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Speaker 8: Loop Tadian, you are now listening to True Murder, The
Speaker 8: most shocking killers in true crime history and the authors
Speaker 8: that have written about them Gasey Bundy, Dahmer, The Nightstalker DTK.
Speaker 8: Every week another fascinating author talking about the most shocking
Speaker 8: and infamous killers in true crime history. True Murder with
Speaker 8: your host journalist and author Dan Zupanski, gid You Deen.
Speaker 9: On May fifth, Pardon Me On May fifth. Nineteen ninety three,
Speaker 9: second graders Christopher Byers, Stevie Branch, and Michael Moore disappeared
Speaker 9: from their West Memphis, Arkansas homes. The following afternoon, their nude, beaten,
Speaker 9: and bound bodies were discovered in a drainage ditch less
Speaker 9: than a mile away. After a troublesome confession, three local teenagers,
Speaker 9: later dubbed the West Memphis Three, where arrested, tried, and
Speaker 9: convicted in early nineteen ninety four. Jason Baldwin and Jesse
Speaker 9: miss Kelly received life sentences, while ringleader Damian Eccles went
Speaker 9: to death row. Three years later, the documentary film Paradise
Speaker 9: Lost premiered on HBO, and the effect on the viewers
Speaker 9: was dramatic. Many became skeptical of the verdicts and also
Speaker 9: felt one of the fathers of the victims was a
Speaker 9: better suspect. John Mark Byers. In Untying the Knot, author
Speaker 9: Greg Day tells the true story of John Mark Byers
Speaker 9: and the about face he made to free them men
Speaker 9: convicted of the crime, and Day exposes the propaganda campaign
Speaker 9: used to convince a gullible public that Byers was complicit
Speaker 9: in the death of his wife and son. Based on
Speaker 9: court transcripts and hours of personal interviews, Untying the Not
Speaker 9: explores all the case evidence while interview weaving dialogues and statements.
Speaker 9: It traces the life of Buyers from his roots in
Speaker 9: rural Arkansas to his son's murder and the death of
Speaker 9: his wife to his ultimate imprisonment in nineteen ninety nine.
Speaker 9: Reveals a man redeemed by prison and whose change of
Speaker 9: heart changed his life. The book that we're featuring this
Speaker 9: evening is Untying the Not John Mark Byers and the
Speaker 9: West Memphis Three, with my special guest journalist and author,
Speaker 9: Greg Day. Welcome to the program and thank you for
Speaker 9: agreeing this interview.
Speaker 10: Greg Day, thanks for having me, Dan.
Speaker 9: Thank you very much for joining us here. As I
Speaker 9: mentioned when we discussed this is a follow up from
Speaker 9: last week's show sort of a response to that program
Speaker 9: for the incredible interest that this case had at the time,
Speaker 9: still over this period of time, sustained by five movies
Speaker 9: and or documentary films, all the books, all the discussions,
Speaker 9: and all the still continued interest in Damien Echols, the
Speaker 9: West Memphis three and all information surrounding it, and still
Speaker 9: very very controversial and very very captivating for the audience worldwide.
Speaker 9: So let's get to this right away. Let's tell us
Speaker 9: what are the circumstances that you came to be involved
Speaker 9: in this case and especially involved with Mark Byers, John
Speaker 9: Mark Byers, and this book tell us those circumstances.
Speaker 10: Yeah, unlike a lot of other people who most came
Speaker 10: through to the case through the documentary films Paradise Lost,
Speaker 10: I had never heard of the films, and I actually
Speaker 10: had never heard of the crime. And I was just
Speaker 10: doing a basic interset Internet walk around to try and
Speaker 10: find in fact what I was interested in were capital cases,
Speaker 10: and I came across this case and found that it
Speaker 10: had a huge repository of evidence that was growing all
Speaker 10: the time, that was being put online for people's review,
Speaker 10: and of course their feeling was that the West Memphis
Speaker 10: three had been wrongly convicted, and I was interested in
Speaker 10: that as well, so I started picking through the documentations.
Speaker 10: I eventually saw the two films, and I actually saw
Speaker 10: the second Paradise Lost film first, and that was my
Speaker 10: first introduction to John Mark Bers. Anybody who's seen that
Speaker 10: as their first introduction to John Mark Bers, I mean
Speaker 10: he was terrified. I mean it was to me anyway.
Speaker 10: And I joined the message board and started conversing with
Speaker 10: the people who were running it, who were three of
Speaker 10: the people who were featured in the second film. They
Speaker 10: between the second film and these three people, if they
Speaker 10: don't happen, Damien Apples and his friends were rout in jail.
Speaker 2: They'll never see the light of day, but they.
Speaker 10: Were very were They were activists from southern California. But
Speaker 10: in any event, I had a friend on that message
Speaker 10: board who knew Mark Byers and thought that he needed
Speaker 10: somebody to talk to. So I run a few emails
Speaker 10: and he were a few back, and then I called
Speaker 10: them and I had written a lot in different posts
Speaker 10: on the message boards, and I guess he's thought that
Speaker 10: that I understood his story and he wanted me to
Speaker 10: tell it. So that's really and that was in two
Speaker 10: thousand and five.
Speaker 9: Now you mentioned those three activists, so mention their names
Speaker 9: because they're very pivotal and reoccurring characters in this story.
Speaker 10: Yeah, to say the least, we used to refer to
Speaker 10: them as the kgb Uh. It was Kathy Bachen Grove
Speaker 10: partially and Burke Saws Baccah Ends Sauls were in the
Speaker 10: film business down California and passially it was a photographer
Speaker 10: out there and they were all friends. And Kathy Bachhen
Speaker 10: was doing the artwork for the first Paradise Lost film Possible,
Speaker 10: it was the second Paradise of Boston, and when she's
Speaker 10: got to preview the films, she sent along to Burke
Speaker 10: Salls and knowing that he'd be interested in something like this,
Speaker 10: and the three of them decided at that point that
Speaker 10: the last number three were innocent, and they started a
Speaker 10: website and started putting all sorts of original source documentation
Speaker 10: that they were going to People were going to the
Speaker 10: West Memphis Police Department and actually photo copying things and
Speaker 10: uh copying, transcribing recordings and putting them up on the internet. So, yeah,
Speaker 10: those those people, uh, they didn't start the filming process
Speaker 10: because there was already one film out when they came together,
Speaker 10: but they gave it wings and between Paradise Bus two
Speaker 10: and the KGB that that's what attracted. They all had contacts,
Speaker 10: you know, Hollywood type contacts, media people and whatnot. So
Speaker 10: uh and that second film just, uh, it went off
Speaker 10: like a like a bomb, mainly in my opinion because
Speaker 10: of John Mark Byers. He gave them what they didn't
Speaker 10: have prior to that, and that was an alternate suspect.
Speaker 10: Because you and I both know that when uh, when
Speaker 10: when someone's on trial, especially for murder, and uh, they
Speaker 10: don't really have, you know, a good alibi and there's
Speaker 10: some evidence against them, their best hope for being exonerated
Speaker 10: is finding an alternate suspect. And John Mark Buyers set
Speaker 10: the boat perfectly. He was believable. He was a crazy redneck,
Speaker 10: uh and he he performed for the cameras better than
Speaker 10: they could have expected. He and as Maror Lebert also
Speaker 10: lasted onto him at that time, he became the fact
Speaker 10: though alternate suspect of choice.
Speaker 9: Well, to be fair though, I mean, of course they
Speaker 9: need somebody ultimately to be a suspect. If you're going
Speaker 9: to say that these three are innocent and certainly John
Speaker 9: Mark Byers cooperated. So please elaborate for audience what you
Speaker 9: mean by that, because you explain about even the cash incentive,
Speaker 9: and why would somebody do something like that? Well, and
Speaker 9: the offer of money is not exorbitan, So tell us
Speaker 9: the circumstances that they were in and then tell us
Speaker 9: how and why was he performing like that? What were
Speaker 9: some other factors in that performance besides being a grieving father,
Speaker 9: if we were to look at it.
Speaker 10: Well as the beginning in the end, when this this
Speaker 10: sum of cash not being exorbitant is a relative thing,
Speaker 10: uh to you and I is probably not exorbitant. But
Speaker 10: the way a lot of these people were living out there,
Speaker 10: if you had ever driven through the trailer parks where
Speaker 10: miss Kelly Baldwin and uh and Eckles came from. And
Speaker 10: by the way, the trailer park was a step up
Speaker 10: for Eccles, Uh, you know, it starts to relative to
Speaker 10: people who were on disability or you know, unemployment, they
Speaker 10: weren't working, They Mark puzzled drugs and all for relatively
Speaker 10: small amount of money. He was a jeweler by trade,
Speaker 10: and he did have a short period of time where
Speaker 10: he was profitable at that, but it it didn't last.
Speaker 10: So but you're right in saying that the money was
Speaker 10: not the big bush. Mark Mark pires is. He's an
Speaker 10: attention junkie. And when he to give you an example
Speaker 10: of this, one of the hearings out there, when the
Speaker 10: berlinger and the filmmakers were following them around, he was
Speaker 10: just going to person to person, just trying to find
Speaker 10: the last journalist who had a microphone or a camera on.
Speaker 10: He wouldn't go home until the last you know, and
Speaker 10: this was, you know, very shortly after his son's murder.
Speaker 10: I thought at the time maybe it was cathartic. I
Speaker 10: don't know, but he was. He was very much. And
Speaker 10: if you've seen the movies, particularly the second one, the
Speaker 10: scenes at the braveyard, the burying of the mock rays,
Speaker 10: there are just these scenes that you can't imagine somebody
Speaker 10: sitting there like if it was you and there always
Speaker 10: holding a camera in front of you, you know that
Speaker 10: you would that you would be able to perform like that.
Speaker 10: But but you know, but Mark could it. And I
Speaker 10: know that seems it seems like a little bit trite, but.
Speaker 8: It had.
Speaker 10: It had a lot to do with And then he
Speaker 10: got angry because once people started accusing him based on
Speaker 10: his h you know, his appearances. He started getting angry,
Speaker 10: he was he was drinking and the drugs, and he was,
Speaker 10: by his own admission, was heavily under the influence, particularly
Speaker 10: during the second the second film, and that that changes somebody.
