Speaker 1: All right, three two one, Hi, this is William Ramsey.
Speaker 1: Welcome to William Ramsey Investigates on tonight show. I have
Speaker 1: a very special guest. His name is Gary Mease. He's
Speaker 1: the author of a number of books on the West
Speaker 1: Memphis three, very thorough, first person referenced information on this
Speaker 1: notorious case of the West Memphis three. The titles of
Speaker 1: the two volume version are Blood on Black and Where
Speaker 1: the Monsters Go. They're both available on Amazon. They have
Speaker 1: excellent reviews. But Gary's also been doing a very informative podcast.
Speaker 1: The title of the podcast is The Case Against and
Speaker 1: it's Gary measmeecee and he's currently on podcast number forty nine.
Speaker 1: He's mostly focused on the West Memphis three, going in
Speaker 1: detail and rebutting so many of these false narratives and
Speaker 1: false positions of many of the West Memphis three are
Speaker 1: innocent or Terry Dunnett types. But he's got some great
Speaker 1: titles on there. One is Rough rebuttal Id Comedy, Vera's
Speaker 1: Rough Stuff and The Rough Deception. So we're going to
Speaker 1: go in detail all about that. But Gary, are you there?
Speaker 2: Yes, I am William.
Speaker 1: Awesome, Well, thanks for agreeing to the interview for people
Speaker 1: who don't know your background or your familiarity with the
Speaker 1: West Memphis West Memphis three. Can you talk a little
Speaker 1: bit about yourself and your first person knowledge of the case.
Speaker 2: Well, I don't want to overstate it, but I worked
Speaker 2: at the Memphis Commercial Appeal from two thousand, I mean
Speaker 2: nineteen eighty to two thousand and eight. I did not
Speaker 2: personally cover the case during that time. I'd never try
Speaker 2: to give the suggestion that I did. And I also
Speaker 2: and then from twenty ten to two thousand and fourteen,
Speaker 2: I worked at the West Memphis Evening Times. I was
Speaker 2: the managing editor there from almost all that time, and
Speaker 2: I did cover a number of matters there dealing with
Speaker 2: Damien Echols. There was some litigation going on in twenty thirteen.
Speaker 2: So I'm quite familiar with the area. And needless to say,
Speaker 2: I really have a long background in journalist and I
Speaker 2: primarily consider myself to be a print journalist. But I
Speaker 2: am doing some podcasting that sort of thing, gotcha.
Speaker 1: But the Commercial Appeal did some very detailed of many
Speaker 1: many many articles correct on.
Speaker 2: That's correct, William, And in fact, they wrote the original
Speaker 2: book was written by three journalists from the Commercial Appeal,
Speaker 2: not me, but three guys, Bart Sullivan, Mark Periskia, and
Speaker 2: Guy Reel. During the time when all this was going on,
Speaker 2: I was sitting at a desk that was literally probably
Speaker 2: ten feet away from the Metro desk, so I heard
Speaker 2: stuff going on all day long. Guy Reel probably sat
Speaker 2: almost directly across from me, so I had quite a
Speaker 2: few conversations with him, as I recall, and heard many
Speaker 2: conversations with other people about the West Memphis Three during
Speaker 2: that time. It was a big, big case. It still is.
Speaker 2: We're going to be talking about Bob Ruff And I
Speaker 2: was rewatching his for the third time, which is kind
Speaker 2: of a slog honestly to get through three times. But
Speaker 2: I was watching again today his ID network shows and
Speaker 2: he describes West Memphis is basically falling into this terrible state.
Speaker 2: He seems to blame it on this crime. I'm not
Speaker 2: sure West Memphis is actually worst shape now than it
Speaker 2: was in nineteen ninety three, but it's not because of
Speaker 2: the you know, they are known and they hate the
Speaker 2: idea that they're known for the West Memphis Three and
Speaker 2: basically not known for anything else. But if they're in
Speaker 2: morse shape now, then they were in nineteen ninety three.
Speaker 2: It's arguable they're not. It's not because of the West
Speaker 2: Memphis three case. It's there's there are lots of other
Speaker 2: factors that would play into that.
Speaker 1: Do you recollect the title of the Perisqueia book the
Speaker 1: real book? Because Blood of Innocence, Blood of Innocence, right,
Speaker 1: and it's very it's almost never referenced by West Memphis
Speaker 1: three supporters like I had to actually go through the
Speaker 1: footwork to find out that it actually existed.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's out of print, has been for a long time.
Speaker 2: It was somewhat outdated almost as soon as it appeared,
Speaker 2: because it was really written on the fly. It was
Speaker 2: written while the case was going on, and it was
Speaker 2: put out very quickly. And so all the all the
Speaker 2: stuff that's going on since with the celebrities, the Paradise
Speaker 2: Lost movies, et cetera, et cetera, it simply doesn't touch
Speaker 2: on that and a lot of things we now know
Speaker 2: because we have access to fuller records than they did then.
Speaker 2: They simply didn't have access to at the time, so
Speaker 2: it showed some of It's just an example of how
Speaker 2: journalism has changed with the difference in the Internet, because
Speaker 2: I can tell you I know those guys. Those are
Speaker 2: Sullivan and Peri Ski in particular as a first right reporter,
Speaker 2: journalists all the way around. Good guys gotcha.
