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The West Memphis Three, part 3
87 Plays1 year ago
Let's start with an apology. No excuses, just an apology. The lateness of this episode is entirely my fault. Essentially, I thought I'd posted this in June, and I hadn't. Please ignore the "we'll be back after the summer lol" at the end of this episode. Now that Siera is back, consistency will be through the roof, 'cause she's the responsible one here. Once again, I apologize for not posting this months ago. My "post it , run away, and don't look back" tactic works much better when I actually, you know, post the episode. --Kayley
On May 6, 1993, three eight-year old boys were found murdered in a water-filled ditch in Robin Hood Hill in West Memphis, Arkansas. The town of West Memphis is terrified that someone who could do this is on the loose. As they begin their investigation, police get hung up on one possibility: a satanic cult was responsible.
In part three of this three part series, Kayley walks us through the trial and appeals process and how two documentaries caused public outrage once again--only this time, the public's outrage helped the West Memphis Three finally get a retrial.
Sources:
Devil's Knot: The True Story of the West Memphis Three—Book by Mara Leveritt
https://www.gq.com/story/west-memphis-three-trial-story-sean-flynn-gq-december-2011
https://www.eonline.com/news/1135012/inside-the-unknown-story-of-the-forgotten-west-memphis-three
https://www.cnn.com/2022/06/23/us/west-memphis-three-dna-court-hearing/index.html
https://www.britannica.com/event/West-Memphis-Three
https://encyclopediaofarkansas.net/entries/west-memphis-three-3039/
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction and Case Overview
00:00:01
Speaker
Hey, I'm Kaylee. And I'm Sierra. And this is True Crime and Punishment. Episode 10, the long awaited conclusion to the West Memphis Three Case. Kaylee, take it away. Don't keep us in suspense any longer. Yes, I know I said last week hell or high water, but hell nor high water came, just Kaylee's own inability to pack for a trip.
00:00:26
Speaker
I won't make pointless platitudes at this point, I will just quickly say sorry and let's get into it. So last week we ended off with the end of the official trial where we saw
00:00:37
Speaker
Jesse and Jason were both sentenced to life in prison and Damien was sent to death row.
Trial Outcomes and Legal Debates
00:00:44
Speaker
We know that was a quick turnaround for his execution date but typically with cases like this execution dates are not the ones set at trial are rarely the ones that are actually acted out unless the defendant is dead set on being executed. It's likely that appeals will be filed and that was probably the
00:01:02
Speaker
a poor choice of words there. But unless they want to be executed, or that is their desire, they will not be executed on that first date. So even though it was like a month, I believe, after, it was also the one-year anniversary of the deaths of those children, I think that was more symbolic, and there was never actually a push for that execution to take place on that date.
00:01:24
Speaker
I want to go back and let's go to Jason. At the end of the trial, one thing I didn't mention last week that I wanted to mention this week was Jason's reaction to being sentenced to life in prison. Jason Baldwin has since said that when he was sentenced, he couldn't believe it because he genuinely thought that the trial would show that he wasn't guilty because he was not, you know, he said he never did this action. He didn't believe that in a court of law that
00:01:48
Speaker
Any evidence could be compiled against him that would show that he was guilty for something that he knew he didn't do. So when the trial was closed out, Judge Burnett closed with saying, is there any reason this sentence should not be imposed? And witnesses and Jason himself have said that they heard Jason say, simply just because I am innocent. And that was his mentality. After this, we started a long and lengthy appeals process, which
00:02:17
Speaker
as we know with the Desert Killer case, which I feel like we've referenced several times, just how long appeals can take. And this is no exception, unfortunately. The first appeal was for Jesse. It went to the high court, the Supreme Court in Arkansas, and in a unanimous decision, the Supreme Court justices... Let's see. My notes are backwards. Hold on.
00:02:41
Speaker
Okay. Jesse's appeal went to the Supreme Court and this was because they were inconsistencies in his own testimony and that his own confession made little sense as we saw that timeline kept changing as he was confessing. He didn't seem to know the details of his own crime. He couldn't even get the victim straight.
00:02:58
Speaker
However, the court would state that even though there were inconsistencies and inaccuracies within his testimony, they would put the decision up to the jury to determine credibility. So even though within his own testimony, they saw these inaccuracies and these things that were just not lining up with evidence, they would have still put that decision up to the jury to make that final say, to reach that final verdict. So the fact that they use that testimony despite its inaccuracies was not an issue because the jury still found him guilty.