Speaker 10: But I mean, I can't imagine anything, but at least
Speaker 10: at that point in time later on, when he when
Speaker 10: he thought he had an alternate suspect and he wanted
Speaker 10: to join the bandwagon or start the bandwagon, I can
Speaker 10: see it that at that point, all I see is
Speaker 10: that he was he for whatever reason, wanted.
Speaker 9: The attention, right, What was it in the film? Because
Speaker 9: I mean, millions, millions of people, far more people than
Speaker 9: they're going to read all the books written about this case.
Speaker 9: Far more people will get their impression of the cases
Speaker 9: from the films and the documentaries. And so what in
Speaker 9: the documentary in the second one, other than Mark Buyer's
Speaker 9: acting crazy because supposedly they're presenting factual information. And what
Speaker 9: the interesting way you put in the book is that
Speaker 9: your book is an examination of facts versus opinion. And
Speaker 9: when there is going to be an opinion rather than
Speaker 9: the fact, you're going to speculate that. So we're going
Speaker 9: to go through that for the people that that's what
Speaker 9: they're really really looking for, and that's what you really
Speaker 9: provide in this book as well. So let's talk about
Speaker 9: what the film, if anything, they did in that second
Speaker 9: film to say supported their claim and this very big
Speaker 9: claim that not only was the West Memphis Three innocent,
Speaker 9: but in fact John Mark Byers. What was the evidence
Speaker 9: that they presented in that film.
Speaker 10: Well, I didn't really think they presented very much evidence
Speaker 10: at all, and so much of it circled back to
Speaker 10: Mark Buyer's personality. There's Baldwin's defense team is together in
Speaker 10: one scene and a guy named James or Azakat is
Speaker 10: talking about how you know, Mark was the kind of
Speaker 10: guy who he was big enough to have carried the
Speaker 10: three bodies, He had the motive, he was a jeweler,
Speaker 10: he had the skill to do the the hammutation of
Speaker 10: the tea, yeah right, and which it was never really proven.
Speaker 10: But in any event, there were circumstantial things like that
Speaker 10: that they were already pointing towards him. I didn't see
Speaker 10: any real evidence in either one of those films. The
Speaker 10: first real evidence I saw came when Damian Echols had
Speaker 10: enough money to hire a very high powered defense team,
Speaker 10: forensic experts, FBI profilers and start finding and even then
Speaker 10: the evidence was thinned that they found something in the movie,
Speaker 10: I don't think they presented anything more than circumstantial. They have,
Speaker 10: of course, went to the things that everybody goes to,
Speaker 10: the Miss Kelly confession, and Joe and Bruce managed to.
Speaker 10: They would segue these scenes with these little tech screens
Speaker 10: that would help the viewer hear what he was about
Speaker 10: to see, and they would say things like Jesse ms
Speaker 10: Kelly was interrogated for twelve hours before confession. Now I
Speaker 10: went through that again before I got on the air
Speaker 10: to find out an exact timeline, because Miss Kelly actually
Speaker 10: gave four different confessions, one pre conviction to three post conviction,
Speaker 10: and he had only been at the police station about
Speaker 10: three and a half hours before he first filled the beans.
Speaker 10: They kept him there for twelve hours, but he went
Speaker 10: in around eleven o'clock in the morning and by twelve
Speaker 10: thirty or two thirty, I mean, after failing a polygraph
Speaker 10: and they said, well, he only had an IQ seventy,
Speaker 10: so that's why he cracked. I go, yeah, okay, but
Speaker 10: anytime miss Kenny tried to to remove himself from the situation.
Speaker 10: To me, it made him closer to the situation, like
Speaker 10: by saying that he chased after Michael Moore during the
Speaker 10: murders and brought him back and then he left. So
Speaker 10: what he was saying in his idiot's mind was that,
Speaker 10: you know, all I do was bring him back and
Speaker 10: then I left. And he said several times during the confession,
Speaker 10: and then I left, okay, and then it was then
Speaker 10: I left. His confession was was in my a strong
Speaker 10: piece of evidence against him, and they tried to prevent
Speaker 10: it as its sculptory evidence. So I honestly can't think
Speaker 10: of things they came that they came up. Well, let
Speaker 10: me let me correct that. They also found blood in
Speaker 10: what became known as the John Mark Byers knife, and
Speaker 10: it was a knife that Mark had given to a
Speaker 10: crew member of the filming team, and they had noticed
Speaker 10: there was some material and it looked like blood, and
Speaker 10: they had test and found out that it was consistent
Speaker 10: with Mark's blood and Christopher's blood, which was kind of
Speaker 10: curious because Christopher was an adoptive son. He was in
Speaker 10: a biological son. But they tried to question him on
Speaker 10: the stand to get him, you know, the defense, to
Speaker 10: get him to somehow a trip up, and he was
Speaker 10: very confused, and you could tell that he was drugged.
Speaker 10: Everybody at the trial was drugged all the at least
Speaker 10: on the victim's parents team. They were on valume. And
Speaker 10: this is from I'm getting this from them, not from
Speaker 10: anyone else, but Mark was If Mark appeared confused on
Speaker 10: his an end, he probably was. But they couldn't get
Speaker 10: a straight answer out of him about where that blood
Speaker 10: came from. And that was probably the strongest piece of
Speaker 10: evidence that they had, because when he got off the stand,
Speaker 10: I think a lot of people in the jury weren't
Speaker 10: quite sure of what to make of him. He didn't,
Speaker 10: he didn't, he didn't clear himself. But in the end,
Speaker 10: it just didn't. They couldn't match any of the eyes
Speaker 10: they had, they had two guys, and they couldn't match
Speaker 10: him with the wounds. So and in fact, those myphoones
Speaker 10: would be the subject of questions for another fifteen years
Speaker 10: to this day. The new defense team thinks they are
Speaker 10: turtle lights.
Speaker 9: Well let's get to that. And you do talk about
Speaker 9: this because last week's guests, William Ramsey, really I posed
Speaker 9: a question to him, and I really asked it, like,
Speaker 9: do you really believe that a guy like Johnny Depp
Speaker 9: really believes in every tenet of Alistair Crowley? In that
Speaker 9: he belie he's in human sacrifice? I said, I can't believe.
Speaker 9: Do you really believe he could believe in human sacrifice,
Speaker 9: let alone animal sacrifice? He's probably a vegan, I says,
Speaker 9: for God's sakes, you know. And he still said no.
Speaker 9: I think he's a fellow traveler of Alistair Crowley. And
Speaker 9: so that's where he is, you know, and that's what
Speaker 9: he firmly, he firmly believes. But in your book, you well,
Speaker 9: you have a more objective tone, we'll say the least,
Speaker 9: talk about who was really the instrumental people and the
Speaker 9: admirable job that they did do in once they believed
Speaker 9: in the cause. Tell us about that, because it's a
Speaker 9: fascinating true story of Hollywood, not just making some noise
Speaker 9: or some rock stars behind the car. I mean, they've
Speaker 9: been again admirable in other causes like live Aid and
Speaker 9: farm Aid and some admirable things. But again, this is
Speaker 9: something very very very big. If their convictions on these
Speaker 9: people's innocence is true, they did a very very impressive
Speaker 9: and profound thing. Really here, So tell us about the
Speaker 9: effort by and who those people were to get these
Speaker 9: people this new evidence.
Speaker 10: Yeah, you're right, this was practically unprecedented. I think the
Speaker 10: only thing that ever surprised me more was either O. J.
Speaker 10: Simpson being acquitted or Casey Anthony being quitted. But the
Speaker 10: way they did it was nothing compared to the West
Speaker 10: Memphis theory. This case was singular they because the first
Speaker 10: thing that came out was a book by a couple
Speaker 10: of Arkansas journalists. But a Blood of Innocents was made
Speaker 10: of the book, and it was just a pretty straightforward
Speaker 10: count of the case, and I didn't get a whole
Speaker 10: lot of attention. And it wasn't until Paradise Loss came along,
Speaker 10: and with the first film they were getting some lower
Speaker 10: level people like Michael Grade from the Misfits, Margaret cho
Speaker 10: I think even back then they might have gotten Eddie
Speaker 10: better involved. And as Echol's wife points out, they would
Speaker 10: not be where they are.
Speaker 2: If it wasn't for Eddiebody, Eddie Betterer.
Speaker 10: He did more than anybody, except to say that Johnny Depp,
Speaker 10: who was supposedly according to Joe I spoke with Joe.
Speaker 10: He said, well, you know that has been calling for years.
Speaker 10: Every year he calls me and asked me to stay
Speaker 10: to the case. You know, those bets still in prison.
Speaker 10: And so so allegedly Depp was was very was very
Speaker 10: disturbed by it. And when it got to the point
Speaker 10: where they raised a certain amount of money, and I'll
Speaker 10: say that at that point, the most important person, the
Speaker 10: key person, was Laurie Davis. He goes, they had money,
Speaker 10: you know, coming in before that, but they didn't have
Speaker 10: anybody direct in the effort. And Laurie Davis, without a
Speaker 10: whole lot of connections, started contacting these people. She knew
Speaker 10: about that E. So she got ahold of E personally.
Speaker 10: But you know, she had practically ran a publicity office
Speaker 10: for people to call in, and so she hooked up
Speaker 10: all these people and she started taking the money that
Speaker 10: they were giving her and doing what nobody else had done,
Speaker 10: and that was hiring friends, that's experts and legal people.
Speaker 10: That was the West Memphis Three's main problem is they
Speaker 10: had public defender grade lawyers and no money for to
Speaker 10: prepare their case. Usually, if you're an indigen you get
Speaker 10: the port will give you some money to collect evidence
Speaker 10: on it, but they didn't do that, and so she
Speaker 10: started spreading that money around. She hired Dennis Ardan who's
Speaker 10: he worked on the Nightstalker case and I think in
Speaker 10: the appeals he was part of the appeals and that
Speaker 10: was his thing, is that he was a federal appellatetan
Speaker 10: UH lawyer, and he started assembling the legal team. She
Speaker 10: got John Dogliz Uh to go out and start talking
Speaker 10: to people.
Speaker 7: Uh.
Speaker 10: She got the evidence reexamined. There's been d n DNA
Speaker 10: events that they had collected. You know, from the beginning,
Speaker 10: I was just sitting in an evidence room because the
Speaker 10: judge wouldn't give them any money to have it tested.
Speaker 10: So she got.
