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[Music] % [Music] welcome to True Crime garage wherever you are whatever you are doing thanks
00:01:45
for listening I'm your host Nick and with me as always is a man who still has zero toilet paper he is the captain but
00:01:53
I still have a lot of leaves it's good to be seen and it's good to see you thanks for listening thanks for telling
00:01:59
a friends [Music] all right I'm excited because we are lucky enough to be sipping on Cold Cans
00:02:08
of beautifully crafted Dortmund gold this is a smooth logger that strikes a delicate balance between sweet malt and
00:02:16
dry hop flavors garage grade a big five bottle caps and big Thanks goes out to our garage beer fund friends first up
00:02:25
cheers to Robin and Alicia in Plymouth New Hampshire and a big shout out to Christopher for B and Parts Unknown also
00:02:32
in the parts that are unknown Captain we have Craig F next we have Kelly and honey bear and Tampa this of course begs
00:02:40
the question Captain who do you think is sweeter Kelly or honey bear I think neither I think Justine from upway
00:02:48
Australia is sweeter and last but certainly not least we have Amy and Samina Tennesse Amy says she has
00:02:55
listened to every single episode of True Crime garage and if you haven't listened
00:03:01
to every episode check us out on the Stitcher app you can listen for free every show and we have a bonus show
00:03:08
called off the record on Stitcher premium and that is enough of the business all right everybody gather
00:03:15
around grab a chair grab a beer let's talk some true [Music] crime [Music] that one thing that very quickly comes
00:03:49
up in most profiles the the level of concealment of the victim of the body often indicates how well known the
00:03:58
offender was to the victim how close the two were related and where we where we have here if tying the bodies up post
00:04:08
morm making smaller packages making sure that those packages stay under the water
00:04:15
uh it it really conceals the bodies and it's somebody taking on added risk to themselves getting caught by taking that
00:04:23
time to conceal the bodies in this manner if it were some Maniac from the truck stop he would have done what he
00:04:30
wanted to do and then just fled the area exactly right yeah and that that's especially when you consider you're
00:04:37
talking about the risk they were taking again this was not a a remote Forest this person was was doing all that work
00:04:44
to conceal those bodies with semi- trucks pulling up you know in and out of a truck wash 100 feet from them people
00:04:52
playing in their backyards 100t in the other direction like like all this is happening around them and they're doing
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it the only reason to do that is typically what I what I like to say is not necessarily that people know that
00:05:08
this individual was with the victims right before they died but that this individual thinks people might
00:05:16
know that he was with the victims right before they died so so say say whatever say person X sees you know the boys
00:05:25
cross the pipe and go in there and person X gets out out of their vehicle you know walks across people's yards
00:05:32
walks across the pipe which is in broad daylight view of the Mayfair apartments walks into the woods and then ends up
00:05:38
killing the boys and then it's like oh [ __ ] I don't know if anyone saw me do that you know if they weren't going
00:05:45
there with the intention of killing them which I don't believe they did you know
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so so now they think I think people know that I was with them so that explains the risk in the concealment in the fact
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that okay I've got to make sure when people come here to look that this is not where they find the boy's bodies
00:06:01
because someone could say hey I just saw you go in there and now the bodies are there I think that's why the we see that
00:06:07
level of concealment and I I think that's why we see even the bikes thrown into the Bayou as part of the
00:06:12
concealment because this person needed to be have a have a backup plan and somebody said hey I saw you going in
00:06:17
there they could say yeah I was searching I didn't find him in there whereas you know if they find the boy's
00:06:22
bodies very clearly and quickly and they were there then they're obviously going
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to get pegged for the crime so it's it's a it's a way for them to get to put some
00:06:29
distance between themselves both both Geographic distance and time away from them to delay the the bodies being found
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so that they can they're not they're not known to be the last people with them in
00:06:42
that location and and it all comes back to their being a personal relationship with them there's someone that people
00:06:48
would expect to be with those boys at that time which is typically you know someone who knows them now a lot of
00:06:55
people would say in this cast of characters because of the investigation like you're
00:07:01
you're making all these great points of why it was so or not why but the fact that it was
00:07:08
such a dis I don't even know what the word is a a [ __ ] storm uh of an investigation but you have individual
00:07:19
like the guy in Bojangles what what's your thought after looking into this case now on on an individual like that I
00:07:28
I think that there Mr Bojangles is a is a red herring uh we we kind of broke it down on the podcast
00:07:34
during season five um about the timing and the terrain and then as you'll see on the TV series we actually we actually
00:07:43
brought in um an an ex Special Forces person that that navigates terrain like that for a living and had them make the
00:07:52
actual run that that the Bojangles man would have had to make and and ultimately the the determination was
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that there's just no way that this guy had any connection to the crime whatsoever for for a number of reasons I
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mean the blood that was on him well there wasn't any blood on the boys the way they were killed uh and even what we
00:08:11
found in from our you know film in the TV series was the mud um there wouldn't have been any mud on them either and and
00:08:18
you'll see again the when your listeners are listening to this they will have already seen it and you'll see this
00:08:23