Speaker 1: So I mean they did a good job. I mean
Speaker 1: there are some pretty I remember it being kind of
Speaker 1: very lurid in some of the first person accounts, but
Speaker 1: it was also voted down on Amazon. I think there
Speaker 1: were significant a number of people who only give it
Speaker 1: one star as not being like a truthful version, something
Speaker 1: that happened to me as well on Amazon. But the
Speaker 1: you know, kind of getting back to the original, what
Speaker 1: drew you to start the book and can you talk
Speaker 1: about your research? I take it you've obviously looked through
Speaker 1: all of the Callahan materials, except.
Speaker 2: I was working in West Memphis, and I was very
Speaker 2: I mean I was familiar with the case. I remember
Speaker 2: trying to work out all the family relations back in
Speaker 2: nineteen ninety three and being very challenged by all that.
Speaker 2: But I was working in West Memphis and I got
Speaker 2: a copy of the letter that Todd Moore Todd and
Speaker 2: Dana Moore and Harry Hobbs had written to the Academy
Speaker 2: of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences complaining about the potential
Speaker 2: nomination of Paradise Loss three for this Oscar nomination, and
Speaker 2: I was reading through there and I suddenly was hit
Speaker 2: very deeply by the idea that these four people had
Speaker 2: really been abused by Hollywood and they did get any
Speaker 2: relief from Hollywood at that point. And the more I
Speaker 2: looked at it, I said, you know, there's only been
Speaker 2: one side of this case that's been told. It really
Speaker 2: deserves and I tried to be as objective as possible,
Speaker 2: but I take, I do take the position that they're guilty,
Speaker 2: and rightly so, just based on the evidence and everything
Speaker 2: I've been seeing up to that point was with the
Speaker 2: possible exception of the first Paradise Lost movie, which is
Speaker 2: somewhat ambiguous, you could draw maybe, I mean I thought
Speaker 2: they I still thought they were guilty after seeing that movie,
Speaker 2: but everything that had been produced since gave the impression
Speaker 2: that they're just terribly wrongfully convicted and this is a
Speaker 2: terrible miscarriage of justice, and some other somebody else did it,
Speaker 2: and this is and this is a continuing thing. This
Speaker 2: is what Ruff is doing now, is he's continue knewing
Speaker 2: this idea that that oh, this is a terrible miscarriage
Speaker 2: of justice. Surely somebody else did it, and we just
Speaker 2: have to get outraged enough and we'll solve this problem rightly.
Speaker 2: I was outraged enough at that time that I took
Speaker 2: it upon myself to begin doing some heavy duty research
Speaker 2: on it. And I was I was busy working at
Speaker 2: the time in a very taxing job and had a
Speaker 2: lot of personal responsibilities and so forth beyond the job.
Speaker 2: So it took me quite a while to get around
Speaker 2: finishing up the book, but I started it very soon
Speaker 2: after that, very soon after reading that letter.
Speaker 1: Right, and that was and I don't think that that
Speaker 1: was the paradise. It was the third one in the series.
Speaker 2: But it never it was the third one yet.
Speaker 1: It didn't receive an award, but it was up against
Speaker 1: and that was kind of one of the confusing things
Speaker 1: for me to look at the case, too, is what
Speaker 1: is this Hollywood involvement and what's going on with this
Speaker 1: kind of thing? And you know, why are they blamed buyers?
Speaker 1: And then Hobbs two and three, he said, there's definitely
Speaker 1: some head scratching going on, at least for me, But
Speaker 1: maybe we can talk about how like I know that
Speaker 1: you and I had talked about rough he has done
Speaker 1: this kind of series where he addressed it. Then he
Speaker 1: went and worked on some case in Texas, and now
Speaker 1: he's come back and he's called it the Forgotten West
Speaker 1: Memphis Three, as if the children are forgotten. And now
Speaker 1: he's kind of readdressing this. And they did this show
Speaker 1: on Oxygen and you've definitely been been addressing that. Can
Speaker 1: you talk a little bit about what your kind of
Speaker 1: initial impressions were?
Speaker 2: Right, Well, you know his conclusion, okay, just grew out
Speaker 2: of his podcast, and the conclusion of his podcast, among
Speaker 2: other things, was that he felt that the West and
Speaker 2: he doubled down on this with Jim Clemeni this weekend,
Speaker 2: that the West Memphis three, all three of them had
Speaker 2: these alibis that were just so good that they couldn't
Speaker 2: possibly have committed the crime, and so therefore it was
Speaker 2: incumbent upon him to go out and seek the real killers. Well,
Speaker 2: none of those alibis hold up. All the ones that
Speaker 2: were presented in court were demolished. The ones that weren't
Speaker 2: presented in court don't hold up either, right, And I
Speaker 2: could go into a long detail about all that as well.
Speaker 1: Let's do that. Let's look at all three because Eccles
Speaker 1: said he was on the phone. Baldwin's attorney didn't profer
Speaker 1: an alibi, and Miss Kelly said he was at a
Speaker 1: wrestling match. Can you address each one of those in turn?
Speaker 2: Well, Eckle said. Eccles at the trial made two albis.
Speaker 2: One he testified he was on the phone, and his
Speaker 2: family testified he was on the phone. He did not
Speaker 2: bring forward the witnesses that would have corroborated his testimony,
Speaker 2: Jennifer Bearden in Hollywood, George and Heather Cliet, who was
Speaker 2: Jason Balin's girlfriend that he claimed he was talking to,
Speaker 2: because none of their statements to police backed up his story.
