this was a bit of a media
00:31:29
frenzy at least in that region and locally that entire time from the time that it was reported that they were
00:31:38
found in the ditch to the time that there was an arrest and then it continued on after before we get into
00:31:45
that one thing that I did find too you know we we really threw and I I have conflicting feelings about this but I
00:31:55
don't think we were totally wrong we really threw Regina Meeks we really threw officer Regina Meeks under the bus
00:32:02
in our first coverage she's the one that was taking some of the or responding to
00:32:08
some of the missing person's reports that night when the boys were missing she's also the one that goes to the Mr
00:32:14
Bojangles restaurant to take the report of the man who is bleeding or covered in
00:32:20
blood there's different variations of that story has items with blood on them using toilet paper and paper products in
00:32:29
the restroom to clean up blood that he's gone by the time that she arrives at the
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Bojangles restaurant but she doesn't bother to go inside she just simply pulls up to the drive-thru talks to the
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manager through the drive-through window and then gets another call and then goes
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and responds to that call yeah and again this case it drive it can drive you nuts
00:32:51
because you just think for one if she gets that call 15 minutes later she's already in that bathroom collecting the
00:32:59
evidence po possibly possibly and if she was the one to collect the evidence possibly that evidence isn't lost later
00:33:08
that evidence is collected by the store manager and given to a different detective that detective is the one
00:33:15
responsible for losing it but again it's like I mean some people want to say like
00:33:22
cops are all nefarious this guy might have just been a dumbass and he did something he made a
00:33:28
mistake and he might have had no ill intent and for all we know for the last 30 years he has been beating himself up
00:33:37
she going sorry it's a she not the one that received the oh Sor good sorry good yeah so he might be of beaten himself
00:33:46
and he had to take the stand and basically said look I failed as a police officer I failed to Serve and Protect my
00:33:55
community by losing this evidence and there's probably not a day that goes by unless it was a nefarious act that this
00:34:04
guy goes look this is one of the most talked about cases and I guarantee you if we would to have that evidence muddy
00:34:12
bloody individual comes into a restaurant less than a mile away from the murder scene and we test that
00:34:20
evidence and it matches the victims those boys never go to trial the teenage boys never go to trial we never know who
00:34:27
West Memphis 3 are and we're not talking about this case 30 years later well and
00:34:33
the other part of that too is at the very least let's say they collect the blood evidence and it doesn't turn out
00:34:40
to be the victims but it turns out to be the Mr Bojangle guy we could at the very
00:34:46
least identify that individual today correct with the DNA so the the other part of this story though is we talk
00:34:56
about Regina Meeks not going in and we go well if if she wouldn't have got that called maybe we have different better
00:35:04
new information in this case and what we have today but part of that that exchange between her and the Bojangles
00:35:12
employee was the Bojangles employee telling her I collected some of the items that were in the bathroom I had to
00:35:19
clean up some of that because we have customers I can't have a you know mud and blood in my
00:35:25
restaurant but he says I collected some of those items and one of those items being sunglasses and I think there was
00:35:31
at least one other item maybe it was like a a roll of toilet paper that was used to soak up blood part of that
00:35:38
exchange is Regina Meeks telling the employee well you can just discard of those items we don't need those items
00:35:45
and then gets the call and goes off but one thing that I've recently learned to my surprise because I've sat here for 30
00:35:52
years now and gone well if Regina Meeks would have handled that differently and as you just said the officer of the that
00:35:57
responds the following day if he would have not lost the evidence or or take another step back and go what if that
00:36:04
store manager said I think this guy is Muddy and bloody and this is a crime scene and I'm just going to lock the
00:36:11
freaking door until the the police get here you know I can't have a muddy and bloody bathroom no you can't but you do
00:36:19
and so you should just lock the door and and step away put down that bleach bottle and step away from the evidence
00:36:28
and let the officers do what they're supposed to do because again based on that conversation it's like but that's
00:36:35
where the problem with this case is there's so many is you have so many times like this one where it's like well
00:36:43
if this person did something different or this person did something different or if this happened differently then