weekend why that's the case is it because you could have done everything from and and not be in the water no it's
00:08:32
because the water so we went in very similar conditions when the water was murky and gross and the you know you you
00:08:39
have to cross the water to get you have to cross two Creeks actually to get to Bojangles if you were taking the route
00:08:44
from the crime scene to follow the Bayou all the way down there and we expected our our special forces guy to come out
00:08:51
covered and caked in mud like Mr Bojangles was but when he came out he was perfectly clean and it was because
00:08:58
of the water from crossing the Bayou actually just it just rinsed all that mud right off of them and we we we tried
00:09:04
a few things we're like how is that possible that's just the way that it worked out is is once you cross the
00:09:09
Bayou to go into the Bojangles you come out no matter how much we caked mud on him once you came out the other side you
00:09:16
were clean so most likely we determined uh which you don't necessarily see it on
00:09:20
the show but we determined in the process was where this guy probably came from was from the the the open field to
00:09:27
the uh it would be the south of of the Bojangles restaurant there's a little ditch there and the guy probably
00:09:34
stumbled through that ditch on his way to the restaurant and there you can get yourself covered in mud so the the boys
00:09:39
are placed in the water for concealment the bikes two bicycles belonging to two of the boys are placed in the water for
00:09:47
concealment as well what do and this might not be important because it may have already
00:09:53
been left elsewhere beforehand but wasn't Christopher buers on a skateboard at some point that evening and was that
00:10:00
skateboard ever located or or again if it's even important to the case yeah I mean that he was on a skateboard at some
00:10:07
point and it was located I think it was found um just down the road from his house you know well well his dad Mark
00:10:14
buers excuse me well his dad Mark buers actually found him riding the skateboard
00:10:20
down the middle of the road that's why he took him home and gave him the whipping so you know he was off the
00:10:25
skateboard at that point there was another indication that he was riding earlier than that riding a skateboard
00:10:30
around with a girl named Lisha Freeman down the road from him but there's no no indication of him being on the
00:10:36
skateboard after he was punished for it you know the the bikes though the bikes where they were found helps paint a very
00:10:44
clear picture of the profile of our unsub which which really is another thing that should have tipped police off
00:10:50
they were going the wrong way so unless so the boys leave their bikes on the on the ground south of the Bayou they don't
00:10:58
the bike never crossed the Bayou with them so they go over there so the killer finds the boys you know where
00:11:07
they're at and kills them now presumably the killer didn't have murder in mind when they went that way I I don't think
00:11:15
anybody went across that pipe thinking I'm going to kill these three boys right now I think it just happened out of out
00:11:20
of Rage or it was you know probably started as a mistake but my point is they wouldn't have thrown the bikes into
00:11:28
the Bayou yet the bikes got thrown into the Bayou as part of concealment which tells you after the boys were killed and
00:11:35
after the boys were put into the water and their crime scenes concealed after that the killer throws
00:11:43
the bikes in the water which tells you that the killer came and went from the neighborhood not the highway where the
00:11:53
West Memphis 3 came and went from that they were saying right from like the truck wash from the from the highway
00:11:58
from over in Marion the killer had to when when they exited the crime scene went back across the bike the uh the
00:12:06
pipe sees the bikes there and knows those bikes are going to be a clear tip off that that's where the boys are so
00:12:11
they throw the bikes into the Bayou so no one knows to go look in that direction and you talked about your test
00:12:18
of caking the guy in mud and having him run through um run through the water and
00:12:24
so on and so forth talk about your the interesting test you did regarding was it was it pig or chicken that you did in
00:12:33
the in the water down there yeah so we and this was this was prior to the the filming of the TV series we just did
00:12:37
this when I started my investigation uh myself and and Mike my uh co-host and producer and our music guy Shane Yoder
00:12:45
who happens to be from Tennessee not far from there we all spent a week in West Memphis and you know I I looked at the
00:12:51
medical evidence and I had you know there's there's the theory out there and what seems to be pretty much scientific
00:12:56
proof proven evidence that most of the the the injuries on the boys came postmortem from animal activity namely
00:13:03
from Turtles and then people say well that's crazy that would never happen and you know the people who believe the West
00:13:09
Memphis 3 are guilty fight that so I wanted to know two things first I wanted to know a are there turtles in this
00:13:16
Bayou and B how will those Turtles react to flesh in the bayou so the first thing
00:13:24
we did is we went and we bought a couple of uh just raw chickens add them to ropes set up GoPro cameras and we said
00:13:31
all right I'm going to throw these in the water the GoPro battery will last about 4 hours and then we'll come back
00:13:35
and pull these out and see what we find throw the chickens in the water when we go walking back 4 hours later we see
00:13:42
turtles everywhere just scatter just away from the chicken which was pretty shocking and then we pull the chickens
00:13:49
out of the water and there's nothing in 4 hours there was nothing left of those chickens but a skeleton and so we we go
00:13:57
back and we pull the GoPro footage and sure as [ __ ] within 20 minutes of us putting that meat in the Water The
00:14:04
Turtles start coming and it's it's all turtle it's not big snapper turtles like you'd think it's a lot of rede Sliders
00:14:10
uh some snapping turtles several different species but they they they smell that flesh and go right to it and
00:14:18
start ripping it off the bone immediately so what that what that tells me is you know so you can argue whether
00:14:26
okay this was turtles or it wasn't Turtles but what I was trying to prove or disprove is is it possible to throw
00:14:34