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Speaker 10: Fun need to have it tested, And out of all
Speaker 10: that came the most famous hair in history. And that
Speaker 10: would be the hair of Terry Hobbs that was found
Speaker 10: in the binding of Michael Moore. And when they had that,
Speaker 10: that was the first piece of physical evidence they had
Speaker 10: leaning somebody else to the case. John Mark Byers looks
Speaker 10: they're on camera, but there was no physical evidence Terry
Speaker 10: Hawks had a physical event. And of course, if you
Speaker 10: wanted to find somebody who was a character who was
Speaker 10: capable of violence, you know, obbosit the bill. So they
Speaker 10: had a violent guy, they had a hair, and away
Speaker 10: they go. And then they started doing the benefits to
Speaker 10: keep the money cranking in the last benefit they did
Speaker 10: was on the eve of the Supreme Court hearing which
Speaker 10: resulted in their ultimate release. Was Danny Harrison was there
Speaker 10: and Depp was there. Patty Smith so and Peter Jackson
Speaker 10: got involved and had been involved for some time, but
Speaker 10: really behind the scenes. He had been funding a woman
Speaker 10: named Amy Berg who produced a documentary called deliver Us
Speaker 10: from Evil about a Catholic priest who was a pedophile,
Speaker 10: and she had gone like undercover with Pam Hobbs for
Speaker 10: several years trying to get evidence implicating Hobbes. And she
Speaker 10: put out her own documentary at that time called West
Speaker 10: of Memphis, so they had. At the same time, Bruce
Speaker 10: and Joe were putting a third Paradise Loss together, So
Speaker 10: there were three Paradise Loss films.
Speaker 2: There was the.
Speaker 10: West of Memphis documentary. There was Devil's Not the theatrical
Speaker 10: release by Adam that was his name, the Canadian guy,
Speaker 10: yes with now it wasn't an American Adam, a boy
Speaker 10: in Adam Agoyan Colin Firth, and recently was Room and
Speaker 10: all that. So that's overwhelming amount of media. And it's
Speaker 10: the times. It's forget about the books because as you
Speaker 10: pointed out, people weren't reading those. Yeah, the big read
Speaker 10: h Mara Levitt's book and they use it as their bible.
Speaker 10: But that book was three quarters and I invited anybody
Speaker 10: to go through and tell me otherwise. That was three
Speaker 10: quarters of a hatchet job on John Mark Byers. It's
Speaker 10: all that book was. Yeah, and then their buddies these days.
Speaker 9: So the thing is, how on earth does the number
Speaker 9: one the movement on how does Because Marra Leverett's there
Speaker 9: at the end, you know, when the the DNA, at
Speaker 9: least in their minds, completely exonerates the West Memphis three
Speaker 9: and implicates in their minds completely that Hobbes is the
Speaker 9: guy and Mark Myers isn't. How does Hollywood and documentarians,
Speaker 9: because they're not, you know, filmmakers aren't supposed to be
Speaker 9: as responsible as documentary filmmakers. How do they go from
Speaker 9: blaming in two movies basically and like you say, three
Speaker 9: quarters of Mayor Leverett's book, Devil's not accusing Mark Byers
Speaker 9: in this almost the same kind of way that ironically
Speaker 9: that the West Memphis Three were accused through not complete
Speaker 9: police work. Let's say, how do they do that? How
Speaker 9: do they justify that? Do they say anything? Do they
Speaker 9: address that? And how does that work?
Speaker 10: Well, the one thing you said that's true is that
Speaker 10: they're held to a higher standard than a regular filmmaker.
Speaker 10: They refer Joe's verse, refer to themselves, and when I
Speaker 10: talk about through Snowsky, I should mention he passed away
Speaker 10: a couple of years back, so it's just young now.
Speaker 10: But they they refer to themselves as journalists. And in
Speaker 10: my mind, that kicks it up another notch as far
Speaker 10: as paying paying mine to the integrity of the of
Speaker 10: the film. And I just couldn't see it being there
Speaker 10: if there was enough, if you didn't if you didn't
Speaker 10: do anything else but watch movies, and I suppose you
Speaker 10: could believe what you saw. But uh, there was a
Speaker 10: website out there that I leaned on heavily. It contributed
Speaker 10: to pretty heavily as well. Where since the beginning of
Speaker 10: the case, they've been piling evidence. We were talking about
Speaker 10: this in the pre show. They had things transcribed, recordings transcribed.
Speaker 10: They had, you know, people transcribing court records and things
Speaker 10: like that, and evidence reports and photo copies of police reports.
Speaker 10: And I mean, they had just had so much stuff
Speaker 10: up there. It was very I wouldn't say it was easy.
Speaker 10: It would be tedious to walk yourself through what was
Speaker 10: up there, but it would also tell you the facts.
Speaker 10: And a lot of the people who came up with
Speaker 10: different facts, and includes someone like John Douglas. Again, it
Speaker 10: was a completely different scenario. It could not have possibly
Speaker 10: gone through the records, uh, and and looked at the
Speaker 10: facts the documentarians you can tell. One of the first
Speaker 10: things Joe said after after seeing Damien Eckles in court
Speaker 10: was that after talking to him for five minutes, he
Speaker 10: realized that he was totally innocent. And if somebody, if
Speaker 10: somebody can tell you that they can tell anybody is
Speaker 10: innocent after talking to them for five minutes. He obviously
Speaker 10: didn't read all the psychiatric reports. He didn't know Epples history.
Speaker 10: And this is a violent, disturbed, you know, an emotionally
Speaker 10: deserved guy. Uh. And even if you don't buy that
Speaker 10: that's enough of a motive for murder. Uh, it's it's
Speaker 10: still something that that that the filmmakers were unaware of
Speaker 10: when they when they when they interviewed Echols when they
Speaker 10: made that movie again, the first he was better factually
Speaker 10: in that it was less theatrical in nature. Then the
Speaker 10: second movie they got Kathy and Grove and Burke and
Speaker 10: Marill Everett and it was the whole in by Joe's
Speaker 10: own admission, the movie was them watching the Free the
Speaker 10: West Memphis three support. That's what the whole second movie
Speaker 10: is about. So it tells you right in the beginning
Speaker 10: what you're going to see. You're going to see. You're
Speaker 10: going to see a group of filmmakers. And it's really
Speaker 10: easy to do in on film, to just what you
Speaker 10: leave on a cutter room room floor. You can make
Speaker 10: your tastes. And still, now let me say that I
Speaker 10: think that I believe that that Joe believes in what
Speaker 10: he was doing. I don't know if he would say
Speaker 10: that he was held up to the highest standards of journalism,
Speaker 10: but he's an ends justify the means kind of guy.
Speaker 10: And he said that the problem with Joe's he likes
Speaker 10: to talk. And if you look through the commentary to
Speaker 10: the films, which I did, and you know, call the
Speaker 10: internet for all the hundreds of interviews that he's given,
Speaker 10: he just loves the glass because nobody disagrees with him.
Speaker 10: You never have to get put against any screwiny because
Speaker 10: you'll find in this in this case, most people believe
Speaker 10: that the West mamphis three are innocent. I find that
Speaker 10: mind boggling. But it's a lot, there's a lot of people.
Speaker 9: Well before we get to again that will be of
Speaker 9: course an opinion. Let's I want to go through some
Speaker 9: things that again are just highly contestable, and some things
Speaker 9: don't come up that that just boggle my mind that
Speaker 9: they don't come up. And one of the most important things,
Speaker 9: I mean, your book's called Untied to Not there's devils
Speaker 9: not William Ramsey talked about in his He claimed that
Speaker 9: there was proof the way the shoelaces were tied of
Speaker 9: a Satanic ritual. And and yet I read in your
Speaker 9: book about for the first time that there are three
Speaker 9: distinct styles of knots, which indicates three different killers. Can
Speaker 9: you talk about that?
Speaker 10: Yeah, that's uh, that was one thing that didn't get noticed.
Speaker 10: I don't think very early in a case either, but
Speaker 10: it did certainly during the appeals. And uh, even John
Speaker 10: Douglas admits that, Uh. One thing, one possibility for different
Speaker 10: knots is that it's not it's not unheard of for
Speaker 10: a killer to have his vignams tie each other up. Uh.
Speaker 10: And you had three boys arrowpub scouts and they theory,
Speaker 10: I think you had a time not so that's a possibility.
Speaker 10: Terry Hobbs.
Speaker 9: Uh.
Speaker 10: You know that they found one of his his uh,
Speaker 10: his hairs in the not binding Michael Moore. Uh. And
Speaker 10: and there's a lot of disagreement about that because they
Speaker 10: don't I don't have access to the actual piece of evidence,
Speaker 10: and they seem to be kind of vague as far
Speaker 10: as was it lying on the shoelace? Was that in
Speaker 10: the knots? But it was associated with that not that
Speaker 10: bound Michael Moore? And the question arises, why would he
Speaker 10: why would he tie three different style of knots, I
Speaker 10: wouldn't wouldn't make a whole lot of sense. John Douglass
Speaker 10: admits that too, while he would be all these different
Speaker 10: and he postulates and maybe one of the kids tied
Speaker 10: up the other kid, and that's possible, although if it
Speaker 10: was Jessic mis Kelly didn't say that, and he never
Speaker 10: said that, And there any one of his four confessions,
Speaker 10: he never said anything about anybody but Damien and Jason
Speaker 10: fine knots, which means that he probably tied on himself too.
Speaker 10: John Douglass also says that it was impossible for jess
Speaker 10: mus Kelly to who have run away and grabbed Michael
Speaker 10: Moore and bring him back because he was already he
Speaker 10: was already bound and he couldn't have run away. And
Speaker 10: I don't know where he gets that of information because
Speaker 10: it's not in the facts, So that's just something he
Speaker 10: made up. But yeah, I don't really. In fact, I
Speaker 10: sat here with a pile of leather bombs trying to
Speaker 10: find outce because I was not a boy scout and I
Speaker 10: don't want anything about nuts. And they gave a very
Speaker 10: good description of you know how these knots are tied,
Speaker 10: and they some of them seemed a little more complicated.
Speaker 2: Than an eight year old could tie.
Speaker 10: But Jesse made an interesting point when he was asked
Speaker 10: during one of the confessions, well, how comes that the kids?