00:03:30
Speaker
And they would also give the jury the power to determine credibility of this evidence. They also found that his age, mental capacity, and things like along those lines were not factors in his trial or in his culpability for this crime. They found his confession to have been voluntarily made.
00:03:47
Speaker
They also found that tactics used by police were not psychologically overbearing. That was a big thing within this trial was whether or not their use of harsh questioning or continued questioning was psychologically overbearing for not just Jesse, but for anyone in that position. But since there was no credence given to his age or mental capacity, they said they were not overbearing. They were all within the realm of what was acceptable. And so an appeal could not be granted on that.
00:04:13
Speaker
on those grounds. But they were leading him along and supplying information when they asked him questions. That doesn't count as overbearing? No, it was not considered overbearing because they were considering his confession to have been freely given. Okay. The only potentially hinky spot was parental consent. They
00:04:38
Speaker
remember how they had to go find Big Jesse and have him sign off on that polygraph exam. Now, Jesse Miskelli Sr. never signed off to allow his son to waive his rights, which Jesse would eventually do. And they were saying Jesse was 17. That should not have happened. This is grounds for an appeal. But the Supreme Court said that since it was a serious crime, the fact that a parent did not sign off on his waiver to waive his rights was essentially irrelevant.
00:05:09
Speaker
because since it was a serious crime and they believed he committed that crime, it was all right to waive that, which that becomes a little bit convoluted when you apply this situation to potential other cases. I can't imagine that would apply just because of the severity of the crime. I don't feel, personally, I mean, I'm not a lawyer. I don't feel that that would hold up when it came to other convictions, the severity of the crime.
00:05:35
Speaker
I don't know. I want to get your thoughts on that just because genuinely I feel that just because it is a severe crime and he's confessing to it does not mean that his parental rights should be weighed because I think that's a dangerous precedent for things going forward in cases.
00:05:53
Speaker
No i agree because if the thing about the law is that you go by rules and regulations so if you have this put in place where miners cannot waive their rights without parental consent you need to apply that to every situation regardless of whether or not it's a serious crime like you have to uphold the law and follow the procedures.
00:06:13
Speaker
Right. And that comes up a lot in true crime cases where it seems like, well, if they could have just waved this one thing or done it differently because they are obviously guilty, that means the confession or whatever the trial would be easier to prove guilt. But we still have to follow these regulations because
00:06:29
Speaker
It's what is fair. Like, you know, a jury of your peers, you are able to move trials out of certain counties because people cannot be impartial. And even though that makes it harder and makes the case drag on longer, it just means that the person on the stand, even if they are 100% guilty, they still get that fair trial. So I just found that to be kind of an interesting take that because it was a severe crime, the violation of the parental rights was not considered to be a big deal.
00:06:57
Speaker
And I wanted to touch on this because I know we were both irritated about this last time that a recording may did when they interviewed Jesse. They also noted, the Supreme Court noted that the Supreme Court noted that the lack of recording of his confessions was not an issue because Arkansas does not require things to be recorded. Well, then Arkansas needs to change that. You should always have these things recorded. I don't understand.
00:07:24
Speaker
You have to have everything, if anything, even just for the police officers to have something to go back and reference. Like it's always helpful to have stuff recorded and backed up.
00:07:33
Speaker
Right. Even from a journalistic standpoint, you often see the character of a journalist with a handheld recorder because remembering details like that can be fuzzy. You can take notes, but sometimes you'll look at your own chicken scratch and wonder, what have I just written there? I just feel like for posterity's sake, you should record everything, especially when it's a massive, massive murder trial. Yeah, the severity of this case, I think, warranted a recording. Oh, goodness.
00:08:02
Speaker
They also touched on some of the evidence that was used in trials, such as there was a picture of Jason Baldwin admitted into evidence. And now, before we get into this, I know I didn't go into detail about the trial last week, and that was because we're going to be rehashing things so much that I didn't want to give myself a chance to accidentally misspeak last week or this week, or to assume that everyone remembers things that were mentioned last week, because I have to go back and re-listen to the endings of these recordings so I know where I left off.
00:08:31
Speaker
So while we didn't get into too many details, there will be more trial details today. And one of those details were some of the evidence that was submitted in both Jesse's and Jason and Damien's combined trial. One piece of evidence was a picture of Jason Baldwin wearing a black t-shirt with a skull and the band Metallica on it. Oh, so that's proof that he's into the occult?