flesh into that Creek in that Bayou and not have Turtles attack it and the answer is no we did that test several
00:14:43
times and then we eventually went and got uh we bought a 60 lb Pig and put a pig in the water so we could have
00:14:49
because we couldn't work with the chickens they they ate it too fast pigs a little closer to human flesh and sure
00:14:54
enough we watched them doing just exactly what we see with the boys they're going for soft air areas going
00:14:59
for the crotch the inner thighs the face the ears the turtles were just Chomp yeah those Turtles were just chomping
00:15:06
and chewing on that pig so you can still try and argue that you know that wasn't
00:15:11
animal activity but I will maintain based on what we discovered that it's literally impossible to put any kind of
00:15:19
meat into that Bayou and not have Turtles attack it and then once we also learned how they feed at one point we
00:15:27
did uh we put a turtle upstream and one Downstream about 50 ft apart because you
00:15:32
know we have the theory the way the boys were positioned in the bayou you know Chris buers and and Stevie Branch had
00:15:39
much more activity many more wounds than Michael Moore well they were Downstream
00:15:44
of him so if they feed by scent my theory was if I put a chicken upstream and one Downstream the one Downstream
00:15:51
should get more damage than the one Upstream because they're you know they're they're following the scent
00:15:56
upstream and the first one they come is going to get at the worst and sure enough that's what we found that you
00:16:01
know if we had two in the water one 50 ft further north than the or further Upstream than the other one the first
00:16:07
chicken would get eaten to the Bone and you would only find in that same period of time only a few bites in the one that
00:16:12
was further Upstream but if but if you only put one in then that one obviously gets the full brunt of it so that
00:16:18
explains why you have the the the thighs of buyers and all those injuries where Michael Moore didn't sustain as
00:16:32
much it's because the way they feed is they follow the scent upstream and when they did that the first one they came to
00:16:39
was Christopher buers a few feet away from him was Stevie Branch that's where the feeding friendy is is as horrible as
00:16:46
that is to talk about it was occurring and then you know Michael Moore was still 25 ft further Upstream so not as
00:16:52
many made it you know they're not going to leave a viable food source to get to another one okay so and this takes us
00:16:59
back again Bob to the podcast there were some pretty aggressive and have been pretty
00:17:06
aggressive allegations against Terry Hobbs and I'm sure most people are well aware of those and maybe he is the one
00:17:13
responsible for the deaths of these children I certainly don't know but part of his Alibi or part of the story we've
00:17:20
always been told involves another man named David jacobe you had some pretty strong opinions of David Jacob
00:17:29
that you voiced on your show could you could you tell us a little bit more about uh David jacobe and and your your
00:17:36
thoughts on that yeah I I actually um and it's going to air here on the podcast in the next few weeks um I I
00:17:45
actually conducted besides my multiple trips down to Arkansas to meet with with David and and to have conversations with
00:17:54
him and to to convince him to do an interview but I I ended up recording about a 2-hour interview I actually
00:18:00
videoed it so we're actually going to put it on our YouTube channel as well um it's the only and longest interview with
00:18:08
because he's he's been interviewed a little bit here and there but it's the only full fulllength interview with
00:18:13
David jacobe that's ever occurred uh that we're going to put out and I think when when you hear that you you'll see
00:18:19
some of it in the series in the TV series but more so when you hear this interview with him you'll you'll realize
00:18:25
that this guy had nothing to do with this you know there's he doesn't fit the profile at all this is a guy he's got
00:18:31
seven children um you actually spoke with his ex-wife and the biggest complaint anybody has with him uh from
00:18:38
the day from his mother and his ex-wife were the fact that he was he would never
00:18:43
discipline the kids could never bring himself to harm a kid um even even his own when they were in trouble you know
00:18:49
and his his mom and his stepmom says well that's why some of the kids are you know getting into trouble because he
00:18:54
never disciplined him enough um but then but then when you hear everything that David did to try to help the defense
00:19:03
investigators it it really becomes very apparent that this guy has no idea what happened not to mention just the raw
00:19:08
motion from him but you know he one thing that that I like to cite that a lot of people don't realize David jacobe
00:19:15
actually allowed himself to be hypnotized to try to help remember and this was part of Amy Berg's team that
00:19:21
did the west of Memphis you know he was working with with John Douglas and you know he's he's very emotional about
00:19:28
about it he was very close with Stevie and he wants to know what happened he has a hard time believing that Terry
00:19:33
would have anything to do with it and so of course they're trying to get him to trace down a timeline and they said well
00:19:39
would you agree to be hypnotized and he said yeah whatever whatever it takes so imagine if this is a guy that actually
00:19:47
had some knowledge of the crime do you know how D think about how dangerous it would be for that person to let
00:19:54
themselves be hypnotized and interviewed about it there's just there's just no way um and there there's a lot of other
00:20:01
things that he did too to try to help along the way you know he wore a wire he let his phone be tapped to have phone
00:20:07
conversations with Terry Hobbs you to try and determine if Terry had anything to do with it I don't think he realized
00:20:14
at the time that they were you know they were also trying to figure out if David
00:20:18
had anything to do with it and he really kind of got left hung out to dry with west of Memphis you know it was it was
00:20:24
uh it made better TV for them to put out you know there's the the hair the the the hair found on the stump that they
00:20:33
they know they call the jacobe Hair that you know his hair was found in the crime
00:20:36
scene too um but they they really didn't they put it out a little bit but they didn't really narrow it down as much as
00:20:43