00:36:48
maybe we'd have a lot more information and that and it's not fair especially when there's multiple multiple people
00:36:54
involved to put the blame or the onus on them yeah and I don't want to put it squarely on one person but I will I will
00:37:03
say this like I believe in my heart that there are many people in this case police
00:37:12
detectives members of the Court attorneys teenagers parents and family members of
00:37:19
the victims I think that there is a is a long list of persons that wish that they had done
00:37:27
things differently or knew the severity understood the severity of the situation
00:37:32
that night and that they would have done things different I I hope that and I I want to believe that with my heart I do
00:37:40
want to say that Regina Meeks takes the missing persons reports of these boys and then responds to Bojangles you would
00:37:50
think not just her but West Memphis PD would have been on high alert then and there right but one other thing that
00:37:59
could have been done very differently was that officer Meek reports that when taking at least one of the missing
00:38:09
person's reports about the boys that when asking the parents and hearing about where they may have last been seen
00:38:18
but also hearing from the parents all the woods over there that the the kids call Robin Hood Park it's actually
00:38:23
referred to as Robin Hood Park in a in in some uh the hes out there Robin Hood Hills that the the boys they like to go
00:38:32
in that area so much so that they've gotten in trouble for going in there and so when you're asking the parents well
00:38:39
where do you think they could be where do you think they took off to because that's what you're responding to you
00:38:43
think that these boys are just not where they should be they're being boys will be boys and they're up to no good you
00:38:48
know they're out misbehaving or where they shouldn't be or where they've been told not to go she goes up to the tree
00:38:55
line to start to walk into the woods to look for the boys and turns around and puts in her report that the mosquitoes
00:39:04
were too bad too strong they were swarming her that they that she she was not going to enter the woods and then we
00:39:11
know that shortly later she's getting these other calls and and she's not the only person that states this throughout
00:39:18
the search for the kids and the other issue with this whole thing is we well several of the parents wouldn't go in
00:39:24
there at first either it wasn't until the night drugg on that they started to go into that area and but that's one of
00:39:30
those things that like I I review that kind of information and it just hurts my brain to go my God had she gone in there
00:39:38
during those calls because we went through the time the timing of those calls right what would she have seen
00:39:44
right would is there a chance she would have seen the Killer is there a chance that she would have seen the bicycles
00:39:50
not yet discarded of like what would have been a witness account of what was going on in there had somebody ENT
00:39:57
especially an officer like I said there's all these moments in this case where you go okay so she goes up to the
00:40:04
tree line but the mosquitoes are rampid so they're like I can't go in there what
00:40:09
would she have seen but so you can fault law enforcement for that on some level but on some level you can go well most
00:40:15
of the time when there's a missing person report they don't start looking for the individual till the next day
00:40:21
this was like calls came in and law enforcement it was a quiet night that night so law enforcement was like hey we
00:40:28
need to look for these boys and there was Patrol officers patrolling the neighborhood and and going around and
00:40:33
like you said responding to the bo jungles call and with a lot of missing person cases we covered it's like one or
00:40:40
two days later till they start looking for the person getting into some of the media stuff because that was something
00:40:47
that I didn't delve into in great detail in our coverage back in 2016 so let's start with the Great John
00:40:58
Walsh the great TV show America's Most Wanted this is one detail that is relatively new to me so the day after
00:41:07
America's Most Wanted they ran a segment on the unsolved murders of these three boys at this point obviously had not
00:41:17
made any arrest so they run a segment that aired now we've seen this when we've covered old cases from the 80s and
00:41:25
'90s and many people know this still even to be true even to this day that locally it's
00:41:33
pretty well known right like all that case that happened down the road or happened the town over it's going to be
00:41:40
on America's Most Wanted this week or on Unsolved Mysteries this week and so I'm
00:41:46
sure that a lot of people were tuning in in this area when that segment ran but one thing that they received I believe
00:41:56
from information I reviewed said that they received about 75 or so tips after that segment re ran but of those 75 or
00:42:05
so tips one that I found to be incredibly ironic let's say is one of the tips comes in and it's three boys