Speaker 2: They all said they weren't talking to him in this
Speaker 2: crucial time frame. Really, they didn't talk to him from
Speaker 2: about four point thirty or so in the afternoon until
Speaker 2: at least nine to twenty at night, impossibly much later.
Speaker 2: And they tried to call him at home and he
Speaker 2: wasn't at home, which means that you know, he wasn't
Speaker 2: at home. His grandmother said, he's not at home. Now
Speaker 2: he had this other family visit that he supposedly went on.
Speaker 2: And it turns out that the time stamp that was
Speaker 2: used for that, most prominently was the little girl said
Speaker 2: that her boyfriend had a concert within that same week,
Speaker 2: and it turns out it was two weeks later and
Speaker 2: cast doubt on that. The missus Gelli trial. He had
Speaker 2: two alibis attempt at Albis. One was a series of
Speaker 2: police calls involving a slapping incident of this child. He
Speaker 2: was supposedly at the scene of the police calls. The
Speaker 2: problem is is the police who knew him. Three different
Speaker 2: police officers testified said he wasn't on the scene so
Speaker 2: much for that alibi wrestling, he had a long list
Speaker 2: of people. He really had over a dozen people he
Speaker 2: had testified for alibis. He had a lot of people
Speaker 2: testifying in the wrestling match. The problem is is when
Speaker 2: they brought forward, oh yeah, we went May fifth, nineteen
Speaker 2: ninety three, when we went to Dias, Arkansas to this
Speaker 2: old theater and did this wrestling match. The police went
Speaker 2: and checked with the owner of the wrestling of the
Speaker 2: theater and it turns out that receipt that they camed
Speaker 2: for a needed sign to use the theater for the
Speaker 2: night they were using the wrestling uh they were going
Speaker 2: to have the wrestling match was dated the week before
Speaker 2: and not the date that they were claiming who it
Speaker 2: cast down on the wrestling match.
Speaker 1: Right and then yeah, sorry Jason.
Speaker 2: And then Jason Baldwin has claimed he didn't offer an
Speaker 2: alibiic trial. He since claimed he was talking on the
Speaker 2: phone to girls. The same girls. It's actually say they
Speaker 2: don't didn't talk to Jason that evening at all. It's
Speaker 2: the same three girls. And he also claimed, you know,
Speaker 2: he he played I went to Walmart with Ken Watkins,
Speaker 2: who gave actually his friend, little friend Ken Watkins, who
Speaker 2: actually gave a statement to police that Wren totally experience
Speaker 2: with everybody else, including Jason Baldwin, and gave another statement
Speaker 2: to police that Damien Echols had actually confessed to him
Speaker 2: and uh and then passed and then failed a polygraph
Speaker 2: who's a double negative polygraph. He denied that the story
Speaker 2: he was telling was true, which meant it was true
Speaker 2: and so he would have been a great witness for
Speaker 2: Jason on the stand, and otherwise he really didn't have
Speaker 2: an alibi. He just makes a claim that he does well.
Speaker 1: He's actually after his conviction. I think since he's been out,
Speaker 1: he's made to claim that there was the Asian kid.
Speaker 1: I think his name was Dan nam Or whatever.
Speaker 2: Don nahm Right, don Nam was supposedly at the at
Speaker 2: the Walmart as well. Don namb gave a statement to
Speaker 2: police and said he'd seen Damien Dominique Tier, who was
Speaker 2: Damien Eckles's pregnant girlfriend at that time, in Jason Baldwin
Speaker 2: that afternoon, and then he promptly retracted that statement, said
Speaker 2: he was mistaken, it was a different day.
Speaker 1: Right, And that's in the court files, like there's actually
Speaker 1: a written station by them saying he was wrong. So
Speaker 1: it's remarkable that that the Baldwin is using that as
Speaker 1: an excuse when it's directly contradicted in writing in a
Speaker 1: police statement.
Speaker 2: Right. Well, what's what's even more remarkable is Damien Echles
Speaker 2: particularly mentioning these girls, and they gave they continue to
Speaker 2: give the States and Rule thirty seven hearings and so forth.
Speaker 2: I think Jennifer Beard has given at least three statements
Speaker 2: after the convictions. Uh, and she doesn't really change her
Speaker 2: story in substance, and it does not give Damien Eckles
Speaker 2: an alibi.
Speaker 1: So so so Ruff is saying there's these ironclad alibis
Speaker 1: that are contradicted by the court record than statements in
Speaker 1: court that were that were overturned. But it gets even
Speaker 1: worse than that. I mean, what other glaring problems are
Speaker 1: in these rough podcasts or the shows.
Speaker 2: Many other there are many other problems. The big the
Speaker 2: big problem is is he's basing his whole investigation now
Speaker 2: on He says he's not interested in getting new statements,
Speaker 2: new witnesses. He is banking everything on forcing the prosecuting attorney,
Speaker 2: Scott Ellington, to turn over evidence to be retested for DNA.
Speaker 2: The problem with this is the problems are manifold with this.
Speaker 2: Number one, Bob Ruff has no standing to do that.