they should have for the viewers to digest the fact that that was a hair that was found on the crime scene in a
00:20:50
public place six weeks after the crime that wasn't discovered by law enforcement and it matches like I don't
00:20:58
remember like 7% of the population of the world you know essentially if you take the the the odds of that belonging
00:21:06
to any particular individual and take the amount of people that we know for a fact were on the crime
00:21:12
scene there I don't remember the number but it it was it was several it' be something like nine of the people that
00:21:17
were at the crime scene that hair would they also couldn't have been excluded from it so it was
00:21:24
what it ended up doing is it ruined the guy's life you know he he ended up you know he would go to the grocery store
00:21:29
and people would throw he said he told me a story about someone throwing a head of lettuce at him at the at the Walmart
00:21:35
when he's trying to buy his groceries calling him a child killer spray painting child killer on his on his car
00:21:40
they ran him out of West Memphis which is really sad because when you talk about the west of Memphis the
00:21:46
documentary one of the things that always stuck out to me about uh David is when he was telling the story about how
00:21:54
Stevie would be doing something and Terry would be getting angry uh keep that up I'm going to bust your
00:22:00
butt I think he talks about marbles or something and he he would talk uh and it seems like this would be occurrence that
00:22:08
happened multiple times where Stevie is getting on Terry H hobbs' nerve and then
00:22:13
David would kind of come to the rescue well if I talk to Stevie if I play with Stevie then Terry Hobbs will get his
00:22:20
Focus off of Stevie right and I I don't think that once we air our my full interview with him especially the video
00:22:29
version of it anybody that can watch that and watch this man struggle through the his emotions and what he went
00:22:37
through and how desperate he is to find out who killed those boys if you can watch that and still say that you think
00:22:44
he had anything to do with this then more power to you because I can't I mean I'm I'm I I would I would let David
00:22:50
jacobe babysit my kids any day of the week he's he he's an extremely kind man dedicated father dedicated grandfather
00:22:59
and and there's just absolutely no way he had anything to do with this now as far as west of Memphis documentary what
00:23:06
do you make of the Hobbs Family secret it's it's hard to put any weight into that um it made good TV maybe it's true
00:23:14
I mean certainly that you know that that guy came forward with that information but uh I think there's just
00:23:21
too much at stake you know there was they were offering such a big big reward it seems unlikely to me that if Terry
00:23:29
Hobs actually did this that he would just share that information with with with his
00:23:35
family to where they're just discussing it over a game of pool in the basement or whatever so um I don't know it's it's
00:23:42
possible but I don't I personally I don't think it's all that all that [Music] credible
00:24:00
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visit angie.com you can do this when you Angie [Music] that what is interesting though in regards to
00:26:01
somebody like Terry Hobbs or maybe even John Mark buers is some of the injuries to the boys which I I get gets a little
00:26:11
dicey when you're trying to look through all of this because we do know that there there may have
00:26:18
been marks and bite marks and and different things that that occurred to the the bodies after the fact but some
00:26:27
of this appears to be reactionary and what Mar Leverett pointed out in I believe it was in an article in the
00:26:34
Arkansas times in 1994 this is still when a lot of the area really believe these teenagers did
00:26:42
this she points out in a in a wonderfully written article about the the criminal problems that buyers and Terry
00:26:53
Hobbs ran into and some of that in regards to Terry hob JS shows signs of abuse on other people and that's where I
00:27:03
have a hard time you know I go I go back to the injuries of reactionary and what
00:27:08
you said earlier about there's no reason to believe that that the person went into those woods with the intent to kill
00:27:16
but may have reacted to something it went too far and maybe now I have to I I've I've accidentally killed this one
00:27:26
boy and now I need to kill these other two boys yeah I mean that that's my theory of it's exactly my theory of what
00:27:32
happened that there was probably a punishment of some kind that that went too far and then now you got two
00:27:39
witnesses and I mean it takes a a sociopath of not a psychopath to to then turn onto two innocent 8-year-old kids
00:27:47
and intentionally kill them uh but it's the only way that crime scene makes sense to me what do you make of Mark
00:27:54
byer's passing the lie detector I don't think it matters honestly and that's you
00:27:59
know if you look at there's a lot of people there's still a lot of people matter of fact we had people that were
00:28:04
you know actively involved with our investigation on our Facebook page um you know our groups and stuff that were
00:28:10
kind of friends of the show during this case that knew the case really well that
00:28:14
eventually just kind of got pissed off and wouldn't talk to me anymore because I I didn't agree with them that Mark
00:28:20
buers is a likely suspect but the thing about Mark buers is he's alibied I think
00:28:25
Nick mentioned it earlier he Alibi 100% through the entire time and and I interviewed someone that no one's ever
00:28:31
heard from before that you would have seen on the show or you're going to see on the show this weekend and that's Ryan
00:28:36
Clark who's Chris Byers brother and you know he was I'll tell you right now he does not like Mark buers he's even told
00:28:43
me that he thinks Mark Byers had something to do with it but then when he walks me through the day he you know so
00:28:49
forget everything we know up till 6:00 so at 5:30 Mark finds Chris riding the skateboard down the middle of the road
00:28:59
grabs him takes him home that's when he gives him the spanking and makes him clean under the carport that's confirmed
00:29:05
by uh by by Chris's mother Melissa Byer she told police the same thing that he came home he got the whooping he was
00:29:12
cleaning under the carport Mark leaves to go pick up Ryan at court and Ryan says that's exactly what happened and
00:29:19
then the thing was when Ryan explain to me when they got home how that went down