00:08:56
Speaker
Absolutely. Yep. There was also testimony from Vicky saying, Vicky Hutchison saying that she'd attended the ESPOT. And they also admitted into evidence that Damien Eccles had a book on witchcraft in his home. And this was allowed evidence in Jesse's trial. And the Supreme Court ruled that it was allowed because it corroborated Jesse's testimony that these murders were for satanic ritual purposes.
00:09:19
Speaker
So this shirt meant that yes, he was involved in dark things. This book on witchcraft meant that he was involved in Satanism, despite the fact that Satanism and witchcraft are different practices.
00:09:32
Speaker
Um, we'll get into one of their primary testimony people. I'm sorry. There was a primary witness that was called or an expert witness. Sorry. Not a primary witness. An expert witness was called who was an expert on the occult. And he just was all over the place with what he believed to be parts of the occult. And we'll get into him a bit later. Um, but his witness in his testimony was taken as just absolutely just truth, even though a lot of what he says is not.
00:10:02
Speaker
accurate. Another thing was the medical examiner had testified that the boy's death had taken place well after midnight, or had likely taken place well after midnight, despite the fact that this contradicted Jesse Muskelli's testimony directly.
Media Influence and Public Perception
00:10:18
Speaker
It was dismissed again because the court believed that a jury still would have convicted Jesse. Oh my goodness.
00:10:25
Speaker
Oh, we already had so many issues with that timeline from Jesse saying they were there in the morning, but the boys having been in school that morning. That timeline is so messy. This entire case doesn't get better even throughout appeal. And they pushed him to say the time that he did. So like they pushed him to the wrong time.
00:10:42
Speaker
Remember, we had that one detective who said, how long after you left the scene did Jason call you? Half an hour or an hour. You meant by police lead testimony or confession, that only gives them until about nine o'clock in the evening, which is three hours before the medical examiner believes that they were murdered.
00:11:05
Speaker
Yeah, but yeah, it just A lot of it boiled down to a jury still would have convicted him and I do believe that is true Because of how sensationalized this case was I do believe he still would have been convicted But at the same time some of this evidence quote-unquote does not seem to be very evident or convincing And remind me real quick. Oh, sorry. Yep. Sorry remind me real quick This their trial did happen in the same plate area that they lived in correct. It did not get moved
00:11:35
Speaker
I believe Jason and Damien's was moved to a different county, but it was all in Arkansas. So it was all in that same area. Right. So people are already hearing that these boys are guilty, like from all the other sources. Right. And we'll see a bit later. There's some documentaries that come out about this case and people from the area have a much different opinion from people that are outside of the area because of how much this was reported on.
00:12:00
Speaker
Remember, it was in churches. It was literally from the pulpit in religious circles. A pastor is meant to be someone you can trust and these people are getting up there and saying the satanic ritual has taken place. So it's being ingrained on multiple levels of authority from religious authority to governmental authority that this was satanic in nature and these three boys who are proving to you are involved in satanic ritual. So it's just
00:12:22
Speaker
Yeah, it's just a very, very unfortunate set of circumstances and an unfortunate set of beliefs that are being built around this murder. And I'll get into that a bit later because I know some people get really angry about the religious aspect, but it just makes me sad because I think it stems from a belief that no one would commit this sort of evil without it being from the ultimate evil, which would be the devil. Right. But I think that discounts how
00:12:53
Speaker
how that discounts human nature, though. We don't need Satan's help to sin. We do pretty good at doing bad things on our own, unfortunately. Right, which I completely agree with. I think that's just the mentality of we need someone to blame that is not human. I cannot identify with the person who has done this. I cannot be of the same
00:13:11
Speaker
Race or town not race like the race of man, but like I can't be the same creature because I would never do this You would have to be like under some extremely dark influence, which is what they try to say Jason Jesse and Damien were all under this dark influence and that it wasn't really the man side of them that committed this but the fact that they were trying to commune with Ultimate evil whatever you believe that ultimate evil to be
00:13:33
Speaker
And I'm not discounting dark influences either. I think just sometimes people are too quick to be like, oh, people would never do that when in reality people can do far worse things than we expect. Amen, people are terrible. Yeah, people are definitely.