Speaker 2: Number two. The only people who might have standing to
Speaker 2: do it theoretically are the three killers. And they signed
Speaker 2: an agreement in twenty eleven there and with their Alfred
Speaker 2: Plea that all these leagues actions are over with, And
Speaker 2: it could be argued that they might actually abrogate their
Speaker 2: legal agreement for their release if they file additional legal
Speaker 2: actions on this right.
Speaker 1: So they're still under probation. If they filed additional legal
Speaker 1: actions that go against the agreement they signed with the
Speaker 1: best attorneys possible, they'll go back to jail.
Speaker 2: They could. I mean, you know, and you don't know
Speaker 2: what's going to happen when you go to court. So
Speaker 2: it depends on what mood the courts and right, right
Speaker 2: and and so. But in theory, they could do that.
Speaker 2: The theory, the theory, there's the theory. In theory they
Speaker 2: could have done that anytime in the last nine years.
Speaker 2: They haven't done it. The only one I could really
Speaker 2: see it potentially doing it Eccles doesn't want to be
Speaker 2: bothered with it because he thinks he's got more important
Speaker 2: things to do. Miss Galley really just doesn't want to
Speaker 2: be bothered with any of it. Jason Baldwin would make sense.
Speaker 2: It's the only one who might be willing to do that,
Speaker 2: but he had the opportunity to do that for the
Speaker 2: last nine years. Another big problem with this is this
Speaker 2: is redundant. They went through years and years of legal
Speaker 2: actions to enable them to get access to a list
Speaker 2: of items for new DNA testing, and well all the
Speaker 2: way back really at the turn of the century, and
Speaker 2: then it went up to and they finally, you know,
Speaker 2: they kindly got approval of that, and then it went
Speaker 2: through a long many more a much longer process. In
Speaker 2: twenty eleven, they were coming up we know they had
Speaker 2: basically nothing on a lot of the DNA as of
Speaker 2: July because Moreoverett wrote a story about their attorneys meeting
Speaker 2: their attorney, Patrick Bankott, one of their attorneys, Patrick Banker,
Speaker 2: meeting with Dustin Daniel, who was the Attorney General of
Speaker 2: the State of Arkansas, and Binker's telling Justin McDaniel, they're
Speaker 2: coming up empty empty on the DNA, so that you
Speaker 2: know their evidence. You're hearing was going to be based
Speaker 2: on the chance of retrial was going to be based
Speaker 2: on potentially two major issues. One one would be new evidence,
Speaker 2: specifically DNA evidence evidence, and the other would be uh
Speaker 2: jury jury misconduct, but only for eccles In Baldwin. Miss
Speaker 2: Kelley would not be able to claim any kind of
Speaker 2: relief for jury misconduct in eccles In Balwin's trial. So
Speaker 2: if there was no new DNA evidence or other new evidence,
Speaker 2: then he had no basis for going seeking a new
Speaker 2: trial whatsoever. Right So of course, so of course Miss
Speaker 2: Kelley would have wanted to get taken the Alfred Cleave.
Speaker 1: And that was and there was like the hearing was December, right,
Speaker 1: they were let out in August, yes, so there was
Speaker 1: an upcoming hearing. They had spent all this time there
Speaker 1: was a statute that was passed in Arkansas that allowed
Speaker 1: for the opening of a trial if there was new,
Speaker 1: incriminating or evidence that would tend to get somebody off
Speaker 1: the thing. And that's really what the lever that they
Speaker 1: focused on in the appeals process to get back to
Speaker 1: that point in twenty eleven, right right.
Speaker 2: It was particularly DNA evidence. But the thing is is
Speaker 2: they had they had the opportunity granted to them to
Speaker 2: test new DNA evidence. They had the new DNA evidence tested,
Speaker 2: but guess what, Nobody knows what the results are except
Speaker 2: for like an allusion to the results in a more
Speaker 2: Leverett story, they nobody knows what those results actually are.
Speaker 2: The defendants have the defendant the killers haven't released it
Speaker 2: to the public. Bob Buff skirts around the issue of
Speaker 2: even asking for what those results might be, and you
Speaker 2: would think they might have, you know, if they do
Speaker 2: nothing but just show well, there's no there was no
Speaker 2: sign of the Westminster three in any of this DNA evidence,
Speaker 2: but we don't. We can't find anybody else either. It
Speaker 2: would show something, but so far we have seen nothing
Speaker 2: on that front four and nine years now, and the
Speaker 2: court is not going to look kindly on that.
Speaker 1: I would think, yeah, and they I mean, but they
Speaker 1: say they're more than willing to have this pr approach
Speaker 1: that they found a care that is Terry Hobbs. They
Speaker 1: claim to initially consistent, but they don't mind that that
Speaker 1: kind of bleeding over into we found Terry Hobbs here
Speaker 1: on the scene, and then therefore that conclusively proves he
Speaker 1: did it, which is really a stretch.
Speaker 2: It's a huge stretch. And because it's micochondrial DNA, it's
Speaker 2: only consistent with a small percent it's consistent with a
Speaker 2: small percentage of people in the world, but it's still
Speaker 2: millions of people any way you cut it. And even
Speaker 2: if you cut it down to just who was in
Speaker 2: West Memphis at the time, we're still talking about hundreds
Speaker 2: of people in West Memphis who would be a match
Speaker 2: for the michondrial DNA. And that's probably not even understating it.