00:29:24
now mind you he doesn't like markk and and part of him believes Mark has something to do with it because he just
00:29:29
he thinks you know he said Mark was abusive and didn't like Chris but he he told me the story of coming home and
00:29:37
walking inside and they were going to go to dinner and Mark comes in and wants to
00:29:40
know where Chris is at he's mad because Chris was supposed to be cleaning the carport Ryan witnessed his mother say
00:29:47
he's outside I just saw him and Mark's like well he's not out there and she said well well maybe he's upstairs and
00:29:53
Ryan goes upstairs and looks and then they start looking around the neighborhood and from that point
00:29:59
forward Mark was with either Ryan or Melissa or both throughout the entire rest of the evening while they're
00:30:06
searching so it it it it it seems to me impossible for someone to think that you
00:30:12
know what kind of theory could you have about when he found him and killed him if when he comes home with Ryan Melissa
00:30:22
his wife and Chris's mom says while you were gone with Ryan I saw Chris outside so we know Chris is home alive and safe
00:30:31
at that point and when he gets home Chris is already gone so there's just there's no way to to make Mark Myers fit
00:30:38
into the suspect pool and then he's actively looking for Chris with another person throughout the entire evening and
00:30:46
night that's what one thing we were able to do on our show was just point out there's just no time for him to have
00:30:52
done this and he's also the one that's like raising the the flags here the he's sounding the
00:30:59
alarm Bells because I think they're out driving around and he stops and talks to
00:31:05
an officer and says hey uh my kids we can't find him we were supposed to go to dinner he was supposed to be home we've
00:31:11
been out looking for him we can't find him anywhere should I report him missing and I believe that Officer says you know
00:31:17
it's it's still it was still maybe uh Twilight at that time I guess and we still got a little bit of daylight left
00:31:24
and so why don't you just you know take it easy he'll probably turn up if if an hour or so from now you still feel the
00:31:33
same way call it in and I and he's the one that phones the police at a what about 8:00 I think it was around that
00:31:42
time period to to notify that that Chris is missing and on top of it he seems clueless that two other boys are missing
00:31:49
because um Michael Moore's mother comes across the street and then says to the officer yeah I my my son is missing as
00:31:58
well I haven't seen him since this time and when you really start putting together the the time frame of these
00:32:04
possible and I I do want to stress this though these possible eyewitness accounts of having seen the boys because
00:32:11
I don't know that I fully believe every single one of them and we all know from doing this for a long time that
00:32:18
eyewitness accounts are are pretty unreliable in general but I do believe that some of these sightings occurred
00:32:26
and that they that they were correct and I'm not going to willy-nilly pick which
00:32:30
ones are right and wrong but it doesn't allow for the timeline for anything to for for Mark buers to have done anything
00:32:38
to Chris let alone the other two boys as well it just it just doesn't fit it's it's damn near impossible right and the
00:32:46
only way you know there there's a theory called the manhole Theory out there and
00:32:50
there there's a bunch of different crazy theories that you know he like rode a boat down the bayou late at night to put
00:32:55
the bodies in there and it's just it just it's just in my opinion those those are just not possible you know like I
00:33:03
said you know that doesn't make any sense at all um he just you know Mark's problem is and I've met Mark I
00:33:09
interviewed him you hear from him quite a bit on the podcast um during season five but you know he's you know he's
00:33:16
changed his story a few time he's a very Dynamic guy he's not you can tell by his
00:33:20
past he's not a great guy and so he rubs a lot of people the wrong way and so I think he you know people love to hate
00:33:26
him but at the same time you know to me that's no different than Damen Eckles you know people will say well daman's
00:33:31
changed the story he was a liar and he was a Satan worshipper it's like well you know even if he was a liar and even
00:33:37
if he was a Satan worshipper that still doesn't mean that he killed those boys there's still no evidence that he
00:33:41
actually killed those boys well and that's what's funny too is when people look at these different cast of
00:33:48
characters as the captain has called them and says well this person has changed their story this person has
00:33:53
changed their story that's why I don't like him the police have changed their story the
00:34:00
whole time and changed other people's story to fit their narrative and then you have people that still believe that
00:34:06
the the three of them did it I mean you have you know you mentioned the hollingworth uh earlier but we
00:34:13
have we have two people that and Captain said well what else what else evidence do we have in regards to Damen Eckles
00:34:22
well a a problem for Eckles that he ran into at trial is we have the Hollingsworth Clan who says I
00:34:29
saw Damen Eckles and Domin tier out and they were dirty they were muddy and it was it was late at night on the night
00:34:37
that the boys were killed and then the police have to change that that story a little bit themselves and they said you
00:34:45
know Jason Baldwin well he's he's a smaller guy he's short he's thin he's got long hair that you probably saw uh
00:34:53
Daman with with Jason Baldwin and you're AK Aken it wasn't dominer right even though narlene is saying nope I know my
00:35:01
niece I know for sure that was her but they still present that as evidence that that he saw Jason not to mention their
00:35:09
whole story of there being I think at one point ends up being like nine or 12 people in that little hatchback you know
00:35:14
as as the story progresses and they're reporting different times too like I I believe there's the one of the witnesses
00:35:21
is like an hour and a half difference from from one of the other ones they they sat they they probably sat together
00:35:30
came up with some kind of story because again it's the reward money that's this fueling some of of this uh confusion
00:35:37
around the case well there was a per this old case was a perfect situation it it was it was just the
