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