Speaker 10: How do you get the kids to stay still while
Speaker 10: you tie them up? And Jesse said, well, the kids
Speaker 10: are just like puppies. He said, you can look them
Speaker 10: and they'll stay put. Well, I thought I was fascinate
Speaker 10: anything to say, because I also believe that that's true.
Speaker 10: It is easier to control children, and I don't think
Speaker 10: you needed any kind of giant intellect or a huge
Speaker 10: body size or but it certainly if you had help
Speaker 10: that would do it. So, I mean, that's the obvious
Speaker 10: explanation for different knots, is that there's there's gonna be
Speaker 10: three different kids involved, because before if one of the
Speaker 10: Dickens's time or not.
Speaker 9: Now everything about whether they had a fair trial. I mean,
Speaker 9: we won't dwell on this too much about the fair trial,
Speaker 9: but at least that has to be said that that's
Speaker 9: part of this. These people's argument is that did the
Speaker 9: West Memphis three you receive a fair trial, especially given
Speaker 9: the Satanic ritual theory that was put forth as motive.
Speaker 9: Let's just get that off the you know, did they
Speaker 9: receive a fair trial that they especially in light of
Speaker 9: the DNA evidence that they that they did and coover?
Speaker 9: Did they deserve another trial? So two questions.
Speaker 10: So I guess they totally deserved another trial. Their first
Speaker 10: triveal was completely unfair. And the fact that they deserved
Speaker 10: another trial, I only did they deserve it, that they
Speaker 10: were going to get it. And that's what forced the
Speaker 10: Alford deal to begin with, because they had the state
Speaker 10: had the choice of be there letting convicted killers go
Speaker 10: free and admitting they were wrong and opening themselves up
Speaker 10: to all the civil suits and you know whatever, all
Speaker 10: of that, and or getting to take the Alfred play.
Speaker 10: And they still would wind out this convicts, but they
Speaker 10: would be released out to seventeen or eighteen years behind bars.
Speaker 10: But the thing that made the trial, and it goes
Speaker 10: right back to the beginning, even forgetting the whole occult.
Speaker 10: I met with Vicky Hudgington at one point and I
Speaker 10: still never found out why. You know, it's a mystery
Speaker 10: how much Jessicas Kelly was into the calife. And I
Speaker 10: don't you know, I mean, they had a little little
Speaker 10: spooky groups going on around town. But I don't think
Speaker 10: anybody ever really approved the occult. But the question I
Speaker 10: think you're asked, did the jury by it? And it's
Speaker 10: a two pronged answer. And in the case of Jesse
Speaker 10: miss Kelly trial, because he was tried separately because he
Speaker 10: wouldn't testify against the others. In his case, the jury
Speaker 10: believed the confession. They heard the tapes confession played in
Speaker 10: open court. That's all they needed to hear. And what
Speaker 10: they did, though, was that information found its way into
Speaker 10: the trial of Damien Echols and Jason Baldwin, who were
Speaker 10: tried together. And it was later uncovered that, you know,
Speaker 10: the jury had included the miss Kelly confession in their deliberations, right,
Speaker 10: and they yeah, the who's the confession and their deliberations
Speaker 10: And also they had a juror who who talked his
Speaker 10: way onto the jury. He lied about, you know, some
Speaker 10: some questions you know they ask you and turn who
Speaker 10: idea all the different questions that might preclude you from
Speaker 10: providing a bias service. And he lied to that, and
Speaker 10: he also discussed it with his attorney and wanted to
Speaker 10: know because he was afraid that the prosecution was dropping
Speaker 10: the ball and they were going to they weren't going
Speaker 10: to convict these guys, and he wanted to make sure
Speaker 10: he decided they were guilty. He wanted and convicted. And
Speaker 10: uh so that's when he brought this kind of convention,
Speaker 10: the confession into into the jury deliberations. Uh, that's enough.
Speaker 10: That's Jerman's conduct. Uh. He had a tainted jury. And
Speaker 10: if Judge Burnett had given them a new trial right away,
Speaker 10: they may have come up with the same Uh, you're
Speaker 10: the same payment because those people were there were local
Speaker 10: people and the news sort of was still big. But
Speaker 10: he he didn't do that. He'd stone walled them for
Speaker 10: fifteen years, and by that time they were guaranteed a
Speaker 10: new trial and they were going to be acquitted and
Speaker 10: everybody knew it. So that's why they came up with
Speaker 10: the op place. So that's the deal of Yes, the
Speaker 10: short answer is they deserved new trials and they should
Speaker 10: have had them right away for that reason.
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Speaker 9: last left off, we were talking about the effect of
Speaker 9: this Alfred plea, well not the effect of the Alfred Plea,
Speaker 9: but effective all of the the five movies, the films
Speaker 9: and the movement to get these people released from prison.
Speaker 9: What is the state of the case legally as a
Speaker 9: result of all those five movies and all this activism
Speaker 9: and the Alfred plea. In reality, what is the legal
Speaker 9: evidence against Terry Hobbes in reality and what is what's
Speaker 9: the if anything, any kind of movement by the police
Speaker 9: or any progress by police in that area.
Speaker 10: Yeah, the police aren't really involved now, but there are
Speaker 10: there are a group of some of the victims' families,
Speaker 10: Mark in one of them, Pam Hobbs, and some other people,
Speaker 10: because they they're looking to exonerate the west menhis three
Speaker 10: rather than just have them released from prison, and the
Speaker 10: only way that they can do They're all focused on
Speaker 10: Terry Hobbs. As far as the evidence that they have,
Speaker 10: there's the hair. The hair is and I'll go through
Speaker 10: the details in the book I go. I do go
Speaker 10: into detail about mitochondrial DNA and what the story is
Speaker 10: with that hair and how inculpatory it actually is. You know,
Speaker 10: there's no hair follicle, it's just a hair shaft, so
Speaker 10: you can't get anything but mitochondrial DNA, which can trace
Speaker 10: things through the mother's line, and they can say things like,
Speaker 10: you know, Terry Hobbs is oneerful group of you know,
Speaker 10: in West Memphis thirty five hundred people who could have
Speaker 10: done this, you know, that kind of thing. But it's
Speaker 10: you know it. I don't think if they're good evidence,
Speaker 10: but it's evidence. They also have some statements by Hobbs,
Speaker 10: then neighbors. H and I'm gonna geeze a little bit
Speaker 10: here because I think that I think one was Jennifer Baird.
Speaker 10: They were sisters and they lit three doors down from
Speaker 10: from Terry in West Memphis, and they they claim to
Speaker 10: have seen him with all three boys at his house,
Speaker 10: uh on a date where he said he had never
Speaker 10: he had not seen the boys. He had he hadn't
Speaker 10: even seen his own steps on uh Stevie, because Terry
Speaker 10: hadn't come home from work yet when Stevie went out
Speaker 10: riding bikes. Uh. So they're they're showing that he not
Speaker 10: only saw, but was with and talked to these three
Speaker 10: kids the very shortly before the murdered, within an hour
Speaker 10: or so. Uh So that's another piece of it. And
Speaker 10: they they those were just sworn Affi Davids and uh
Speaker 10: they uh they've got uh Terry's uh uh. She wasn't
Speaker 10: a wife, she was a fiance, I think. And she
Speaker 10: said that he used to talk about the murders in
Speaker 10: his sleep. Mind you, this stuff is coming out like
Speaker 10: within the last last six years. She wouldn't say anything
Speaker 10: out of them, she said she didn't she like she
Speaker 10: didn't hear about the case, so she didn't know to
Speaker 10: come forward with this information. The same way with the
Speaker 10: girls and seen the three boys, which they didn't. They
Speaker 10: didn't know that it was an issue, where else they
Speaker 10: would have brought it up years ago. There was also
Speaker 10: a woman named Mildred I can't remember her name. She
Speaker 10: was out in Hot Springs, Arkansas, and Terry nig her
Speaker 10: when he was younger before he married Pam. And she
Speaker 10: claimed that he it broke into her apartment while she
Speaker 10: was in the shower and it's actually assault her and
Speaker 10: that the landlord as a result kicked him out of
Speaker 10: the apart. So this is another sorg and appidated. Uh
Speaker 10: so this one is very old, well not very old
Speaker 10: now that she's she's probably my age, she's miion her
Speaker 10: sixties or something. But she came forward.
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Speaker 10: And uh that's really all they have, although they're using uh,
Speaker 10: you know, he Terry Hawks filed a defamation City ends
Speaker 10: Natalie mains Is, the Dicks and the Dixie Chicks individually
Speaker 10: and collectively for defamation because of the information they had
Speaker 10: put on their website. Right after this is right after
Speaker 10: the hair was found and all that, Natalie Mainz actually
Speaker 10: went up to Little Rock to the capitol. She claimed
Speaker 10: she's going to see the governor with the governor with
Speaker 10: the seer. So she's just saw some functionary and just
Speaker 10: presented him with petition and some postcards and whatnot. But
Speaker 10: she apparently had said something on the web side about
Speaker 10: Terry Hobbes and he felt that it was defamatory. So
Speaker 10: he brought suit.
Speaker 2: He got a.
Speaker 10: Lawyer in his Mech of the Woods to do it
Speaker 10: pro bono, and they went through depositions and Judge ended
Speaker 10: up dismissing the case was being without evidence. But a
Speaker 10: lot of things. In fact, I have sitting around on
Speaker 10: my shelf, like fifteen hours of positive depositions and they're
Speaker 10: using things that he says in there as part of
Speaker 10: the case that they would put together. Now, so that's
Speaker 10: all I know that they have against Terry Ahms. I
Speaker 10: mean there's probably more a little things, but those are
Speaker 10: the biggies.
Speaker 9: Well. One of the things that was raised in the
Speaker 9: film and I found compelling is the timeline inconsistencies, and
Speaker 9: I think that's very very important. And again we haven't
Speaker 9: mentioned that of all the people. I mean normally police
Speaker 9: would look at the members of a family first. And
Speaker 9: what you point out in this book is Terry Hobbs
Speaker 9: was never questioned until fourteen years later, and he would
Speaker 9: have never been questioned if it weren't for the films.
Speaker 10: Yep, that's true, correct.