00:35:44
wrong set of circumstances and the wrong set of people to create this chaos because you've got you know a
00:35:50
complicated case that's well it was made complicated and then and then you have all of these people you know their
00:35:58
emotions running High everybody wants to solve the case and then you throw this big fat reward out to a whole bunch of
00:36:03
poor people and and just and just it's like throwing fire on on gasoline it it just it just ignites but when you're
00:36:11
talking about the victimology it seems like you you believe you learned a couple things one that these murders
00:36:18
took place by one single individual you gave us the reasons you believe for that
00:36:24
you also believe that this person was connected to the boys somehow but also connected to that neighborhood somehow
00:36:33
you gave us your evidence reasons of those is there any other things that you guys have come to
00:36:41
conclusions about the profile of this murderer there was a big reveal you know I I've worked with retired FBI profiler
00:36:49
Jim clementy for about five years now and he's been kind of a mentor to me and and I think I did a pretty good job
00:36:55
profiling the crime scene his Prof profile and mine were were pretty close actually once he finally did his um but
00:37:01
Jim is an expert for a reason and what you'll you will see in the TV series is Jim catching something that I never
00:37:12
caught before and and I I guess it doesn't necessarily this may not answer your question but
00:37:19
it's interesting along those same lines um when he was was going through all the
00:37:25
evidence with with Terry Hobbs you know what his timeline what we have what's verifiable and the fact that Terry
00:37:34
called the police from Catfish Island when he picked Pam up um which we we knew that is what happened not till 9:00
00:37:42
he calls the police and reports them missing and then has the police meet him there you know I always thought you know
00:37:50
that's we always thought you know how Cal obviously this guy must not have a big concern why did he wait so long to
00:37:55
call the police and um Jim watched it and watched a I watched a light bulb go off in his head
00:38:01
and you will have seen that on the TV series when he tells me to hit pause and said wait a minute he called from
00:38:10
Catfish Island and he didn't go home he waited he met them in the parking lot there which I hadn't thought much
00:38:17
of and he's like why wouldn't they go home Pam's son is missing his stepson is missing they're waiting for him to go
00:38:26
home they're terrified where would you want to be in that situation at home right waiting for him
00:38:33
to come home and he says this guy didn't want the police in his house that and and Jim just I mean just poignantly that
00:38:42
is a red that is a huge red flag this guy was calculated for some reason Terry Hobs the evidence seems to indicate did
00:38:52
not want to meet the police at his house did not want the police at his house house and that's why he waited to call
00:38:58
it catfish Island and that's why he stayed at catfish Island to take the report instead of telling them to meet
00:39:04
him back at the house um so again that doesn't necessarily answer your question about the profile but it just that's
00:39:09
where my my mind went when you said that well I think your mind also can go to the idea that if if my son was missing
00:39:17
and I call the police I'd say oh well meet us back at the house cuz maybe he showed up but if you're responsible for
00:39:23
these murders you would know that they're not going to show up right exactly right and if if you uh if
00:39:30
you've seen at this point again you haven't seen the show yet but you've seen some of the trailers and if you you
00:39:35
you see a little bit of that moment I'm describing in the trailers and then you you also see me sitting at a desk
00:39:42
looking up at the sky with tears in my eyes trying to compose myself that was that was that moment when all of a
00:39:48
sudden it occurred to me what Pam Hobs must have been going through when she was forced to sit and stay at catfish
00:39:55
Island and wait for the police when her son was missing and she couldn't get home to see if he was there well there's
00:40:00
a lot of thought too that he never wanted to call police that he only did so because Pam questions him when he
00:40:09
arrives to pick her up well did did you call the police and he says no and then you're right it's very calculated for
00:40:16
him to deter to decide to call them there you know to to I got to end her worry by phoning the police but I'm
00:40:25
going to do it here right now and stay here as you said that's very interesting yeah the staying here was the big part
00:40:32
you know cuz I've heard people say well maybe their phone wasn't working or whatever and he in other interviews I
00:40:36
said they did have a working phone but yeah the staying here is is is the big thing that's you know why why not go
00:40:44
home and I and it just I never thought about it in that context until Jim brought that up and it's I've had a hard
00:40:50
time letting go of it ever since oh no and I I like the fact that you brought up when I was looking at the trailer
00:40:56
there's this moment that you just talked about where I was like wait did was Bob
00:41:02
te eyed because we've hung out several times at at crime con and fun events so we're always upbeat and it's good to see
00:41:11
everybody and I saw this clip and I went wow I think this gets really emotional but I also think it's important with
00:41:19
these cases to have people that are emotional about the cases and that that that these cases actually matter to them
00:41:25
and just not somebody collecting a paycheck to investigate a crime for TV on and that's one of the main reasons
00:41:34
I'm very excited to check this do you want to call it documentary the docu series yeah you're going to you're
00:41:44
definitely going to see some emotion out of me uh that I wasn't thrilled about you know that I'm on I'm on you're going
00:41:49
to see me on camera crying a couple times um which of course you know being the big tough Burly man that I am was
00:41:56
wasn't wasn't thrilled with but it's the reality you know the this docu series it's taking you the viewers along with
00:42:04
me while I'm doing the investigation and you're and you get to see what that really looks like you get to see what it
00:42:11
looks like when I sit down and you know call it an interview but I'm speaking with someone who lost their child who
00:42:18