00:13:51
Speaker
capable of great, great evil themselves. No, no Satanism, no Satanism needed. Let's get back to these appeals. It took a bit longer for the Arkansas Supreme Court to address Jason and Damien's direct appeals. On December 23rd, 1996, this is three years later, a 93 page document. So this was like the longest in the court's recent history was released that found that
00:14:17
Speaker
Document was released from the state Supreme Court, but it also found that there have been no errors during Jason and Damien's trial. Really? Mm-hmm. They said that all evidence had been sufficient despite it being largely circumstantial and based on testimony. They had some fiber evidence, but that was really just they said they found fibers in one of their homes that they also found on the bank, but that was never really strong evidence.
00:14:47
Speaker
They cited Damien's history with witchcraft because he had had pentagrams drawn on, I believe it was like a funeral flyer or something. I don't believe it was for the boys, but it was just a general funeral flyer with a pentagram drawn on it. He had upside down crosses, journal inventories that referenced dead people and dead children specifically. Not these specific dead children, but just in general had referenced dead individuals.
00:15:10
Speaker
Um, and he'd also made copies of spells. They found that he'd written out spells from spell books, which these are all pointing to Wicca, which he openly, I don't know if it was Wicca as the right term, let's not offend people, which openly pointed to witchcraft, but it didn't point to Satanism. And again, I hate that I have to keep stressing this, but those are two very different things. There are different religions, if you want to call them, they're organized religions, they're different entirely. And the Satanism they're referencing is also different in modern Satanism, which we won't get into today because it's just a fascinating topic.
00:15:43
Speaker
But one thing that kills me, just a little bit, is whenever you see someone reference an upside down cross, and have it be a reference to Satanism. Oh, no, go ahead, you're probably about to say what I was about to ask.
00:15:58
Speaker
That's called a St. Peter's Cross, and I believe the Catholic Church, because it's believed that Peter, one of Jesus's disciples, was crucified upside down because he did not want to be crucified in the same manner as Christ was crucified. And so he was crucified hanging upside down on an upside-down cross. It's not the satanic cross.
00:16:18
Speaker
Which, again, a lot of people don't know that, so a lot of people will wear an upside-down cross and be like, it's the satanic cross because it subverts Christianity. I'm like, no, that's literally a Christian martyr, a symbol of him. And the satanic cross is like, it's crazy. It's like a cross upright and then underneath it's like an infinity, infinity, infinity. So it's like a cross stacked on three sideways figure eights.
00:16:42
Speaker
Someone kind of makes, well, I don't want to, nevermind. I'm going to just stop. We're not going to talk about the satanic cross, but that's not a satanic cross. That is a St. Peter's cross. And we know that Damien had an interest in Christianity and Catholicism specifically. Damien's name is a Catholic saint. So that he admired. So we know he knows about Christian circles. So I don't know if that was just believed to be a satanic cross because it was subverted. It was just, I guess it's inverted, an inverted cross.
00:17:13
Speaker
because I will give them that the intention might have been to have been a satanic cross or a dark symbol because he did have pentagrams drawn as well. But I just think it's funny because that's not even a satanic cross. Moving on, Eccles had also testified that he would wear a long black trench coat even when it was warm.
00:17:31
Speaker
I've seen people around where I live that do that, and I don't think they're part of the occult. I'm just a little eccentric. That is eccentric, it's also a fashion statement. But this was directly relevant because good old Jerry Driver testified that he had seen all three boys, I believe there was a couple people who testified, but I could be getting my details mixed up, that Jason, Jesse, and Damien had all been seen wearing these long black trench coats and carrying
00:17:58
Speaker
Sticks. Like staffs. Six months before the murders. Here, we keep our rings in them as sticks, and I don't- I'm just picturing these little, like, branches off a tree, like they're just carrying these sticks around.
00:18:12
Speaker
carrying sticks in their long black trench coats. Clearly, they're up to satanic no good. But Jerry Driver testified that he'd seen the three of them walking around together dressed like this carrying these sticks. Now, we need to go back to how Jesse himself said that they didn't really hang out. He knew Jason pretty, not pretty well, but he knew Jason, but he didn't really know Damien very well.
00:18:33
Speaker
He just knew that he was weird, so I think it'd be a bit odd for them to be walking around dressed up like in trench coats and carrying these sticks together six months before the murders. But this is also corroborating his testimony that they were in a satanic cult, which apparently no one else was in. I don't know. How many people do you need to have for it to be a cult, do you think? Oh, I don't know. I'd say- Do you need a level of dedication or a level of members?