Speaker 2: With you know, pop with the population being you know
Speaker 2: that some common ancestors, you know, ancestry in certain areas.
Speaker 2: You know, I'm not trying to get into cousin marrying
Speaker 2: in Arkansas or anything, but it's just the fact that
Speaker 2: the gene pool gets smaller and smaller. These smaller backward areas,
Speaker 2: so there would be more matches rather than few as
Speaker 2: compared to say general population over the United States at
Speaker 2: all overall, so it doesn't prove that it's Terry Hobbs there.
Speaker 2: They also drag David Jacobi, who was Terry Hobbins's alibi witness,
Speaker 2: into this, and he had a hair that was found
Speaker 2: at the scene with a similar sort of mitochondrial DNA match,
Speaker 2: and he was really crucified in the West of Memphis movie,
Speaker 2: which was produced by one of the killers, Damien Eccles.
Speaker 2: He's one of the producers obviously not the one. And
Speaker 2: uh and but you know, not exactly an objective source.
Speaker 2: And so the question becomes for at this point without
Speaker 2: if if for Bob Ruff to pull this to get
Speaker 2: his audience. I mean, he's you know, he's got tears
Speaker 2: in his eyes. Yeah. Three, he's all but screaming, not
Speaker 2: not on the phone, but you know, away from the phone.
Speaker 2: He's all but screaming at Scott Ellington for not returning
Speaker 2: his phone calls and so forth. Number One, Scott Ellington
Speaker 2: just got elected judge. He takes office in January. We're
Speaker 2: having a corona. We're having We're having a corona virus shutdown.
Speaker 2: Right now, everything's less than it usually is. And on
Speaker 2: top of that, two weeks ago, Jonesborough, which is where
Speaker 2: Scott Ellington lives and where his offices are, was hit
Speaker 2: by a devastating tornado. So Scott Scott Ellington has bigger
Speaker 2: problems than some boob podcast or from Poonantville. He shut
Speaker 2: it up there and demands to see evidence he's not entitled.
Speaker 1: To see, right, with really no credentials. He's just a
Speaker 1: self described investigator. I think he was a fire investigator
Speaker 1: or self claimed But yeah, it's very interesting. And I
Speaker 1: saw him crying at the beginning, and it was really
Speaker 1: just an appeal to emotion. It wasn't sensible, and uh
Speaker 1: it was you know, I just knew that it was
Speaker 1: going to be the start of something grim, that this
Speaker 1: this is the way it started.
Speaker 2: Uh well, no, a lot of it, A lot of
Speaker 2: it's very I found it. I found it more humorous
Speaker 2: the first time I saw it, because it was so
Speaker 2: bumbling in and eft. But his you know, he he
Speaker 2: has this whole thing about he's going to do what
Speaker 2: he calls the victimology. I have nothing against with this
Speaker 2: in theory, but The idea is, you look at the
Speaker 2: behavior of the boys leading up to the killings, and
Speaker 2: this will give us some insight into why these boys
Speaker 2: are dead. Well, it's going to give very limited insight
Speaker 2: into that, because everything that happened to get them into
Speaker 2: the woods at six point thirty at night that particular
Speaker 2: day had very little to do with what happened when
Speaker 2: they got to the woods. The you know, this is
Speaker 2: not about who they talked to that afternoon, or he
Speaker 2: makes a big deal, he contradicts even what's on the record.
Speaker 2: But you know, he brings up a new guy. He
Speaker 2: says he was the last one to see them going
Speaker 2: into the woods. Well, who I mean, honestly, who cares?
Speaker 2: Who cares? They were seen going into the woods about
Speaker 2: six thirty? Who cares? Who was the last one to
Speaker 2: see that? He brings up the so called fourth boy
Speaker 2: who supposedly went into the woods with him. That he
Speaker 2: brings up this poor George Taylor fellow, who seemed very confused.
Speaker 2: And this went on for agonizing men in after a
Speaker 2: minute with rough plane to the cameras, acting like he's
Speaker 2: a big investigator, pushing this guy around. And it turns
Speaker 2: out and the executive producer or whoever was on the
Speaker 2: scene with him. They basically saying, you know, that's enough,
Speaker 2: let's stop this. You on and on and on.
Speaker 1: Bag he followed down that trail. But it turns out
Speaker 1: that guy was either lying here he couldn't have been
Speaker 1: the fourth person. So why did you clear that in
Speaker 1: the show? Is it incredible?