00:42:15
that are calling in the tip these three boys told police that they had become suspicious of a man who tried to lure
00:42:22
them to into his wooded campsite which was not far from the crime scene yes these
00:42:30
three boys were at a bowling alley at the time this is the one that in involves Jesse misskelly he's one of the
00:42:37
three boys phoning in this tip yes so basically these three boys which Jesse Miss Kelly was a part of these three
00:42:45
boys they were heading to the bowling alley I believe to play the arcades or something and this man uh approached
00:42:55
them saying that he had some be you're in some drugs or whatever and come with me and we'll hang out and they're like
00:43:02
no you're a weirdo they started walking away as they walked away there was three
00:43:09
young boys that the the man then approached and then once the older boys saw that they're like well we weren't in
00:43:17
fear of him because he was just a weirdo and we got away but now he's talking to
00:43:22
younger kids so that's why they initially phoned all that in but to be clear my understanding of this tip is
00:43:30
that they're not talking about the night in question when the boys went missing no they're saying that this happened
00:43:36
around about the same time and it just so happens to be that this campsite that they were asked if they wanted to go to
00:43:45
was not far from the crime scene right this happened roughly a week or so after the the crimes were committed and so in
00:43:55
this tip they follow up police follow up on this tip and the result from my understanding Captain is they figured
00:44:02
out who the man was and the man turned out to be the son of a Crittenden County Sheriff's deputy who
00:44:10
was known to have some mental issues so the police determined that the tip was not useful to their investigation now
00:44:18
right whether it's useful to the investigation or not I I don't think there's enough detailed information in
00:44:23
there for us to have a determination if it should have been useful or not I also don't think it's something
00:44:28
they're trying to sweep under the rug what I see here though is this is another attempt yes there's two other
00:44:34
persons involved and phoning in this tip but it's another tip of Jesse misskelly
00:44:40
trying to be involved in this investigation in some form or fashion right because one of the thoughts had
00:44:48
always been that he wanted to talk to police based off of the idea that he wanted to get the reward money that they
00:44:59
were offering a bunch of reward money and so he was willing and open to talking with police and hopes of maybe
00:45:06
getting that reward money I don't know that this tip points toward anything guilty or innocent it's just something
00:45:13
that took place that I was unaware of well not only was this tip called in but the three boys including Miss Kelly went
00:45:23
to the police station mhm and they and they had to tell the police officers what
00:45:29
they saw and initially when they were making this report it had nothing to do with the crimes that happened earlier
00:45:36
and there's actually the the other two boys have discussed this later stating we didn't even mention the murders of
00:45:43
the three boys until after we're at the police station and once they got to the police station they're like hey I wonder
00:45:50
if this has anything to do with those three boys that were missing now let's go out to May 15th
00:45:57
and a statement given by police and I'll keep it short and sweet here to the local media is that there were no
00:46:05
suspects the exact statement in fact is no there are no suspects at this time this is May 15 they also tell the media
00:46:13
that they are still collecting and forwarding information to the FBI Behavioral experts at quanico Virginia
00:46:21
where FBI agents were assembling attempting to put together a profile of the kill killer
00:46:28
killers from my understanding captain and based off of the Callahan website as well I don't think that that profile I
00:46:37
think they received the profile but I don't think it was ever released to the public right now some of my suspicions
00:46:47
are that they formed a list of questions and these list of questions we talked about a ton of the questions on off the
00:46:54
Record here recently but we've talked about some of these other questions on our original coverage as well but I
00:47:01
think it adds it gives a little insight as to what they were thinking the FBI agents anyway in regard to their profile
00:47:09
of the killer or Killers so the questions they were telling the local police to ask were who all lives in your
00:47:16
like you're interviewing somebody or knocking on their door who all lives here in this home what's the
00:47:21
relationship of any of those people that live here and where do they work how many kids do you have do they attend
00:47:29
school if so where and of course they're collecting names and addresses of persons also asking about who their
00:47:35
friends are they were collecting information about the type of vehicles that they would own and reminding local
00:47:42