00:18:59
Speaker
Yeah. I would say dedication. You could probably have a pretty effective cult with just two people, but I feel like it has to grow. Like if you want it to not die out, it has to gain more members. Outreach is a big part of that cult life. Yeah.
00:19:14
Speaker
But yeah, that was Jerry Driver's testimony. And remember, Jerry Driver has already proven to have said things in the past that were not quite true, like how he believed that Damien's parents were involved in Satanism and how he kept writing letters to organ officials for the juvenile court to try and get Damien
00:19:32
Speaker
for lack of a better word, in more trouble. It's just, it seems a little bit suspect that this is coming out during trial when they were trying so hard to pin these three boys to this crime that this didn't come
Circumstantial Evidence and Expert Testimonies
00:19:43
Speaker
out before. Like I saw them walking around in culty coats and wearing, and carrying big sticks. Oh, was that Teddy Roosevelt? It was like, speak softly and carry a big stick. It's a Teddy Roosevelt cult. They were wrong this whole time. They were just really into history.
00:20:03
Speaker
Sorry, I think it's good to be into history. Please cut that out too. I'm just saying all sorts of bad things today.
00:20:08
Speaker
I'm going to send that to my sister because she's a history major and that'd be funny. But again, so driver says he sees these boys dressed like this and then Damien admits, I will wear a long black trench coat even when it's warm outside and it's starting to connect. Like, Oh, he wears that trench coat. And we saw these boys in the trench coat carrying sticks and these sticks are also relevant because the medical examiner on the stand testifies that these sticks match head wounds that were found on the victims.
00:20:38
Speaker
Oh, now wait, were the sticks themselves ever found? Were the staffs found? Oh, it leads directly into my next thing. But yes, the staffs were found. However, they were found in the woods, not in their homes. And it doesn't appear that DNA evidence was able to be pulled from these sticks. Of course not.
00:20:58
Speaker
Even the DNA evidence of the victims? Because they get the victim's DNA evidence? I don't believe so. It had been a couple, been several months since then. They're able to find them in the woods. Last week, I mentioned a knife and we'll get into that knife evidence as well. There's a lot of circumstantial evidence that looks really good when you're already convinced that satanic cultists have murdered these children. Okay, I see. So if you go into it with that, with that bias, then you'll
00:21:28
Speaker
Yeah, actually let's get into that knife right now. It's the next thing in my notes. But there was a knife that was found in the lake behind Jason's home. It was found, let's see, I have the date a little higher up. I lied, I don't have the date. They found a knife in the lake. A group of divers had found it.
00:21:46
Speaker
And it was in just a rim lake behind Jason's trailer, and the medical examiner was able to say that this kind of knife was used to castrate Chris Byers. So they were able to say, well, we found this near his home.
00:22:02
Speaker
They weren't able to pull blood evidence from the knife later. They find a little bit of blood on a necklace belonging to Damien and they aren't able to say that it belongs to Damien or the victims but that it could potentially match one of the victims but it could also match like a third of the population.
00:22:18
Speaker
which is another thing. This was 30 years ago. Blood and DNA testing was not as good as it is today. Like today we can literally pull old DNA, get the barest little bit of genetic information and be able to mash it to someone's third cousin and then be able to track down who a murderer was 30 years ago based on that little bit of information. It's how we found the Golden State Killer. It's amazing. But back then it was just able to say, well, this could potentially match a victim. And that was enough because
00:22:45
Speaker
if you're looking at all the circumstantial evidence and there's a potential match, it's given more credit just because of the potential there. So we'll get into a little bit more knife drama later at the end of this episode when we discuss some closing details. But that knife with the blood evidence on Damien's necklace and a bunch of other things is just kind of all of this while circumstantial is tying together the state and investigators theory that the occult was involved.
00:23:14
Speaker
Now, we can't go on without talking about Dr. Dale Griffith, the trial's leading occult expert. Oh. Well, he's a doctor, so you know you can trust him. He's not a real doctor, I don't believe. I wanted to research this a bit more because I did hear or read in an article a while back that was like his doctorate was on the occult, but it was like a mail order doctorate. He's an expert in the sense that the court recognizes him as an expert, and they're putting a lot of faith in what he's saying.
00:23:44
Speaker
However, it's on a secretive topic where we mentioned, I think it might have even been episode one, where all these assumed occult killings were not even happening. It was part of the Satanic Panic. So this is really, this is a lot of Satanic Panic energy manifesting in this guy with a doctorate.
