She said it was one of the highest-rated pieces they had. That didn't make sense to me. Terry Hobbs was born in 1958 and grew up in Northern Arkansas. "People probably think I'm in Satanism because what they don't understand they try to destroy or ridicule. The attorneys representing Echols and Baldwin believed that the juries wouldnt accept the prosecutions versions of eventsthat they were too fantastical and tied to second-hand informationand that without conclusive proof, their clients would walk. That story line would make up the bulk of 2000s Paradise Lost 2: Revelations, a rare sequel for a documentary, especially before the streaming era proved that true crime series like Making a Murderer and The Staircase could maintain audience interest for years. Published by The Commercial Appeal from Jun. Terry Hobbs stated both family and co-workers believed he was guilty from day one and continued to believe him guilty after the trial and convictions of the West Memphis Three. Echols tweeted, New technology and evidence in science would now allow us to test DNA in amounts so small that it would have been previously impossible. Terry Hobbs Memphis 32, 14-Jun, Superior Funeral Home-Hollywood. 21, 2021 at 1:51 PM PDT CALHOUN COUNTY, Fla.. Terry Hobbs, the stepfather of eight-year-old victim Stevie Branch, has been named in documents released in Marian, Arkansas by the attorneys for Pam Hobbs, Stevie's mother. As the 20th century turned to the 21st, the movement seemed to be picking up steam. Although she was unable to recall the exact location or anyone who attended the alleged meeting, she claimed a drunken Echols confessed to the murders. We were mainly in it for the aesthetics of filmmaking, but the last scene of Paradise Lost, when Damien is chained up and sent away to death row, that was just heartbreaking and devastating for us, Berlinger says. Misskelley's coerced confession, as contradictory as it seemed to the evidence, was consistent in implicating Echols and Jason Baldwin. Id like to see this put to rest. With their 2007 request for a new trial rejected, time was running out for the West Memphis Three. The first and likely simplest gauge is continued interest in the case. I don't entirely think Hobbs did it, but I . He was handed the phone. Explore. The killings came at the peak of the so-called Satanic Panic, a time of heightened worries about ritualistic abuse. The districts current prosecuting attorney, Keith Chrestman, did not respond to requests for comment for this article, but his predecessor Scott Ellington, whose office negotiated the deals, told The New York Times in 2011 that while new trials would have likely resulted in acquittals, We dont think that there is anybody else. The Moore family has been outspoken about the end result, vehemently protesting the 2012 Oscar nomination for the third Paradise Lost installment. Misskelley and Echols were 36; Baldwin was 34. Bakken immediately showed her friends Burk Sauls and Grove Pashley, who were both equally gripped by what they had just watched. According to Dan Stidham, the attorney for Misskelley, that money became essential for the cash-strapped defense teams, who needed to pay for expert witnesses and other expenses. They were released after prosecutors agreed to an Alford plea, in which the men maintained their innocence but pleaded guilty. A year after the DNA results were released, Hobbs sued Dixie Chicks singer Natalie Maines for defamation, claiming she implied he was a murderer on the bands website and at a 2007 rally, according to The New York Times. A theory held is that Terry Hobbs was the one who actually killed the three boys and had pinned it on the Memphis 3 boys. That included Mojo, who came calling around 2 a.m. that day trying to coax him out of his cell. Like Misskelley in the first trial, Baldwin received a life sentence. Robin Lynn Jones. Investigators kept minimal notes and omitted pertinent details including criminal records. Sheila Nevins, the HBO exec who pushed for Berlinger and Sinofsky to make that initial trip to Arkansas, is most proud of the companys willingness to let her finance three documentaries over 18 years without knowing where they would go. Terry Castleman is a data . He says his dad and Berlinger werent seeking notorietydocumentaries certainly werent a means to get rich or famous in those days. 1.0. . As the West Memphis Three languished behind bars for 18 years, thousands of supporters called out for their freedom while others vehemently declared their guilt. The great irony of the 18-year quest to free the West Memphis Three is that it didnt begin as a crusade. The idea of the average citizen becoming embroiled in a criminal investigation isnt far-fetched in 2021, decades removed from the launch of WM3.org. It had been a long fight to clear their names, and the odds seemed better than ever. Classmates at Weaver Elementary School, the three were active in their Cub Scout troop and responsible enough to be trusted to roam their neighborhood without supervision. Defense attorneys also pointed out that Griffis' doctorate was obtained through a notorious diploma mill and had been awarded with Griffis having never attended a single class. Although Damein Echols had a teenager's typical disdain for authority, he nevertheless trusted that the system would work in his favor. The idea of the average citizen becoming embroiled in a criminal investigation isn't far-fetched in 2021, . November 03, 2021 November 4, 2021 . But for every Your Own Backyard or Ill Be Gone in the Dark that has applied journalistic rigor to their research in the past two decades, theres an Up and Vanished, which has been at the center of ethical debates since the podcast debuted in 2016. . Terry Hobbs was born on November 25, 1969 in Columbus, Georgia, USA. All three had been submerged face down in the mud, stripped naked, and bound with their shoelaces. Check out never-before-seen content, free digital evidence kits, and much more! Who Is Terry Hobbs, Stepfather Of West Memphis Three Victim? | True 2011 Paradise Lost 3: Purgatory (Documentary) Self - Stepfather of Stevie Branch. weaving supposedly anti-Christian and occult messages into their songs, he discovered her while Googling cold cases, funded an extensive private investigation, a November 2010 Arkansas Supreme Court ruling, biggest allies in the years before his 2020 death, acquitted of capital murder in 2018 after a 25-year legal saga. As part of the deal, they cannot file wrongful-conviction lawsuits, which both Berlinger and Baldwin say couldve cost the state tens of millions of dollars. It's one. La Mirada, California. By getting to the story quickly, the directors were able to document the post-arrest