police the FBI is reminding local police don't don't be lazy about this get a complete description right get color
00:47:50
year make model and tag numbers of all of these vehicles they also encourage them to ask about any visitors that
00:48:00
these persons would have had this is before during and after the boys were killed they had also gone on with
00:48:10
several other questions you know things that where were you that Wednesday night
00:48:15
were you at home but at the at the end of those that list of questions the FBI is
00:48:22
telling West Memphis Police Department ask if they if the person you're you're questioning or anyone they know in the
00:48:31
area is a Vietnam veteran ask if anyone in the area wears camouflage a uniform or any kind of uniform makes it seem
00:48:40
like they were on to something or some one and that's why they would put this as a part of the question I think what
00:48:47
we have here Captain is that that was part of the profile and that's why they're
00:48:52
encouraging the and I think it's like a little telling it shows their hand a little bit ask if if they are a Vietnam
00:48:59
veteran or anyone they know in the area is also ask if anybody wears camouflage or military type uniform of any kind or
00:49:08
a uniform of any kind and that's weird to me because you know years later we would hear the John Douglas assessment
00:49:16
of the crimes in u the cases that haunt us book and we would hear other profiles
00:49:23
performed from persons not as famous or wellknown as is John Douglas but a lot of those included saying things like the
00:49:33
whoever did this was maybe in a position of authority in comparison to the victims and so that to me like position
00:49:42
of authority uniform of any kind uniform implies Authority also the Vietnam stuff
00:49:48
that goes to something we talked about in our original coverage where West Memphis police were working under the
00:49:56
idea that the way that the boys were tied was similar somehow to how persons would have been tied during the Vietnam
00:50:05
war mhm calling around to hospitals looking for IND individuals that were injured especially on their private
00:50:14
areas males that would have been injured showing up to the hospital that night or
00:50:19
the next day with injuries to their private area especially wondering if any person showing up males were coming in
00:50:27
injured that were former Vietnam veterans yeah and I'm glad you bring up John Douglas and I'm going to say this
00:50:33
and I think it might hurt your feelings a little bit but this is one that I when I've
00:50:40
Revisited his thoughts um and his assessment of the West Memphis 3 I just feel like he dropped the ball he he
00:50:48
wanted to the two things in particular where I think he dropped the balls he he was basically saying that these three
00:50:56
indiv indviduals didn't have the criminal history or the history of violence in order to commit a crime like
00:51:03
this and then he also stated that there wasn't the drug use that a history of Dr
00:51:09
drug use that he thinks would have you know had to be involved in order to commit a crime like this yeah and I
00:51:16
don't know why that would hurt my feelings he's he's his own man um well I know you're I'm a fan of his too but
00:51:22
it's sometimes people do a bad job and and and well but it's also tough to say if he did a bad job I think that we
00:51:31
could we could both no we can say he did a bad job because if you look into these
00:51:36
three individuals there's a history of drug use and alcohol use period and then there is there a History of Violence
00:51:45
period yes there is and so I don't know what information he was privy to oh I I I'm sorry I failed to follow you I
00:51:52
thought you were saying in his profile of the likely offender or Enders he he was saying no History of Violence or
00:52:00
drug use which wouldn't make would wouldn't make any sense he was asked like hey look at the three individuals
00:52:06
the West Memphis 3 that were found guilty of this crime and and what do you what do you make of them and he's like
00:52:13
well they they don't have the criminal history or the the drug abuse history and it's like I would like to I don't
00:52:19
know what you're reading I would like to know if he meant that in comparison to his profile of the Killer they don't
00:52:27
have the level of History of Violence or they don't have the level of known drug
00:52:32
use that I would expect to see from the person who committed this yeah so again again it all the profile is also going
00:52:40
to be based on what information you're given and so if you don't have people at the Traer Park telling you well we've
00:52:47
seen Jason Baldwin torture animals we've seen you know Daman eeko kill a dog if you don't have that information or you
00:52:57
don't have his medical history at the time and the violence towards his parents and the fact that he that he was
00:53:04
locked up five times in a mental facility in 1992 the year before the murders if you
00:53:11
don't have that information then obviously you can't make a correct uh assessment so I don't know what he was
00:53:18
privy to and what he wasn't knowing what I know now and what I've been privy to I
00:53:23