00:24:04
Speaker
But he testified that the killings had, quote, trappings of occultism. And this means that he looked at the entire murder and pulled out evidence and details that could potentially link this crime to an occult murder.
00:24:20
Speaker
Some of this information that he found was it was a full moon the night of the murders. The children are often sought out for this sort of murder in the occult because they're seen as innocent and so the fact that it was children was a big deal because you know child sacrifice. The date was apparently super close to a pagan holiday but it wasn't on the holiday it was close to a holiday. The number three is apparently significant as a satanic number
00:24:47
Speaker
which I don't believe. I thought that was sick, but I don't know because I don't really, I'm not up on my occultism. From what I, I don't believe, I know there's like the witching hour that's like 3am, but even then sometimes it's 2am or it's midnight, but I don't believe it's actually significant in Satanism. There's like the rule of three that is in a lot of different circles of different things. Just in general, three things are often seen as an omen.
00:25:15
Speaker
but I would agree. It seems like a bit of a reach. He also said that it was significant that all three children were eight years old because eight is, quote, a witch's number. I'm not sure what exactly it signifies, but he said it was a witch's number. He had testified that the murders taking place near water was significant because it was some sort of perversion of a Christian baptism. Also being near water, this was
00:25:41
Speaker
able to heal he said that taking your water was also because you know they could wash the blood off but that feels like forensic evidence or like more of a investigative piece of evidence not necessarily a piece of satanic evidence because yeah if you're gonna murder someone the bodies were found in water it was obviously a hiding tactic it was it was i hate to say it makes sense because ew but it makes sense that if you're going to commit a bloody crime because this would have been a very bloody crime given the children's
00:26:11
Speaker
even though two of them, you know, one passed away from head trauma, I believe, and two of them passed away due to drowning, it would have been bloody. Like, Chris Byers was mutilated. There would have been blood abundant. And it was believed that, I believe I mentioned in episode one, Stevie Branch had bite marks on his face. Like, this was not a bloodless crime. So, but he also said that the lack of blood evidence was because satanic cult members, they would drink this blood and bathe in it.
00:26:40
Speaker
which again, we have that story of Damien Echols drinking the blood off of another, like sucking the blood off of another juvenile inmate's arm. So that ties together. Yeah. But it's just, I don't know how they would assume that, I feel like that's an odd take because there was no blood anywhere. So I don't think it's possible to collect blood that way.
00:27:04
Speaker
And anyway, I feel like there'd be more of a mess. And honestly, I can kind of feel myself sympathizing, though, with the jury, though, because as you're rehashing what happened to the little boys, I'm like, oh my goodness, who could do something like that? It is horrific. So obviously, I don't condone the way this case was handled, but I could understand people wanting to blame the occult because it is something that's so vile. So yeah.
00:27:31
Speaker
I definitely don't blame the jury because I feel like if you blame the jury you're kind of taking a lot of liberty. I cannot imagine having to sit under this trial and hear all this evidence and see photographic evidence of these children and hear about what happened to them and then look at people in this room who are apparently, you know, part of this occult and they have evidence and if you're not into
00:27:59
Speaker
If you're not in forensic sciences, if you don't have any knowledge about that or you don't have any training, you just have to listen to what the prosecution is saying.
00:28:08
Speaker
And when you have a doctor come in and it's authority bias, you believe someone who has this doctorate, you believe police officers, you are trained to trust people who have high education, who are in positions of authority. You want to believe this and you want to button up a crime. You want people to be punished for this sort of thing. That's what the justice system is for that. So I don't blame the jury. I just think it's...
00:28:34
Speaker
You're right. The way it was handled is the true tragedy, not that all of this evidence was against Damien Echols. It wasn't really against Jason Baldwin. There wasn't as much evidence for his trial. There was testimony from someone named Michael Carson that said Jason had told him that he dismembered the victims. I believe this was like in prison or in juvie. He'd said that he dismembered the children and this was allowed to be in trial. I couldn't find a ton of information on this, I believe.
00:29:01
Speaker
But basically there have been testimony from someone saying that Jason had said this and that was enough. It was enough to be considered evidence from him. So what the court had more trouble justifying was the decision to allow a joint trial. However, they eventually decided that the joint trial was appropriate for the crime.