Speaker 9: Now, the timeline he includes very interesting. Again, this is
Speaker 9: you have to you know, you put this together and
Speaker 9: that together to create your theory, not your theory, but
Speaker 9: other people's theory that this. David Jacoby is a very
Speaker 9: interesting character because he is, for at least with some
Speaker 9: people Terry Hobbes. Again, he isn't questioned by police, so
Speaker 9: he doesn't need an alibi per se. But he says
Speaker 9: different things to different people involving David Jacoby, and then
Speaker 9: David Jacob is interviewed and says different things contrary to
Speaker 9: what Terry Hobbs said. So tell us what you found
Speaker 9: and what was tell us about this.
Speaker 10: Yeah, David Jacoby was actually a friend of Pam Hobbs'
Speaker 10: family back from up in Blyville and he lived there
Speaker 10: in West Memphis, and him and Terry used to play guitar,
Speaker 10: and yeah he did. He did tell police because they interviewed.
Speaker 10: They didn't interview Jacoby until later on either. They had
Speaker 10: no reason to. He's going through the same set of
Speaker 10: fogy recollections. He is not one hundred percent sure, like
Speaker 10: you said on the timeline. He has a couple of
Speaker 10: different timelines, but they're close enough to around what might
Speaker 10: have been the time of up because I remember they
Speaker 10: never established time of death either, but they can they can,
Speaker 10: they can narrow it down circumstantially, you know about when
Speaker 10: it probably took place. And uh ads had come to
Speaker 10: Jacoby's house, uh somewhere prior to six o'clock on that night.
Speaker 10: Uh they played guitar for a while, and Uh Terry
Speaker 10: had actually come from from home for Stevie because Stevie
Speaker 10: and Jacoby's kids used to play and they were the friends.
Speaker 10: And uh Stevie had Pam had already gone to work,
Speaker 10: and when Terry got home, Stevie was gone, so he
Speaker 10: went looking at Jacoby's. But you were a lot of concerned,
Speaker 10: you know, they said, well, why did he play guitar?
Speaker 10: It was trend for half an hour when the sun
Speaker 10: was missing. But yeah, you know what West Memphix, everybody
Speaker 10: knew each other, and uh it was it was just
Speaker 10: not an unusual thing, you know, Steve to be out
Speaker 10: riding his bike. But at one point he allegedly got
Speaker 10: concerned and after six o'clock and he left, according to Jacoby,
Speaker 10: for around forty five minutes, and when he came back,
Speaker 10: he said he hadn't found him. Now, there are those
Speaker 10: who claim that that was enough time to commit the murders,
Speaker 10: and I suppose it probably was because everything you know,
Speaker 10: one of the things that strikes you when you drive
Speaker 10: around that area is how close everything is. You know,
Speaker 10: it makes it sound like people are miles and miles away,
Speaker 10: but all these sites of the trailer parks, the Bayou,
Speaker 10: Hobbs buyer's house, all that is like walking distance. You know,
Speaker 10: it's very close. And he he didn't tell Terry at
Speaker 10: the time, I mean Jacobe at the time that you know,
Speaker 10: wherever he'd been, but he did say that he hadn't
Speaker 10: found a Stemian. Then he left again, and it gets
Speaker 10: confusing after that. You actually have to go through the
Speaker 10: documentation at Terry don't statements, you know, to see where
Speaker 10: he went, because surely they're at her He hooked up
Speaker 10: with Mark Buyers, and according to Terry, that was the
Speaker 10: first time he'd got he laid eye on Mark Buyers.
Speaker 8: Uh.
Speaker 10: You know, they lived a quarter a mile away from
Speaker 10: each other in their kids place.
Speaker 2: He did, he didn't know them.
Speaker 10: And Todd Moore, Michael Moore's dad was away on a
Speaker 10: trucking trip, and Dana Moore's mom was there and Chris's mom, Melissa, uh,
Speaker 10: and so they were there together and that's when Regina Meek,
Speaker 10: the officer Regina Meet came up to take their statements
Speaker 10: because Mark had already called the police. He knew it
Speaker 10: that that Christopher was not this sumwhere he wasn't supposed
Speaker 10: to be, and so she came took those statements. And
Speaker 10: she never made any mention of seeing Terry Hobbs, as
Speaker 10: Harry said, he's in one accountany he was in his
Speaker 10: car the whole time in another county. Said he was
Speaker 10: there with them and he saw me. Uh. Nobody came
Speaker 10: and asked her, did you see Terry Hobbs. So I
Speaker 10: can't tell you whether he was there or not. She
Speaker 10: just was silent on the subject. In the statements, don't
Speaker 10: say anything about He says that Mark is there, Most
Speaker 10: was there, Dana was there. Didn't say anything about Terry.
Speaker 10: But Terry said he was there, and then he joined
Speaker 10: the search effort at that point where people were going
Speaker 10: in and out of robin Hood Hills, and he was
Speaker 10: with his father in law because Pam had called her
Speaker 10: dad from Flysville talk him about half hour forty five
Speaker 10: minutes to get down there, Jackieyick's senior and he and
Speaker 10: Terry had gone through around to the Blue value of
Speaker 10: the Blue beacontructor stuff and called in the woods and stuff,
Speaker 10: but they were never really clear about whether they went
Speaker 10: into the woods. Pam said she went into the woods.
Speaker 10: Jacobe said he went into the woods. Terry Hobbs, I
Speaker 10: think he went into the woods. But in any case,
Speaker 10: they didn't. They didn't find anything, and with a crime
Speaker 10: scene that was so trained because it was dozens it
Speaker 10: is just the night before the next day, they didn't
Speaker 10: discover the bodies till like one o'clock in the afternoon,
Speaker 10: and from dawn all the way through that time, the
Speaker 10: crime scene had just been trampled, so they only had
Speaker 10: a few things that they could rely on, like they
Speaker 10: fished their bikes advi. So somebody had definitely thrown them
Speaker 10: in there after committing the murders, well before, but probably after.
Speaker 9: Let's get to again, I think the the before we
Speaker 9: start talking and looking at Hobbes and eliminating Hobbes or
Speaker 9: including Hobbes or accusing Hobbes and creating a scenario where
Speaker 9: that happened, was there really well, what was there the
Speaker 9: corroborating evidence that Jesse ms Kelly gave in totality of
Speaker 9: the If you've sorted out all the five confessions under
Speaker 9: all the circumstances, one in front of or a couple
Speaker 9: in front of their attorneys where they pleaded them not
Speaker 9: to you know, pleaded with them not to confess, but
Speaker 9: they did, regardless of all though tutality. What was the
Speaker 9: what were the corresponding evidence that said, yes, what Jim
Speaker 9: jesse ms Kelly said corresponded. You know, we had we
Speaker 9: had to talk of again, very very confusing when you
Speaker 9: get somebody saying it was a surgical castration and then
Speaker 9: we're talking about sea turtles or or some kind of turtles,
Speaker 9: and we talked about a wound on the left side
Speaker 9: of the cheek that jesse ms Kelly had made. So
Speaker 9: tell us the things that corroborated what he said to
Speaker 9: prove that there was some crucial evidence in his confessions.
Speaker 10: I think it was the things that he said that
Speaker 10: could be proven false. The proteins lying were more because
Speaker 10: he didn't give a whole lot of corroborating evidence. You know,
Speaker 10: the things he they were all circumstantial. The closest thing
Speaker 10: he got the physical evidence was he said that there
Speaker 10: was a whiskey bottle that he had drank, and that
Speaker 10: after the after the murders. He left separate from miss
Speaker 10: Kelly and I mean from Echoes in Baldwin, and he
Speaker 10: went walking along the railroad tracks, finishing his bottle of
Speaker 10: Evans Walker whiskey, and he threw it off the bridge
Speaker 10: there and danced it and then then up going back
Speaker 10: down there and finding it. And it's very difficult to
Speaker 10: take a bunch of broken glass and say, well, this
Speaker 10: is this is evidence. Uh so, But I mean it
Speaker 10: was something that he told them and they could kind
Speaker 10: of corroborate it. I think the biggest problem with with
Speaker 10: miss Kelly's confession was that he named all these people
Speaker 10: that knew where he was, none of which were Damien
Speaker 10: and Jason, because he was supposedly said he had was
Speaker 10: wrestling that night up in Dias It's about forty miles away.
Speaker 10: And the guys that he named all came up to
Speaker 10: the standard initially lied about the dates, and then it
Speaker 10: was proven that they that they didn't see him on
Speaker 10: that particular day, that it was a different day that
Speaker 10: he was there. I think they convincingly convinced the jury
Speaker 10: that he wasn't He wasn't where he said he was.
Speaker 10: So that was a bad piece of you know, that's
Speaker 10: kind of counter evidence and really goes back to the
Speaker 10: alibi because I can't think of anything that Jesse mus
Speaker 10: Kelly gave them that they were able to corroborate, with
Speaker 10: the exception of his dealings with Victoria Hutchinson, but she
Speaker 10: was supposedly working with the police at that time too,
Speaker 10: so they didn't need miss Kelley to corroborate anything he
Speaker 10: So they can't think of anything. I don't know whether
Speaker 10: there was anything.
Speaker 9: Now in your mind is the DNA and experts minds
Speaker 9: and the court's minds in terms of historically, do they
Speaker 9: take DNA what they found, what they uncovered with their
Speaker 9: their experts in that is that an exoneration of the
Speaker 9: West Memphis three, that there was no DNA linking them
Speaker 9: at that crime scene or to DNA evidence at their residences.
Speaker 10: Yeah, that's a good that's a good question. And none
Speaker 10: of the DNA evidence that they collected was really legally useful,
Speaker 10: and there the circumstances leading out to the Alford to
Speaker 10: play had absolutely nothing to do with evidence. Uh, you know,
Speaker 10: they convicted them on you know, on a panic. They
Speaker 10: would have acquitted them on public opinion. So I don't Yeah,
Speaker 10: I don't think that, because you're right, Yeah, there was
Speaker 10: a total absence of of d n A. You know
Speaker 10: where they would find it is, you know, it's beyond
Speaker 10: me as far as in their houses go. Uh. They
Speaker 10: came up with the fiber evidence, and I'll admit up
Speaker 10: front that I'm not a fiber guy. I read what
Speaker 10: they said about the fiber you know, I took their
Speaker 10: word for it, but uh, it didn't seem particularly convincing
Speaker 10: of anything, because all that stuff is, you know, might
Speaker 10: be to the exclusion of such and such, and uh,
Speaker 10: that's usually not enough to gain a condition for uh
Speaker 10: or an acquittal.