Speaker 2: Right? Right? Why put that in the show? It's a
Speaker 2: big It was speaking of red Herring's going to use
Speaker 2: that tournament's a big red hearing. He is. His idea
Speaker 2: of a red hearing was bow Jangles, Mister bo Jangles,
Speaker 2: who supposedly was at a what was the name that's
Speaker 2: been given to this guy who went into this fried
Speaker 2: chicken place that night, had blood on him, had mud,
Speaker 2: went into the ladies restroom, acted deranged, and you know
Speaker 2: he's a mile a mile and a half or so
Speaker 2: from the crime scene, and it's an hour or so later. Well,
Speaker 2: you know, he went to a lot of trouble to
Speaker 2: prove Oh yeah, if he ran down this muddy ditch
Speaker 2: and in late evening or night, yeah, he could have
Speaker 2: gotten there in time. Well what's and then he concludes,
Speaker 2: but he couldn't have done it anyway, So he went
Speaker 2: all this big demonstration to show mister bo Jangles could
Speaker 2: show up at the restaurant just to go, well, take
Speaker 2: any difference because he didn't have anything to do with
Speaker 2: it anyway. I concur with his opinion on that. But
Speaker 2: you know, it was all a big show. He makes
Speaker 2: a big show out of not being able to contact
Speaker 2: Jesse mus Kelly Junior only had Apparently all he had
Speaker 2: to do was just do some realm like basic research
Speaker 2: and hunting. You know, he's going to hunt him down
Speaker 2: a little bit. But it wasn't as if it was
Speaker 2: going to take Charlotte Colms to figure that out. And
Speaker 2: in fact we see it's really that hard. He just
Speaker 2: didn't put that much work into it. And then he
Speaker 2: puts in all these phone calls to Ellington and he's
Speaker 2: continually getting mad about Ellington not being on the phone,
Speaker 2: to the point his producer says, you know, he's a producer.
Speaker 2: Starting to have problems with the attitude, so you know,
Speaker 2: but that's his personality. His personality has a great deal
Speaker 2: to do with it rubs me the wrong way. It
Speaker 2: has a great deal to do with the show. But
Speaker 2: the fact is is, when I say there's a deception
Speaker 2: going on there. The deception is that he thinks he's
Speaker 2: going to be able to do something about this case.
Speaker 2: I don't think he actually thinks that. I don't think
Speaker 2: he's that stupid. I think he wants to deceive his
Speaker 2: audience and get them outraged and up all round up
Speaker 2: bother Scott Allington, and he's hoping that maybe the State
Speaker 2: of Arkansas blink and actually hand over the evidence. But
Speaker 2: they're not going to do that, and then this case
Speaker 2: is going to go away again.
Speaker 1: Hey man. He calls his like listeners the bob Ruff Army.
Speaker 1: So like these guys, he's like deliberately like just like
Speaker 1: you said, he's deliberately kind of riling them up and
Speaker 1: trying to get him involved in like it's a crowdsourced investigation,
Speaker 1: which is terrifying. I mean now, I mean if you
Speaker 1: go like his first case, which was ad Nan Saied,
Speaker 1: like that was conclusively you know, put down on appeal.
Speaker 1: The highest court in Maryland basically said hey, this is
Speaker 1: a guilty thing, and it just went away. There's nothing
Speaker 1: that stuff. So this won't be the first time.
Speaker 2: Apparently Rough in that particular season, apparently Rough did what
Speaker 2: he does, which is he went out of his way
Speaker 2: to make uh High's boyfriend at the time. Don I
Speaker 2: think that the guy's name, I'm not. I mean, I don't.
Speaker 2: I know the case a little bit, but don uh
Speaker 2: Rough went out of the way to make him look
Speaker 2: without specifically accusing, and make him look like he's the
Speaker 2: one who actually committed the crime. And it turned and
Speaker 2: it was all based on some sort of time stamp
Speaker 2: at a some sort of photo.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was like a glass place, right. It wasn't
Speaker 1: a glassware place right.
Speaker 2: Right, No, I think it was a It was a
Speaker 2: photo photo. I can't remember the name. There was a
Speaker 2: big chain. I just can't the name right now. I
Speaker 2: don't follow him. I don't listen to his podcast. I
Speaker 2: haven't listened to his podcast than was smsis three. But
Speaker 2: so he has a history of doing this. He has
Speaker 2: a history of really uh he talked talked to Terry Hobbs.
Speaker 2: We know he talked to Terry Hobbs. It's supposed to
Speaker 2: be an author record interview, and then he talks about
Speaker 2: what was said at the off the record interview, which
Speaker 2: just unethical. He doesn't care. He brings in a child
Speaker 2: of two of the parents who's having some sort of
Speaker 2: dispute with her parents about something has nothing to do
Speaker 2: with the Westminphis three except that they're related to the victim,
Speaker 2: and has a big interview with her and just basically
Speaker 2: smears people. He smears people, and because you know, he
Speaker 2: gets and then he attacks the police, the prosecutors, the judges,
Speaker 2: and he keeps saying how they're corrupt. He keeps saying
Speaker 2: there hasn't been a real investigation up to now, which
Speaker 2: is the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard. It was
Speaker 2: a police investigation, police invested investigation. They had a really
Speaker 2: good I don't I mean the guy been cut all
Speaker 2: sorts of corners. Ron Lax was in there very early
Speaker 2: on for the defense as a private investigator. He did
Speaker 2: a lot of stuff. I don't think he was doing
Speaker 2: the right thing, but he was being an advocate for
Speaker 2: the defense very early on. And of course after the
Speaker 2: movies came out, they had this huge, huge amount of
Speaker 2: money available to them, and they've had all sorts of investigators, attorneys,
Speaker 2: experts available to them for years and years and years,
Speaker 2: and yet all these questions persist because the questions ultimately
Speaker 2: aren't answerable by anything except they're guilty. So We're going
Speaker 2: to keep bringing this up again. We're gonna bring this
Speaker 2: up again. Let's cast doubt on eyewitness statements, less cats
Speaker 2: doubt on this witness. For that reason, that business Jesse
Speaker 2: Muskelly can confess ten times, that's one way to count it,
Speaker 2: or five times is another. Like he's really officially got
Speaker 2: five different confessions, which means he goes to an appeals court.