00:29:22
Speaker
Another sticky area was the nighttime search that the police had issued on the night of Jesse's confession. We kind of touched on it then that it was quickly granted and under kind of the reason that was given for it to be granted did not directly correlate with the situation. But again, the court looked over all this and they found all evidence submitted was valid and that no misconduct had occurred.
00:29:46
Speaker
So basically, we've exhausted all their appeals option. For just general, the trial was not conducted properly appeals. The only appeal left to the three would be to claim that their representation was grossly inadequate.
00:30:00
Speaker
All three defendants have been given state-appointed lawyers. They had not hired their own representation. They did not have the money to do so. In order to file this, I believe it's called Rule 37, when you're claiming that your representation was inadequate, you have to hire an outside
00:30:20
Speaker
Defense you cannot the state will not supply that for you and their lawyers. They're saying their state supplied lawyers They can't file that for them because then they'd be fine. Yeah, my own work was completely Completely inadequate So that would kind of sit on the back burner because they really couldn't file that appeal And yeah, the state would not pay for another lawyer to parse whether or not the original trial lawyers who still had not been paid near three years after the trial and
00:30:49
Speaker
by the state they hadn't been paid at all. Oh my goodness. They would not pay it for another lawyer to say whether or not they were inadequate or biased. However, we get a little bit of a lucky break, so to say, for our three convicted individuals.
Public Advocacy and New Suspicions
00:31:05
Speaker
In 1996, a documentary called Paradise Loss, The Child Murders of Robin Hood Hills, was released. This showcased the murders, the trial they were allowed to record in trial, they were allowed to record interviews with the three suspects, as well as the families of the victims. It focused on the poverty of West Memphis and the brutal murders.
00:31:27
Speaker
The documentary, it kind of painted West Memphis as this small town where these three boys had been railroaded. So it was not just completely that these three were completely guilty. It did follow the trial to the conclusion that they were guilty, but it sparked some public outcry.
00:31:46
Speaker
The documentary pointed out small-town mentality and, like we said earlier, the need to create a satanic ritual to explain the horrific events because no one wanted to believe that someone could do this evil thing without the influence of Satanism. So it pointed that out as well.
00:32:02
Speaker
So a lot of people were shocked to see the documentary. However, the book Devil's Knot says that people assumed that the issues pointed out in the documentary, if they were true, would grant the three an appeal that would overturn their convictions. However, we can see that the State Supreme Court did not allow that. So while there was outcry, there was not much done by the public.
00:32:24
Speaker
However, three friends in LA, a writer named Burke Soles, a graphic novelist named Kathy Bagan, and a photographer named Grove actually saw the documentary and they wanted to know more. Soles specifically said that after he watched the documentary, he felt like he'd missed the part where they show why they thought the three were responsible for the murders. Kathy Bagan wrote to the three's lawyers to see if anything was happening, but she found out that the three were still in prison and she was shocked.
00:32:50
Speaker
So the three friends from LA actually went down to West Memphis, Arkansas and visited the murder site as well as the West Memphis Three in prison. They saw Jesse's lawyer, Dan Stidham, and he was the only lawyer of the initial, he was the only lawyer originally assigned to these three boys that was still involved, even though he had not been paid at this point. And he was still willing to fight for his client. He was the one who was saying that he thought that Jesse was guilty in the beginning.
00:33:18
Speaker
and he was annoyed with him, but now he's seeing that they're innocent. At one point later, I believe it was him who was quoted as saying, sometimes I wish they were just guilty, so it didn't take the rest, but they weren't, and so I couldn't. Wow. Well, that's really, and that's powerful evidence again that something went wrong with the trial and with the investigation, if he's willing to change his perspective and still fight for Jesse. Right, because he saw something, again, he wasn't being paid, so you really can't say that he was in it for the money. He was in it for justice.
00:33:48
Speaker
So the three that had traveled down from LA found no evidence that Jesse, Jason, and Damien were guilty. They also found no one was really there to help them.
00:33:58
Speaker
So what they did was they took all the evidence and information that they could find and they compiled it on a website and they made wm3.org and they had case files, they had information, all the information they could glean about their appeals and everything and they had statements from the three themselves that they put on here and they just put that out into the world. So people who would watch that documentary,
00:34:23
Speaker
who would feel that these boys didn't do it. I feel like there's not enough evidence. They go online and they find this website and they'd be able to see that there are other people out there who believed the same way that they did that these people were not guilty. That's really cool. Yeah, it's amazing what the internet can do. This is the late 90s. I believe the documentary came out in 96 and people are still coming together. They see this injustice and like, no, we need to do something about this. This is crazy.