Speaker 9: So the thing is is, then, is in the the
Speaker 9: supporters minds they were They were sure in the first
Speaker 9: place because based on the movies and based on their
Speaker 9: just their ideas that that the West Memphis three were
Speaker 9: completely innocent and they were railroaded and that there was
Speaker 9: some other killer. And first they thought it was John
Speaker 9: Mark Byers, and so they destroyed his life almost completely,
Speaker 9: and then it was uh, Terry Hobbs, and that crusade continues. Yes,
Speaker 9: so I'll ask you, I'll ask you the question, then,
Speaker 9: why do you think what's your evidence that still maintains
Speaker 9: the guilt of the West Memphis three.
Speaker 10: I don't like to use the alternate suspect that I
Speaker 10: have a kind of alternate suspect in reverse, and uh,
Speaker 10: they really are none. There's nobody else who could have
Speaker 10: who could have done what they did. They they were
Speaker 10: they were good suspects, and I'll start with that they
Speaker 10: were good suspects. Uh, we can't go ahead and use
Speaker 10: all the medical records on Damian Epos was evidence of
Speaker 10: anything other than that he was a deserved kid. That
Speaker 10: they had said some things and Grant, listen, you gotta
Speaker 10: understand if you're involved in this case, you're not really
Speaker 10: hardcore either way. The supporters tend to be hardcore. But
Speaker 10: it falls apart pretty quick because because it's the nature
Speaker 10: of this case. I hear things like when Jess ms
Speaker 10: Kelly was giving one of his statements to the attorneys
Speaker 10: and they asked him, we're all three boys dead when
Speaker 10: they were thrown into the water, and Jesse said no,
Speaker 10: he said one of them was alive, and they go,
Speaker 10: how did you tell he was alive? Well, he was.
Speaker 10: They're wiggling like a worm. And that image just pomped
Speaker 10: me because to me, that said, there's somebody who saw it.
Speaker 10: He said, he whiggled like worm he saw that. And
Speaker 10: also the fact that one of the boys had water
Speaker 10: in their lungs, or two of the boys had water
Speaker 10: and their lungs, and one of them, sorry, one of
Speaker 10: them had water and his lungs, and the other tude
Speaker 10: didn't mean they were dead when they were put him
Speaker 10: in the water, and one of them was alive. Right, there's
Speaker 10: the absence of Damian Apples. Various trench coats. They searched
Speaker 10: his apartment.
Speaker 2: That night, du.
Speaker 10: I want to say ninth by the night they were
Speaker 10: all arrested, and they searched his his trailer, and they
Speaker 10: didn't find a similar trench coat. Now, this side wore
Speaker 10: a trench coat everywhere he went. And that's the one
Speaker 10: thing that everybody agreed on the West Memphis is that
Speaker 10: Damian Apples wore a trench coat twelve months out of
Speaker 10: the year everywhere he went. Good chance at seeing the
Speaker 10: prime he was wearing that trench coat. And now all
Speaker 10: of a sudden, there are no trench coats to be found.
Speaker 10: The West Memphis police don't ask, I mean, they asked
Speaker 10: later at trial, where's the trench coat? He said. David said,
Speaker 10: I don't know. My parents must have it, but of
Speaker 10: course I didn't have it because he had ditched it.
Speaker 10: So that always, uh you know, that always bothered me.
Speaker 9: Well, then I'll ask the question. I'll ask the questions.
Speaker 9: And why, I mean again not to say that I
Speaker 9: have to have all five tenants of the who what? Where? Why?
Speaker 9: You know, I can't nobody gets that, I don't think,
Speaker 9: or very rarely, but still you have to have an idea.
Speaker 9: You're very very involved with this for six seven, I'm
Speaker 9: in ten years almost. Why why would they do this?
Speaker 9: I mean, is there anything? Is there anything to this
Speaker 9: angle that the police and prosecutors had? Is there nothing
Speaker 9: to it? Is there anything to it?
Speaker 10: There's nothing to the Satanic ritual per se. The fact
Speaker 10: that Damien Echles probably believe pretty strongly in the occult.
Speaker 10: And if you read the document called that is in
Speaker 10: the five hundred, that was something they put together. It's
Speaker 10: kind of higher psychiatric history in it from all with
Speaker 10: different places that he'd been. And you look back on
Speaker 10: his life, uh, you know, his life was hell. And
Speaker 10: I encouraged somebody to get the book and read that
Speaker 10: particular part on Damien h and how that kid grew
Speaker 10: up and he was an accident waiting to happen. So
Speaker 10: I think that if you add some drugs to the
Speaker 10: midst and some alcoholic Josic said they were drunk, but
Speaker 10: I don't know. I don't know what that means. And
Speaker 10: and then you know the story that Miss Kelly told
Speaker 10: about him calling the kids over. And you know Damian
Speaker 10: Epans was a hated guy around town. You know, he's
Speaker 10: in a little podemic southern town.
Speaker 5: And.
Speaker 10: He he was despised, and that can do a lot
Speaker 10: with somebody. And like I said, you put together with
Speaker 10: his personal history, but that doesn't tell you why. And
Speaker 10: I don't really know why. But I'll tell you what.
Speaker 10: I also don't know why Terry Hobbs would have done it.
Speaker 10: I don't know why anybody would have done such a friend.
Speaker 10: So your face having to come up with an answer
Speaker 10: that's not going to be really satisfying.
Speaker 9: No, there is talk in your book, and there is talk,
Speaker 9: of course of the other alternative is that Hobbes did
Speaker 9: it and Jacob Jacoby or Jacoby was involved, and there
Speaker 9: was a couple other people's Michael Hobbs Junior, So tell
Speaker 9: us about that story. And why that's in your mind
Speaker 9: doesn't have too much credibility.
Speaker 10: Well, I you know, David Jakeby was a friend of
Speaker 10: the families, and like I said, he was a friend
Speaker 10: of Pan's family from back in Blives though, and you
Speaker 10: knew Steve, you well, And I mean I can't I
Speaker 10: can't conceive of any situation where he would team up
Speaker 10: with Harry Hobbes and kill a son and the other
Speaker 10: two boys. It makes so little sense that you'd have
Speaker 10: to have compelling physical evidence and then you don't have
Speaker 10: to worry about motives. And that's the problem in this
Speaker 10: case is you've got a lot of motives but no
Speaker 10: propelling evidence. And the nephews of Terry Hobbs or nephew
Speaker 10: Michael Hobbs, and his two friends, they came up with
Speaker 10: the story, and again this has done very recently post everything.
Speaker 10: They came to the story that they heard Terry and
Speaker 10: his brother downstairs in Terry's brother's house talking about the murders.
Speaker 10: Terry basically confessing, and Michael already knew this and said, hey,
Speaker 10: this is the Hobbes family secret. We don't tell anybody.
Speaker 10: And they took the two Michael Hobbs the nephew denied
Speaker 10: any He denied that he ever heard his father or
Speaker 10: uncle say that his two friends claiming they did they took,
Speaker 10: they they gave after Davids, it's a polygrass, uh and
Speaker 10: and past them. And an interesting thing about polygrass, especially
Speaker 10: in this case, is that when they when they point
Speaker 10: to the guilt of the West Memphis three, they're turned
Speaker 10: out there they're termed bad polygrass. But when they're turned
Speaker 10: out to be, you know, inculpatory with Terry Hobbs, they're good.
Speaker 10: They're good polygrass. I've met with several polargriphers who believe,
Speaker 10: they really believe in what they did. I mean, they
Speaker 10: really think that that their craft shows them something. But
Speaker 10: they're not admissible for a reason. And but so I
Speaker 10: don't give any credence to these boys at all because
Speaker 10: of the time they waste. If they're telling the truth,
Speaker 10: that's a that's a shame that they waited so long
Speaker 10: to tell somebout it, because if they had, Terry Hobbs
Speaker 10: is never gone. Terry Hobbs is never going to do
Speaker 10: any time for this crime ever, and those boys aren't
Speaker 10: gonna do anything else.
Speaker 9: Well, No, the thing is that there's many reasons why
Speaker 9: they would not go after I mean, even if more
Speaker 9: evidence came against Terry Hobbs, they'd likely not try to
Speaker 9: prosecute them. But here's the thing. I mean, again, for
Speaker 9: our audience, it's going to ask this question, and I
Speaker 9: guess I'm gonna have to ask this question from what
Speaker 9: you're saying, because there's again no core, corroborating evidence of
Speaker 9: miss Kelly basically or very very little. And you say
Speaker 9: there is no evidence of satanic ritual motivation and Terry Hobbs,
Speaker 9: you can't imagine a motivation, and it looks like that
Speaker 9: it's again, if I'm wrong, you can correct me. That
Speaker 9: it looks like more than one person had to either
Speaker 9: control these kids and tie them up and or tie
Speaker 9: them up, so which kind of rules out Hobbes doing
Speaker 9: it completely by himself. And then there is that presence
Speaker 9: of Pam's friend David his hair being there, and so
Speaker 9: people have talked about, well, Hobbs could have planted that.
Speaker 9: And then Hobbes immediately like almost like a guilty person's
Speaker 9: talking about secondary transfer like he's a lawyer. You say
Speaker 9: that you can't imagine a motivation or motive for Terry
Speaker 9: Hobbs and his friend David. And then but the motivation
Speaker 9: for Damian Eccles and Jason Baldwin is what is Damien's
Speaker 9: mentally ill? And Jason is his friend, he's sixteen looking
Speaker 9: like he's fourteen. If it's not in occult motivation, what
Speaker 9: do you think the motive? Again I asked you before,
Speaker 9: But again, if it's not, both people don't seem to
Speaker 9: have a really good motive.
Speaker 10: Yeah, that's as they don't. This is what I said.
Speaker 10: This is a problem with this case. This is the
Speaker 10: whole problem with it is there's there's no motive. There's
Speaker 10: no motive. If you hadn't caught Richard's is red handed,
Speaker 10: you wouldn't have a motive for him either. Why did
Speaker 10: he do what he did? You know, tell me why
Speaker 10: he did what he did? To my satisfaction? So what
Speaker 10: I can understand that he was guilty beyond reasonable doubt
Speaker 10: and there isn't anything and so and Charlie Manson's crew
Speaker 10: Helter Skelter vince BOLEIOSI had to go into court and
Speaker 10: proves Helter Skelter to a very skeptical jury. But he
Speaker 10: did it. But that's you know, that's a pretty nebulous
Speaker 10: type of his motive to send four people to their death,
Speaker 10: three of them being teenage girls. The motives is just
Speaker 10: something we're gonna have to do without in this case.