Speaker 2: What's the appeals court gonna do. They're gonna look at
Speaker 2: this guy's fast five times and say, oh, yeah, you
Speaker 2: deserve another trial.
Speaker 1: Guy, right, Well, you know the thing is they never
Speaker 1: mentioned this gary is that it had did go The
Speaker 1: case went to the Supreme Court of Arkansas and they
Speaker 1: affirmed the lower court. So that's already happened. That that
Speaker 1: appeal not on the DNA, but just a standard appeal
Speaker 1: was looked at by another court.
Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, the durn The lower court did turn them
Speaker 2: down on the DNA, but the Supreme court did back
Speaker 2: to approve that. But the lower court, you know, of
Speaker 2: course it was appealed. It was a death penalty case,
Speaker 2: went went to the Supreme court. There the Supreme Supreme
Speaker 2: Court didn't have any problem with it. That you know,
Speaker 2: there's been no, uh, you know, major ethical uh probes of.
Speaker 1: The great point excellent points, Yeah.
Speaker 2: Are the are the police? The police made mistakes with this.
Speaker 2: I have yet to read an account of a major
Speaker 2: police investigation of a big, really you know crime that's
Speaker 2: really sort of way out of the out of the loop,
Speaker 2: you know, like a Manson murderer or a son of
Speaker 2: Sam or whatever, you want, something that's so far out.
Speaker 2: And this is one of those cases where the police
Speaker 2: didn't make major mistakes, but ultimately, because they kept doing
Speaker 2: their jobs, they honed in on who the perpetrator was.
Speaker 2: It just took them a while. And that's what happened here.
Speaker 2: It wasn't a matter of picking Damien Epicles out immediately
Speaker 2: because he was wearing a black T shirt.
Speaker 1: Right, that's the old argument, the laser focused or the
Speaker 1: Damien echles what do they call it, the zone or whatever.
Speaker 1: But it took him a month to actually arrest him,
Speaker 1: right June, May fifth to June third, right.
Speaker 2: May fifth, June third. By June ninth or ten, they
Speaker 2: already had him pegged as a really their best suspect
Speaker 2: because number one, he had been seen, he had we
Speaker 2: had eyewitnesses who'd seen him walking away from the scene
Speaker 2: of the crime. He gave some really really bad answers,
Speaker 2: really suspicious answers to an FBI questions off an FBI checklist.
Speaker 2: He kept changing his his alibis. Even early on, he
Speaker 2: was changing his alibi times. He failed a polygraph. Then
Speaker 2: he refused, He threw up, he refused to continue talking
Speaker 2: to He.
Speaker 1: Said, let me, He told the cops, let me talk
Speaker 1: to my mom and then I'll tell you everything. And then
Speaker 1: he talked to his mom and.
Speaker 2: Cleaned up right. So, very early on they had good
Speaker 2: reason to suspect him. With a polygraph, an eyewitness sighting,
Speaker 2: and a two disastrous interviews with police, they already had
Speaker 2: good reason to suspect him. They were waiting for more evidence.
Speaker 2: They continued looking at other people. There were dozens of
Speaker 2: people that were polygraphed that had nothing to do with
Speaker 2: Damien Eccles, even Marl Leverett, even I think it's in
Speaker 2: you know. The ID network also did a horrible version
Speaker 2: of this. Maybe it was an the ID Network where
Speaker 2: she talks about all the other people that were looked
Speaker 2: at as potential suspects. She does get some things right,
Speaker 2: she doesn't get much right. She does It's not that
Speaker 2: she doesn't get things right, but she deliberately leaves things
Speaker 2: out and slants things to make it look like the
Speaker 2: West Memphis three. He couldn't possibly have committed these crimes
Speaker 2: in which, you know, if you slant the evidence enough, yeah,
Speaker 2: they look innocent. It's the same old story with the
Speaker 2: Paradise Lost movies. Right.
Speaker 1: Just something I'd like to touch on is can you
Speaker 1: talk about Bob Russ's animal predation theories and why there's
Speaker 1: real problems there?
Speaker 2: Well, Number one, it's not based on it's not really
Speaker 2: based The idea is that he's claiming that all the
Speaker 2: wounds were caused except for some wounds to the head
Speaker 2: were caused by animals. Uh, there's been some medical experts
Speaker 2: for the defense. He said basically the same thing Warner
Speaker 2: Spitz claimed for his story to make any sense. Warner Spitz,
Speaker 2: who was a very well known forensic forensic pathologists, literally
Speaker 2: wrote a book on it. He claimed that his theory
Speaker 2: was that large dogs somehow dragged the bodies out of
Speaker 2: the ditch after death, slammed their heads against trees, and
Speaker 2: then put somehow they ended up back in the water.
Speaker 2: That is the scenario that would have had to have
Speaker 2: happened with doctor spits. There's some other people who aren't
Speaker 2: quite that outrageous. But the idea is is that turtles
Speaker 2: would have eaten the would have caused these kind of wounds.