period and two trials that followed in painstaking detail. of Auburndale, FL passed away Monday, August 16, 2021. I said, Im going to send some kids down there., Those kids turned out to be Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky, the young documentarians who had recently completed the acclaimed Brothers Keeper, a film chronicling a death and the resulting trial in a small upstate New York village. Damion Echols, Jason Baldwin, and Jessie Misskelley were convicted of murdering the children in 1994. After hours of questioning, a frustrated Morgan blurted out that he had been hospitalized for drug and alcohol abuse and might have committed the murders. When the case was given the option for DNA evidence, everyone but Terry Hobbs said yes. Berlinger contrasts this with the approach taken by Bakken, Sauls, and Co., who considered the truth sacrosanct and avoided rumor and innuendo in part because similar speculation helped convict the West Memphis Three. I dont know if they were questioning it, but they werent mistreating me and telling me that what I was telling them wasnt true., While Berlinger admits that he and Sinofsky may have tilted pro-prosecution in the early days of filming, that quickly changed after witnessing how the cases came together and spending time with the three teens during pretrial jailhouse interviewsparticularly Baldwin, who Berlinger describes as sweet and studious.. All of them were convicted after Misskelley confessed to helping Echols and Baldwin with the murders, which he later recanted. Echols' disdain for authority, penchant for black clothes, and propensity to make shocking statements didn't help his plight. Terry Hobbs is the one suspected of murder and the wounds that were inflicted on my nephew were where turtles bit his face. They had a daughter together, Amanda Hobbs, who was 4 years old at the time of her brothers death. On Aug. 11, 2011, the West Memphis Three entered the courtroom for the final time. To this day, it is still unclear who is responsible for the killings. Case Number : 2:21-BK-21177. The Messed Up Truth About The West Memphis Three Murders, citing the discovery of her son's favorite pocket knife, One of the prosecution's key pieces of evidence linking Jason Baldwin, With their 2007 request for a new trial rejected, Baldwin is the co-founder of the legal advocacy organization Proclaim Justice. Berlinger and Sinofsky, the latter of whom died in 2015 at age 58, were able to gain incredible and immediate access to seemingly everyone the case had touched: the families of the victims and the accused, the judge, the lead investigator, members of the community. But Berlinger also believes that the sequel is important for documenting the power of citizen activism. The sheer mountain moving amount of money it cost to prove the obvious innocence of Jessie, Jason, and Damien still staggers me. In August 2011, Jason Baldwin was pulled from his prison cell under confusing circumstances once again. Wherever it was screened, Berlinger says, it was followed by intense Q&As from audience members who couldnt believe what theyd just watched. We use cookies and other tracking technologies to improve your browsing experience on our site, show personalized content and targeted ads, analyze site traffic, and understand where our audiences come from. Published: Dec. 21, 2021 at 9:56 PM CST WEST MEMPHIS, Ark. Make a life-giving gesture Since the West Memphis Three were released, no one else has been charged in the murders of Stevie, Christopher and Michael. - The West Memphis 3: Free (2012) . Eventually, they began traveling to Arkansasabout 35 trips in total, always on their own dime, Bakken and Sauls sayto collect case documents, which they scanned and uploaded to the site, also transcribing the documents so that the text could be searchable. ", According to Devil's Knot, a week after the discovery of the bodies, Detective Don Bray interviewed Vicki Hutcheson, a truckstop employee. They couldnt have been cooler, recalls Berlinger, who would go on to direct the 2004 documentary Metallica: Some Kind of Monster alongside Bruce Sinofsky. It was so emotionally taxing to watch and go through it again, he says. Spotting a small, black tennis shoe in the water, Jones radioed for help. is terry hobbs still missing 2021 - laspalmasbr.com Murders In West Memphis::: Other possible suspects includedBrian Holland and Chris Morgan, two young men from Memphis, Tenn., with a history of drug offenses. They were found nude and hogtied in a creek in a wooded area in West Memphis. McCaughey says her sister is very upset. Hobbs said, I still believe in my heart that Jessie, Jason, and Damion Echols are responsible for what happened to our children., He added, You look at what happened and then you wonder, what if this did not happen, where would our boys be today? Terry Hobbs passed away in Nampa, Idaho. The whole point of the web sleuths presented in the Cecil Hotel is that you cannot assume something is truthful just because circumstantially it seems interesting. Filming the activists work seemed like the best place for Berlinger and Sinofsky to turn their attention; what better way to show the continued plight of the West Memphis Three than to show regular people dedicating their free time to fighting for them? At the time of the West Memphis Three trial, Griffis claimed to have given seminars to 38,000 police officers all over the globe. He just didnt know it would take another 14 years to happen. Terry Hobbs, one of the men named in the documents. You still dont really know what happened to these kids. He began his career in the. Echols, who prosecutors argued was the ringleader, was sentenced to death. Its no surprise the juries found the prosecutions narrative compelling, Leveritt says: For them, the image of killer satanists headbanging to Metallica was more than plausible. West Memphis 3 / Terry Hobbs 2022 Update New Scott 94.5K subscribers Subscribe 241 Share 20K views 8 months ago https://www.crimeonline.com/2022/05/. Peter Jackson, who would produce a separate documentary about the case titled West of Memphis in 2012, and his partner, Fran Walsh, funded an extensive private investigation and helped hire forensic experts to comb through evidence. 2 While police had focused on Echols and Baldwin in the intervening weeks because of their reputation, the arrests came largely because of a confession by Misskelley, which was leaked to the largest newspaper in the area, the Memphis Commercial Appeal, and ran under the banner headline Teen describes cult torture of boys. At a press conference shortly after the arrests, the lead investigator was asked how confident he felt about the case on a scale of 1-10.