Speaker 10: And I'm not gonna postulate one because I haven't the
Speaker 10: slightest idea. That doesn't mean that those boys are just
Speaker 10: as dead, whether there was a motive or not. And
Speaker 10: you're gonna take two hairs and say that fifteen years later,
Speaker 10: a guy and his best friend killed his son. Okay,
Speaker 10: I think that's a I think that's a worse motive
Speaker 10: than three wasted, psychotic teenagers getting carried away with. Yeah,
Speaker 10: because all they really did was time up and drown
Speaker 10: them each one. And they bashed him on the back
Speaker 10: of the head with a rock. That is pretty basic. Jess,
Speaker 10: Miss Kenny knew how to bash somebody with the rock.
Speaker 10: He was very capable, and he was very pliable. He
Speaker 10: would do anything he was told. Just about Baldwin was
Speaker 10: also very malleable. So those're just, you know, those are
Speaker 10: just things. They don't prove anything.
Speaker 9: What about this, What about the surgical precision or lack
Speaker 9: of surgical precision was in your mind because they're so
Speaker 9: diametrically opposed, those two theories and and the testimony from
Speaker 9: the original medical examiner. What did you find likely happened?
Speaker 9: Was it surgical or was it animal predation or was
Speaker 9: it what? What'd you find?
Speaker 10: Well, considering the size of the world we're talking about,
Speaker 10: animal vernation is an out of the question. But it
Speaker 10: didn't seem like a surgical thing to me. And but
Speaker 10: I don't I know, I'm not being an expert. I
Speaker 10: couldn't say. Uh, the Parretti the medicals in there was
Speaker 10: a hack, a well known hack, and he's been discredited
Speaker 10: so many times over the years, and a lot of
Speaker 10: them thinks that he did. You know that that set
Speaker 10: the case the way this set the stage for the
Speaker 10: case for the next fifteen years. He's the guy who
Speaker 10: he's the only guy who got to look at the bodies.
Speaker 10: Everybody else is going back pictures. I sat in quote
Speaker 10: and listened to Warner Smitz say that when he looked
Speaker 10: at all the marks from the bodies from the pictures,
Speaker 10: that it was no doubt in his mind that this
Speaker 10: was animal product. And I say, you know what, I
Speaker 10: think that's I think that's nonsense because I saw those
Speaker 10: pictures too, and I could find a bunch of things
Speaker 10: that looked like I don't care if I'm not a
Speaker 10: pathologist or not, how can you how can you look
Speaker 10: at those pictures that later on and why would anybody
Speaker 10: put the You know, they would have had to have
Speaker 10: been in that bitch for a long time for the
Speaker 10: turtles to go much in on all three of them,
Speaker 10: and the fact is they were in there, what twelve
Speaker 10: fifteen hours? Right, I don't see how you can put
Speaker 10: out all those And but I will say that there's
Speaker 10: a mark on Steve Branch's skull that looks exactly like
Speaker 10: a puncture from a knife. Seemed enough puncture wounds, I nobody,
Speaker 10: nobody would address that, and so I don't know. But
Speaker 10: but if you go up to the Callahan website that
Speaker 10: that picture is up there somewhere, and you know that
Speaker 10: that supports the use of a knife. But the wounds
Speaker 10: that they found and were so shallow, you know, and
Speaker 10: the knives that they would have had were you know,
Speaker 10: we're not talking about butter knives. You know, certainly, even
Speaker 10: if you had a pen knife, it will make a
Speaker 10: deep enough mark. I think the deepest puncture wound they
Speaker 10: found was an engine three quarters, But that's more than
Speaker 10: a turtle cogit, So you know, I don't know, I
Speaker 10: wasn't watching. I don't know. I know what killed them
Speaker 10: were the was the one object and the basil region
Speaker 10: and the spell and all three kids that lined up
Speaker 10: their heads smashed in and that's what killed them.
Speaker 9: Was there one more of this corroborating question? Was there?
Speaker 9: I know there was controversy over it, but what did
Speaker 9: you think about that? The one co corroborating statement he
Speaker 9: said about the wound on the left cheek of the
Speaker 9: boy that he couldn't have known otherwise.
Speaker 10: I didn't think a whole lot about that. Unfortunately, Justin
Speaker 10: as Kelly was he made so many contradictory, confused statements that,
Speaker 10: and these boys were so badly brutalized. It was really
Speaker 10: hard for me to link up a fist with a
Speaker 10: wound on the side of the face. But it's certainly possible.
Speaker 9: Right now. The big part of your book is, of course,
Speaker 9: the journey of John Mark Byers, and to me, he's
Speaker 9: a sympathetic character based on just the evidence that you
Speaker 9: put forth, some bad luck, some you know, foolish foolish behavior. However, again,
Speaker 9: I gotta have sympathize with a guy that loses his
Speaker 9: son and is genuinely distraught like this man, and then
Speaker 9: what Hollywood did to this guy, or specifically not Hollywood,
Speaker 9: but specifically these filmmakers. So tell us a little bit
Speaker 9: about what this effect, what the effect of being accused
Speaker 9: did to him at the time that he was still grieving.
Speaker 9: And for those people that might not understand the reaction
Speaker 9: that they saw on film, how did you How is
Speaker 9: it explained to you by understanding his character? How could
Speaker 9: you explain to somebody to say, listen, you just don't
Speaker 9: know what this this can all create, and that presentation
Speaker 9: is much different than the man that I know.
Speaker 10: Yeah, that's not easy either. Obviously. You know the Mark
Speaker 10: Buyers that I knew for HM, HM seven eight nine
Speaker 10: years Well, I never saw that guy in the movies, so,
Speaker 10: you know, I except to see them in the movies.
Speaker 10: So he never really offered excuses or even explanations for
Speaker 10: some of the things that he did. You know, he
Speaker 10: went to some basic There's a scene in the movie
Speaker 10: where him and Todd Moore Blast of Parts and Pumpkins,
Speaker 10: pretending that they were the lost mental sperience. He told
Speaker 10: me that he went to the hotel bar waved to
Speaker 10: the filmmakers and got drunk, and someone there and shoots him.
Speaker 10: But did Mark Buyer start to get drunk to a
Speaker 10: blow a part of pumpkin and effigy, No burning the
Speaker 10: graves and effigy. He's a very very emotional guy. And
Speaker 10: I will say at this point, but I met his
Speaker 10: entire family, and I took his dad who the pass away,
Speaker 10: and mom his dead mom passed away, with his brother,
Speaker 10: sisters and nephews and everything. And he's the only one
Speaker 10: that's even remotely the way he is. I mean, they're
Speaker 10: this just average, you know, with old Arkansas, and they're nice,
Speaker 10: decent people. He had a good upbringing. In fact, in
Speaker 10: his mind he said that he might have even been
Speaker 10: a little spoiled. But when he boredom apparently started him
Speaker 10: getting into trouble as a teenager, was not about to
Speaker 10: do there. And Mark Tree, Arkansas population I think they're
Speaker 10: down to three hundred uh and so he but things.
Speaker 10: He didn't get into a drug dealing thing, just marijuana,
Speaker 10: but he was into it for a while and he's
Speaker 10: gotten caught a couple of times and a but he
Speaker 10: needs to go on to Parish Parish Junior College, South
Speaker 10: Perish a jeweler school and he got his degree in
Speaker 10: horology and he opened up He started working in the
Speaker 10: South and that this was in his early twenties. He
Speaker 10: was pretty straight, just going around collecting jewelry from people
Speaker 10: that needed to repair. He got married once and I
Speaker 10: did he produced two children, didn't last what's long after that,
Speaker 10: and then he shortly thereafter met Melissa the Fur and
Speaker 10: marry her and they opened up the jeweler store together
Speaker 10: in West Memphis. But you know, I guess he just
Speaker 10: had a little crooked bent to him. You know, you know,
Speaker 10: some people have to do things that aren't quite on
Speaker 10: the up and up, like the Roleck's watch incident, where
Speaker 10: he had as a jeweler, he was able to get
Speaker 10: some Rolets watches sent to him on on spec and
Speaker 10: he would tell them in the jewelry store well, and
Speaker 10: he planned it that he would said that he never
Speaker 10: received them, and he sold the two watches to somebody
Speaker 10: in Cherokee Village. He eventually got out of that, and
Speaker 10: that was right around the time of the murders because
Speaker 10: what he ended up using the money that they had
Speaker 10: raised for him, because he said, he said publicly he
Speaker 10: didn't have enough money to bury his sign. So there
Speaker 10: was there was a fund that churches had started and
Speaker 10: for all three victims families, and Mark had to use
Speaker 10: that money to pay off the jewelers so that he
Speaker 10: wouldn't press charges. Now, any other time they probably would
Speaker 10: just arrested them, but because of what was going on,
Speaker 10: they wouldn't pay it off. And so it was little
Speaker 10: things like that. Uh, then we asked the murders. I
Speaker 10: think I think things got worse for him. Uh. You know,
Speaker 10: his wife was, you know, an opioid addict, and you know,
Speaker 10: he drank it and smoked all the pot and when
Speaker 10: they went to their exile up in Cherokee Village, they
Speaker 10: just it was a perfect place for them to find
Speaker 10: trouble and they found lots of it. It was that
Speaker 10: really that led to, uh, you know, a succession of
Speaker 10: crimes and arrests that led to his being in prison
Speaker 10: and nineteen ninety nine. So you know, that's my take
Speaker 10: on it. You wouldn't You wouldn't know that the Mark
Speaker 10: before the murders and the Mark now are different than
Speaker 10: the guy in between. If you men, Mark buyers now
Speaker 10: you think he's my star around and he is.
Speaker 9: It seems decent. I mean from all the things I've
Speaker 9: seen too, it's it's you see the difference, and I
Speaker 9: mean to me, I just got to say, I don't
Speaker 9: have too many opinions about movies and documentaries, but I couldn't.
Speaker 9: I couldn't believe that the style, the documentary style, or
Speaker 9: I thought it was irresponsible those scenes that were staged.