Speaker 2: Rough a lot basing a lot of what he's doing
Speaker 2: on his experiment in which he dropped a couple of
Speaker 2: chicken cars carcasses in the middle of the day in
Speaker 2: warm weather down into the large drainage value called Timmu
Speaker 2: vayu that ran by the killed side. He came back
Speaker 2: four hours later in the chicken cars carcasses were eaten,
Speaker 2: apparently by turtles. All well and good. The problem is
Speaker 2: is the large drainage ditch is not where the boys
Speaker 2: were left. They were left a small It was a
Speaker 2: it was a relatively small muddy ditch, and it was
Speaker 2: also a drainage ditch that emptied into that larger ditch,
Speaker 2: and it was about two feet two to three feet deep,
Speaker 2: deeper in some places than others. There may have been
Speaker 2: some turtles in there. I don't discount the idea that
Speaker 2: maybe some predation went on, but you know, there were
Speaker 2: some real problems. The boys were smashed down into the mud,
Speaker 2: which means that turtles would not have access. The boys
Speaker 2: were placed in at night, which means that turtles feed
Speaker 2: generally during the day, and when they drained the ditch,
Speaker 2: they found no turtles. When that during the day, when
Speaker 2: they the turtles would or nearly been feeding, the woods
Speaker 2: were full of people searching for the victims, which means
Speaker 2: even if the turtle there were turtles there and they
Speaker 2: were active, they wouldn't stayed active for very long because
Speaker 2: basically they run away if they see They're very very observant,
Speaker 2: and if they see a sign of a person, they're gone.
Speaker 1: And you know, the turtles have suddenly grown into giant
Speaker 1: prehistoric beasts too. I think that was the director of
Speaker 1: West Memphis called them giant beasts. And there's real problems.
Speaker 1: I mean, we know. But the interesting thing is Spits
Speaker 1: never disagreed with the findings of the state forensic examiner.
Speaker 1: I think was Parretian. There was somebody else sitting in
Speaker 1: with PARRETI it wasn't just him.
Speaker 2: Oh he did. He did. Some of the others didn't,
Speaker 2: but he did. He said all three boys drowned. The
Speaker 2: problem and this is a big problem with the animal
Speaker 2: predation theory. H two of the boys drowned. They were
Speaker 2: also beaten horribly and scrapped up in otherwise stab Steevie
Speaker 2: Branch was stabbed in the face. Christopher Byers had died
Speaker 2: of multiple injuries, according to Peretti, and he apparently bled out.
Speaker 2: He had virtually no blood left in his body, so
Speaker 2: he didn't drown, and so it raises a question of
Speaker 2: how the injuries. If you believe in the animal predation,
Speaker 2: then you have to believe that the animals attacked him
Speaker 2: in such a way that he bled out before his
Speaker 2: body was placed in the water. It just simply makes
Speaker 2: no sense. What does make sense is that they're in
Speaker 2: the water, they're bleeding. Maybe a few small preatures come up,
Speaker 2: and you know, you use your imagination on that. But
Speaker 2: there's blood in the water and attract some small predators.
Speaker 2: I don't think that's even that unlikely. But as far
Speaker 2: as the major wounds, it just doesn't make It doesn't
Speaker 2: make any sense, and it doesn't hold up with the evidence.
Speaker 2: The adding further to this, if you just simply look
Speaker 2: at how the wo the wounds they're not they don't
Speaker 2: look like I mean, there's a lot of the wounds
Speaker 2: that are marks that are left from a knife that
Speaker 2: would be exactly some exactly it's probably the same knife.
Speaker 2: But if it's not the same knife, it was a
Speaker 2: very similar knife to the knife that was found behind
Speaker 2: Jason Baldwin's how known as the Late Knife in November
Speaker 2: of nineteen ninety three.
Speaker 1: And like heavily serrated, it's like a very strong solution, right, and.
Speaker 2: If it's great, take that, put that across your skin
Speaker 2: and you will have thing that will look like scratch marks.
Speaker 2: But you can see the difference between an animal scratch
Speaker 2: marks and scratch marks made by some mechanically made device.
Speaker 2: And if you look at the autopsy photos for those
Speaker 2: who really want to look at some really terrible, terrible photos,
Speaker 2: those are horrible. If you look at those where you're
Speaker 2: seeing our wounds that are left by some sort of
Speaker 2: mechanically made device and not buy an animal. And I'm
Speaker 2: not an expert on that. I'm just saying what I'm
Speaker 2: just seeing what I see.
Speaker 1: Gary, we are at forty five minutes. Is there anything
Speaker 1: that you'd like to add or promote or anything I missed?
Speaker 2: No, I mean we could I could go on about
Speaker 2: this for quite a while, but we covered the big things.
Speaker 2: William I do appreciate this. I appreciate your other work.
Speaker 2: Know you you could. I saw your interview with Operaman
Speaker 2: the other day, ed the other day. He's a great
Speaker 2: host by the way, but you know you could. You
Speaker 2: could for the hour two so it's it's you know,
Speaker 2: but thanks for having me on. I do appreciate it.
Speaker 1: Well, I'm glad that you made it. And people need
Speaker 1: to get your books Blood on Black where the Monsters Go,
Speaker 1: very reasonably priced on Amazon. Tons of information, and you've
Speaker 1: got forty nine episodes on your podcast, The Case Against
Speaker 1: So Counting counting right, so people go check those out again.
Speaker 1: It's Gary mess Emmy e. C. Thank you so much,
Speaker 1: Gary
Speaker 2: Thank you, William, bye bye, by bye bye