lost their brother and it just it wears on I'll tell you as the you know we we filmed for about three months
00:42:26
and as the there there was definitely a fatigue factor it's just so much sadness and so
00:42:33
much hurt and pain that it got to be you know a lot of the a lot of the interviews and stuff we filmed later on
00:42:41
I'm just I'm I'm I'm kind of a wreck because it just it just it just weighs on me so much I just so badly want to
00:42:48
find the truth for these people and finally find some justice now Bob there there obviously a lot of question marks
00:42:55
in regards to Terry Hobs but are there is there anybody else any other persons any other people that in
00:43:03
the eyes of Bob Ruff should be Persons of Interest and why uh there are a few others um but what we really determined
00:43:10
throughout the course of this the the filming of the TV series and our active investigation last year is when we
00:43:15
filmed it was this case is only going to be solved one way and that's through science
00:43:24
there's we're not going to solve this case by by interviewing more people by finding more witnesses there's just
00:43:32
everybody's there too much time has passed there's too much motivation there's been too much motivation with
00:43:36
money and with media and memories have shifted there's too much drug use and too much alcoholism and and too many
00:43:43
people with agendas stories are changing but we have breaks in science we have new technology that can actually solve
00:43:53
this case and that's what it's going to come down to so it doesn't necessarily matter who the the the Persons of
00:43:58
Interest are it doesn't necessarily matter if you think Terry Hobbs did it or didn't do it I'm not saying if he did
00:44:05
or didn't I don't know I but I I'll tell you that he's someone that I think needs
00:44:08
further investigation and what it's going to take is to convince Scott Ellington the district attorney that
00:44:17
that holds the keys he's the gatekeeper to the evidence to release the evidence and allow us to use new technology and
00:44:24
science to test it and that is what is going to solve the case and that is the only thing that is going to finally
00:44:29
solve this case well and the statistics show this to be true that the younger a victim the more likely that they H it
00:44:38
has to be someone on their Inner Circle and these victims were all three eight years old if you take a victim that's
00:44:45
one or two it's almost somebody inside the household because the younger you are the smaller your Social Circle is
00:44:52
you just don't have that much going on in your life and the interesting thing here is with these
00:44:59
with these three victims with the three boys you're really not talking about a whole lot of circles because you you're
00:45:08
probably looking for the common themes throughout them when you talk about victimology okay they went to the same
00:45:14
school they lived in the same neighborhood they they were in the same uh all three of them were in Cub Scouts
00:45:21
I believe and then you also have the the because they're all three friends uh just their immediate families in general
00:45:29
it it feels to me like if this killer is known to the kids and there's a lot of evidence to suggest that it's got to be
00:45:36
somebody in one of those circles yeah I agree I think that you know the the biggest the saddest part about this
00:45:42
whole case is that the West Memphis Police didn't do their job on day one I think that I think all of this Myster I
00:45:50
most of us would have never heard about this case I think it would have been easily and quickly solved had they done
00:45:58
their job on day one they did bad police work to begin with but they they also were not skilled in in a homicide or the
00:46:06
homicide of of of three children but the but the the thing that always fascinates
00:46:11
me with these smaller police departments that can't fight their way out of a wet
00:46:15
paper bag they they turn down assistance from from agencies that know better that know
00:46:22
what they're doing I mean we have statements of the state police saying that no they didn't want our help down
00:46:28
there in in West Memphis and the f as you pointed out the FBI tried to get involved yeah it's it's sad you know I
00:46:35
worked in government for a long I was a firefighter for for 16 years um so I worked alongside with uh you know a lot
00:46:43
of police officers and law enforcement but I'll just tell you you know that the there's
00:46:48
definitely a marking of territory that goes on and all that it's the same thing with the fire service you know I I've
00:46:53
been at fires where we need help we don't have enough people we don't have enough enough apparatus and so you know
00:47:00
I you know when I was in my younger years in the fire service I you know asked the chief you call for Mutual Aid
00:47:04
ask the neighboring town to come over here and help us which they would happily do and you had this mentality
00:47:11
where and we're talking early 2000s now not not terribly far removed from this case where you know they would a house
00:47:19
would end up burning down because they refused to call for help because they didn't want to admit to another
00:47:24
municipality that they needed their help you know that that culture L luckily and
00:47:28
thankfully changed over the course of my career and of course for me I was the chief by the end so I was the one that
00:47:33
got to make those decisions um but it was the same thing in law enforcement I think that's a lot of what you see it's
00:47:38
just it's just people pissing on fire hydrants you know they this is my territory and I don't need you coming in
00:47:43
here to tell me how to do my job but the saddest part about it is besides that even is this case was made more
00:47:50
complicated than it actually was that West Memphis Police Department had certainly dealt with homicides before
00:47:56
but this was a right a triple homicide of children this is different and that's the problem is they looked at it like it
00:48:02
was different but what they needed to do was investigate it the same way they investigate every other case and had
00:48:10
they done that I think that we would had a resolution very quickly after the boys
00:48:14
bodies were found and obviously we all still have the question of who did this but what questions do you still have
00:48:22
about the case you know that's I think that's the only that's left for me I mean there there's a lot of minutia I
00:48:29
mean you can get in I mean every the the Callahan website is one of the greatest