can say well I think he he dropped the ball on that I thought one thing while we're on the Douglas topic I thought one
00:53:29
thing that was interesting was that he he had said that he was shocked that he was surprised
00:53:38
that given the result that West Memphis Police Department that they reached out to the FBI so early on in the
00:53:44
investigation but he also says that he was even more surprised learning that they reached out to the FBI because he
00:53:51
says I was in charge of that unit at the time and they never there was no followup with us like they never came
00:53:57
back to us to ask us any more information or to be involved other than like hey could you could you take a look
00:54:04
at this and kind of quickly come up with a a profile of who we should be looking
00:54:10
for now talking about this this is another big part of why I believe that this case was kind of damned to be
00:54:21
flubbed up from the very beginning because right so they reach out to the FBI there's also information that they
00:54:28
reached out to the satanic crimes unit of the New York City Police Department which was formed in the wake of the Son
00:54:35
of Sam murders right they get a very kind of short and simple response saying that look if this if these murders
00:54:47
involved sexual mutilation and were committed under a full moon then these are likely satanic crimes and I think
00:54:54
that the inexperienced West Memphis PD and their inspectors took that to mean well the experts are telling us that if
00:55:03
they were sexually mutilated and remember they're going off the they're looking at the injuries and we get in we
00:55:09
don't need to get into an animal pation or any of that here right today but they're looking at it at the time and
00:55:17
they're going well this is what the experts told us and it looks like there was sexual mutilation so these must be
00:55:24
satanic crimes and so they're they're rolling with that again I think this is where the the
00:55:32
crime is going to be talked about forever because you have three individuals and all three had different
00:55:41
mindsets I mean Jesse Miss Kelly he had two brain cells fighting each other and so to view this crime as this these
00:55:51
three boys set out to do a ritualistic killing I I keep I feel like a broken record by
00:56:00
saying it could be both happening at the same time this if the West Memphis 3 are
00:56:06
guilty of this crime it could have been a ritualistic killing in the mind of Damen
00:56:13
Eckles and the Pawns in this killing Jason Baldwin and Jesse Melly didn't understand the importance of some of the
00:56:24
actions that were taken in the actions of this crime yeah does that make any goddamn sense well no I it it definitely
00:56:32
does that I'm going through some of this uh John Douglas stuff because what's interesting is you
00:56:39
have this satanic crimes unit telling them that it probably is and you have the FBI telling them the opposite that
00:56:47
right that it's not a satanic crime and in case and in fact it's it's an individual that we spoke of several
00:56:55
times on the show recommending his book Ken Lanning who has a conversation with John Douglas saying yeah I spoke with
00:57:02
the prosecutor in the west Memphis 3 case they asked me if it was a satanic crime and told me
00:57:11
that they were pursuing it as satanic murder and Ken Lanning who's the expert on this type of stuff tells the
00:57:20
prosecutor I think you're letting the theory this Theory drive your investigation yeah and I I think that's
00:57:26
a misstep by law enforcement but there's so much arrogance in this case there's arrogance on the prosecution's part I
00:57:35
don't think there was arrogance on the defense team's part but there was definitely
00:57:39
arrogance on the suspects I think you can look back at footage and watch footage of Damen Eckles and go you're on
00:57:46
trial for murder of three 8-year-old boys and you are laughing smiling blowing kisses to people there's
00:57:55
evidence that he was trying to make contact with the victim's parents during the trial he could be totally innocent
00:58:04
of the crime but in in those situations and you just watched the documentary and what's
00:58:11
so fascinating to me is you have a documentary that they had 400 and some hours of footage and in the first
00:58:19
documentary it's like the suspects come off looking strange there's a lot of strange Behavior and the the amount of
00:58:29
giggling if I was on trial even as an 18-year-old and I think we have this lore that that Damen Eckles was this
00:58:39
Outsider and he was he was just smarter than the average person in that area uh really he didn't he didn't even attend
00:58:47
high school you know he was on disability he was on full disability and why was he on full disability because he
00:58:55
stayed to the state that he was homicidal and suicidal and again go back to the the five stance and mental
00:59:04
facilities the year before the crimes but if I'm on trial for three eight-year-old boys I'm not
00:59:12
laughing about nothing and I think I told myself I wasn't going to get upset here I
00:59:23
am you can hand me another beer [Music] [Applause] [Applause] oh