Speaker 9: Obviously you can't say that's spontaneous. Besides, I wouldn't have
Speaker 9: never included them, I think the reason anyway.
Speaker 10: Why would you have included them? There's only one reason,
Speaker 10: and that was the whole thing. Yeah, about a lot
Speaker 10: of excus and the second movie really didn't have enough
Speaker 10: material for a movie. First, the first movie is a
Speaker 10: completely different animal. The second movie without Mark's and the
Speaker 10: Free the West Memphis Three Club, you didn't have any
Speaker 10: movie at all.
Speaker 9: Yeah. Yeah, Well, the other question I was going to
Speaker 9: ask was why did Mark buyers then after he knew
Speaker 9: that the horrendous treatment and the unfair treatment he was
Speaker 9: in prison, realizing he didn't even get to see the
Speaker 9: premiere of those movies or the second one Uni League
Speaker 9: it was released, why did he cooperate with the third one?
Speaker 10: Then? Yeah, I was wondering if you were going to
Speaker 10: ask that. Yeah, yeah, because I was. I was on
Speaker 10: a scene by that time that that third movie was
Speaker 10: made during during my time, and uh they had actually
Speaker 10: uh was a simple answer is money, you know. Uh.
Speaker 10: He said that he would be an opportunity friends to
Speaker 10: show people that he wasn't that crazy redneck that he
Speaker 10: was in the other two movies. And and he did.
Speaker 10: And also if you look the third one, he's not
Speaker 10: featured anywhere near as prominently because uh, he didn't have
Speaker 10: like a nut, but they wanted to and they and
Speaker 10: they had one. Joe at one point, I claimed and
Speaker 10: that he didn't pay people to be in movies, because
Speaker 10: in the documentary you're not supposed to pay people and
Speaker 10: maybe pay their expenses for interview maybe, but he paid
Speaker 10: lots of people, and Mark included, and he got him
Speaker 10: in front of a bunch of people at a benefit
Speaker 10: and said, yeah, we don't pay people. And I called
Speaker 10: him out on that. He walked it back. But yeah,
Speaker 10: I think it's more than more than the need to
Speaker 10: exonerate himself or rehabilitate himself. I think they didn't with money.
Speaker 10: That's my opinion.
Speaker 9: It's such a it's such a fascinating case. And and
Speaker 9: Mark is is just a fascinating character and his and
Speaker 9: his wife dies and I think the worst thing of
Speaker 9: all this has to be that somebody implicates him in
Speaker 9: his wife's death. So tell us about that, about the implication.
Speaker 10: Yeah, yeah, the implication. And I think that really drove
Speaker 10: the rage that pushed him over the edge that actually
Speaker 10: ended up getting on in prison. Uh. He was, he
Speaker 10: was angry beyond you're beyond imagination. And you you can
Speaker 10: say that he opened himself to him. He did. If
Speaker 10: he hadn't been in the second film, he wouldn't have
Speaker 10: to deal with that, but he did. And uh, you know,
Speaker 10: he tried in the in the film and elsewhere to
Speaker 10: say like this. The KGB accused him on film of
Speaker 10: murdering his life, and yeah, you know it was a
Speaker 10: really a really amazing thing for someone to do. They
Speaker 10: didn't they didn't even know him. Uh, and they did
Speaker 10: it based on something Marion Leverett had written. But uh,
Speaker 10: there was a investigation. Mark consisted on an autopsy because
Speaker 10: he knew what people were going to think, uh, Budgiet
Speaker 10: Uh And I give In the book, there's a section
Speaker 10: on Melissa's death and what the many things could have
Speaker 10: been that caused her death. You know, she was ob
Speaker 10: she smoked, she was a drug user.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 10: She she's completely decimated and pretty stricten uh to the
Speaker 10: loss of her son because unlike Mark, you know, Chrispher's
Speaker 10: a biological child, and uh, she loved that boy, and
Speaker 10: she she acted like any any mother would and you know,
Speaker 10: you can give up your life. And so anyway, she
Speaker 10: had a million things that could have killed that Mark
Speaker 10: fires would have been the why would he roll over
Speaker 10: in his bed after an afternoon nap and kill her? Uh?
Speaker 10: But they didn't think of you know that. They just
Speaker 10: decided they were going to start shooting questions at him
Speaker 10: on screen to plant the seed in other people's minds.
Speaker 10: And that's why to this day, I don't forgive the
Speaker 10: kg B. I don't give a crowd, but they did
Speaker 10: to uh to the West Memphis three. But what they did,
Speaker 10: Smart Buyers, was cruel.
Speaker 9: Right now, this, like I said, this is such a
Speaker 9: fascinating tale. But and again you don't sum it up
Speaker 9: in sort of saying, hey, listen, this is an a
Speaker 9: cautionary tale, and this is what we need to because
Speaker 9: we already we're already passed the effect because now we
Speaker 9: have making of a murderer, which again so it's again
Speaker 9: the same sort of effect with people like and some
Speaker 9: of the same characters in Hollywood Alec Baldwin just demanding,
Speaker 9: you know, right up to Obama, the people they can
Speaker 9: think they can overturn things with the president. So the
Speaker 9: thing is is that, as a cautionary tale, what would
Speaker 9: you say, because you're the person that saw this, what
Speaker 9: and you went through this entire time with things changing
Speaker 9: and perceptions changing, facts being revealed, and still your assessment,
Speaker 9: what's the cautionary tale here?
Speaker 10: I think the cautionary tale is age old and very simple.
Speaker 10: It's don't believe everything you see and hear if you
Speaker 10: do your due diligence. And I was raised that way.
Speaker 10: I raised my kids that way. Do your due diligence,
Speaker 10: and don't take the first thing you get as as gospel,
Speaker 10: because you know it may not be. If people had
Speaker 10: done that in this case, who knows the word happened.
Speaker 10: And I'm talking about the journey too. You know, I
Speaker 10: don't know what was in their minds, but I would
Speaker 10: have to guess that they were predisposed against the defendants.
Speaker 10: But but you know, and also we have you have
Speaker 10: some things that you're not going to be able to avoid,
Speaker 10: like this crew in West Memphis at the police department.
Speaker 10: You know, there were some good guys there, there were
Speaker 10: some talented guys there. There was a lot of people
Speaker 10: who were not up to the task. They didn't know
Speaker 10: how to handle evidence, they didn't really know how to interview.
Speaker 10: So they talked to unreds of people. But how many
Speaker 10: of them did they disqualify by trying to implicate them?
Speaker 2: So if you.
Speaker 10: If this happens in West manshis augustas, it might be
Speaker 10: better if it happened in Los Angeles. And that's what
Speaker 10: a lot of people said. And yet what if they're
Speaker 10: do in Los Angeles? Ojin so.
Speaker 9: Was if the police would have done this one basic
Speaker 9: this is my question. If police would have followed up
Speaker 9: by interviewing Terry Hobbs, if they would have just scratched
Speaker 9: that surface a little bit. Would they have been so
Speaker 9: committed to the Damian Eccles and Jason Baldwin theory to
Speaker 9: the point that they would have Again, well, let's face it,
Speaker 9: they questioned miss Kelley with a lot of information brought
Speaker 9: to that interview.
Speaker 10: We'll say A lot of that came from Vicky Hutchinson, right,
Speaker 10: She don't he talked to them and told them what
Speaker 10: Damien had said to her. So so, yeah, Jesse was
Speaker 10: he was predisposed for sure, but the uh, you're right
Speaker 10: in that if they do. I'm not going to speculate
Speaker 10: what would have happened, but I believe it would have
Speaker 10: been a lot different if they had talked to Terry
Speaker 10: Hobbs like they were supposed to. Now he wasn't home.
Speaker 10: It wasn't an evil thing on their part. It was
Speaker 10: just really sloppy because they talked to Pam and they
Speaker 10: let Pam talk for the both of them. And you know,
Speaker 10: that might be okay if it's you and me and
Speaker 10: our neighbor, but these are you know, these are two victims,
Speaker 10: and more often than not, they have something to do
Speaker 10: with the prime, specially in the depth of a child.
Speaker 10: So for them to not interview him as an excuse
Speaker 10: and they have no excuse for it either. I mean,
Speaker 10: if you ask him today, no, we just missed it,
Speaker 10: and they did. They just missed it. And that's that's
Speaker 10: emblematic of how this whole investigation went. Very good. Some
Speaker 10: guys not so much.
Speaker 9: Yeah, it's incredible. Well, I want to thank you for
Speaker 9: coming on and talking about this, and this is just
Speaker 9: just a fascinating book and a fascinating perspective you get
Speaker 9: from especially covering John Mark Byers, because you're in the
Speaker 9: middle of this mailstorm where he's in the eye of
Speaker 9: the storm here and things change completely. So it really
Speaker 9: is accompanies this the entire trial and all of the
Speaker 9: hysteria and then the post trial and like you say,
Speaker 9: a very profound and unprecedented movement in the way people
Speaker 9: were released from prison and the result despite the legal decision,
Speaker 9: it was really how you could transcend the legal courts
Speaker 9: in Arkansas with Hollywood and some rock musicians. So it's
Speaker 9: quite interesting. And also I wanted to ask if people
Speaker 9: are interested in contacting you, do you have a website?
Speaker 9: Do you do Facebook? And so they might see some
Speaker 9: of the other material.
Speaker 10: I no longer have a website or blog, but they
Speaker 10: can contact me through the same way you did through
Speaker 10: the Facebook page for on time than not.
Speaker 9: Great? Is there? There was talk just before I let
Speaker 9: you go that you are following this book up with
Speaker 9: another book about this case. Is that true or no?
Speaker 10: No, that's definitely not true.
Speaker 9: I did enough of this.
Speaker 10: Yeah. I actually did start a treatment back in the day.
Speaker 10: It's called guilty of sin. But I got out of
Speaker 10: it real fast, and I got it. I wanted to
Speaker 10: get back to my guitar. So no more books.
Speaker 9: Yes, well, thank you very much. Great for coming on
Speaker 9: and talking about your fine book on tying to not
Speaker 9: John Mark Byers in the West, Memphis. Three. Thank you
Speaker 9: very much. It's been a pleasure.
Speaker 10: You're quite welcome.
Speaker 9: Dan, thank you, thank you, good night.