00:48:32
resources ever made available for any True Crime case ever you know literally you can go through every single document
00:48:39
in the case and that's and and and what's not on there i' I've viewed and copied myself when I went into the DA's
00:48:45
office to go through their files so you I've looked at all and certainly there are a million unanswered questions but
00:48:50
it kind of goes back to what I mentioned earlier that what what I've realized is
00:48:56
there's not going to be a glaring answer in those files there's not going to be a
00:49:01
glaring answer in a new witness you know we we we found new Witnesses you're going to hear from people this weekend
00:49:07
that you've never heard from before but that's not what's going to solve the case that what's going to solve the case
00:49:13
is going to have to be forensic so so my big question is who did it the answer is
00:49:17
sitting right there in front of you and and all we need to do collectively as a as as a people on both sides of this is
00:49:25
just want the truth is to force that issue is to convince Scott Ellington in the State's Attorney's office to allow
00:49:34
the evidence to be tested and allow us to find the truth look when you watch west of Memphis you just want to
00:49:40
strangle the guy they're basically saying look we have enough evidence to convict these guys but there's resources
00:49:47
and then he even says that he hasn't even dove into all the evidence so when he makes that statement he's basically
00:49:54
telling the Community we believe these three individuals are responsible for murdering three 8-year-old children and
00:50:03
we're going to release them to the public to me that that's the most [ __ ] I've ever seen like if you
00:50:10
actually thought that these three individuals killed these three eight-year-olds you would never release
00:50:17
them to the community ever because there will always be a threat to the children
00:50:23
all they did was we want you to uh admit that you're you're guilty of the crime so you can't sue us for the time that we
00:50:32
made you serve right it's the Alfred plea is it it's one of the worst pieces of our criminal justice system and it's
00:50:39
not what it was ever intended to be you know it was essentially the Alfred plea came from a case where you know the the
00:50:46
you weren't allowed to plead guilty to something if you were innocent if that makes sense so that's where that that's
00:50:51
where that plea came from was a guy that was like well I'll plead guilty to take
00:50:54
this deal but I didn't do do it while a judge was not allowed to accept that plea this ruling came in to where they
00:51:00
said okay for this certain circumstance will allow you to plead guilty but still
00:51:05
maintain your innocence and then that got turned into what we now known as the Alfred plea where prosecutors offices
00:51:12
use it as a as a punt as an easy way out to say okay well I'll dangle your freedom in front of you you can go home
00:51:20
and not have any more risk of being in prison but you have to plead guilty and be a convicted murderer for the rest of
00:51:25
your life life in order for that to happen and that way I get to say we got the right guys I don't have to further
00:51:31
investigate this because look they pleed guilty when I see Stevie Branch Christopher buers Michael
00:51:40
Moore these three eight-year-old victims are victims multiple times they're they're victims of one of abuse then
00:51:48
they're a victims they're murdered then they're victims in the sense that the whole case becomes a about three other
00:51:57
victims and then then they become victims Again by by the courts not standing up
00:52:05
and saying that we we believe that these individuals are guilty if you if you thought they were guilty you would never
00:52:10
left let them out but you let them out you have them make a plea where now the case is closed and in the eyes of the
00:52:18
law they're not going to investigate this anymore so we're never going to know all right well that's what we're
00:52:24
hoping to change with it and this will a lot of what I keep saying about the Ellington the forensic evidence will
00:52:29
make a lot more sense after this weekend when you see the when you see the series
00:52:34
but you know we we we've discovered there's there's new technology out there that you know we you know I went to
00:52:42
California to meet with um a forensic uh DNA specialist that uses the mvac DNA collection technique and and that doctor
00:52:51
she's convinced that if you give me this evidence I can tell you who did it and we're we can't get Scott Ellington to
00:52:58
pull his head out of the sand long enough to allow that testing to be done well but it's all going to take public
00:53:04
pressure and that's my only argument against Baldwin Eckles and Miss Kelly is that you stated in a
00:53:14
documentary that you could do more once you get out and if this is true like you
00:53:20
said that there's evidence that can be tested these three individuals should be yelling from the rooftops and using
00:53:27
their platforms to get the community behind this to to stir um possibly some movement because like you said like I
00:53:36
said if there's no public pressure normally nothing gets done well and that's what you're going to see this
00:53:42
weekend is all three of them asking for this DNA testing and that's the reason why uh Damien and and Jason participated
00:53:50
in the in the docu series you know they're not making any money off of this or anything they're a part of it because
00:53:55
they believe that our process here in our investigation could actually lead to the truth and and actually figure out
00:54:01
who killed those three little boys that's why they agreed to participate and there's only one person that's
00:54:07
holding up that testing right now and it's not Damian it's not Jason it's not Jesse they've all said they're all for
00:54:12
it there's only one person stopping this case from being solved and that's Scott
00:54:17
[Music] Ellington how about a little recommended viewing you guessed it it's the highly
00:54:35
anticipated the Forgotten West Memphis 3 available on demand on oxygen watch our
00:54:41
friend Bob Ruff on the Forgotten West Memphis 3 and I've had a chance to watch both parts I'd give it five bottle caps
00:54:50
out of five and until next week be good be kind and don't let it [Music] you can start your day off
00:55:25
right when you find a professional on Angie to get your plumbing right first connect with skilled professionals
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