00:34:51
Speaker
Locals of West Memphis were less enthused about this documentary. They all felt that since they'd been there throughout the trial, they knew what had really happened.
00:35:02
Speaker
And so they thought a bunch of out of state tourists who didn't know what happened, they hadn't been there, that these people were just caused in a stir. And audiences were just misinformed because again, they felt that they'd reached the right conclusion. And so again, that small mind mentality kind of creeps in and they felt that these were just people who didn't know what they were talking about causing trouble and making fun of them and disbelieving what they knew to be true because they knew it was Satanism before the trial even started. That kind of mentality.
00:35:33
Speaker
Jesse Jason and Damien were not allowed to watch this documentary in prison, but people who watched the documentary started to write them. And so they started to get support from people outside of the prison. Damien Eccles actually gets married while he's in prison to a woman named Lori Davis.
00:35:54
Speaker
Some of the people we talk about, they just keep getting married while they're in prison. I'm sorry, that's a very odd tangent, but I'm like Ted Bunny, Bunny, David Leonard Wood. Sorry, I'm done with tangents. Lori Davis, she was, I believe an architect, wrote him in prison because she saw that documentary and she didn't believe that he was guilty. And they wrote back and forth for a couple of years and they were married in 1999. And they are still married today. Oh, good for them.
00:36:23
Speaker
So it's a little, I don't really approve of prison marriage, but I do approve of this one. My approval means anything, but it's just like, you know, people who kind of write serial killers who believe that they did it, and they're just attracted to that versus- So she believed that he didn't, so. Yeah, and they corresponded for a bit. We're actually going to go back to Vicky, Victoria, her name is Victoria. Vicky Hutchison, remember her son Aaron? Oh, yes, I remember Aaron. Of course I remember Aaron.
00:36:53
Speaker
Um, do you remember Rich Lacks from earlier? He was an investigator who looked for information for the trial. Was that the one Vicki talked to first? Or is he a different one? That was Don Bray. This is a different man. He worked for the defense. So he worked with Damien Jason and Jesse.
00:37:09
Speaker
Okay, no, I did not remember him. Well, well they, um, Hudson ends up like contacting Lax many, many times after this trial. And she actually told him that she, because remember at one point I mentioned it briefly, he tracked down information that Aaron had actually been in the trailer park at the time of the murders, not in the woods at that time. But she actually ended up telling Lax, she felt that she deserved the reward money because her son had blown open this case.
00:37:39
Speaker
Vicky annoys me so much. She also said she intended to sue the state because they had interviewed Erin multiple times without her there. Oh, now parental signing off on things is important. The severity of the case, Vicky, you didn't need to sign off on anything. She knew they weren't allowed to do that. She also said detectives had promised to take care of some hot checks she'd written, as long as she didn't tell anyone about
00:38:05
Speaker
Sounds like bribery to me. Reportedly, when Lax told her that Damien didn't drive, she said, well, speaking of the S-pot, she said, well, maybe I dreamed that.
00:38:16
Speaker
Are you kidding me? Vicky continuously called Lax multiple times a month, and when she couldn't get a hold of him, she would leave messages with his secretary or other people within his practice. At one point, she sat down for a five and a half hour long interview with Lax. She spoke about the ESPOT and said while she knew she'd went, she didn't actually know who she went with as she had been extremely drunk.
00:38:41
Speaker
She'd broken up with her boyfriend that day and I believe I read she drank a fifth of whiskey and then had a second one ready to go. She also stated that the next morning she remembered going seeing teenagers in black paint. They began to touch each other sexually and she wanted to go home and someone took her home. But she also woke up in her front yard holding an empty fifth bottle the next morning.
00:39:05
Speaker
it may not have been Damien and Jesse. She also said that Jesse was like a little brother to her and she ended up doing an interview with the people who kept up the West Memphis Three website and she said with an interview with Saul specifically that she just said what the West Memphis Police wanted her to say. So it's starting to sound like another Jesse Mescali situation. Yeah, for sure.
00:39:31
Speaker
Goodness. I'm really bad right now. Yeah. When we go back to a lot of the things that were on that West Memphis 3 site, there was a lot of information about the murders themselves. One thing that I saw reported in Devil's Knot, there was another, I don't have the
00:39:48
Speaker
the man's name, but he reviewed the photos from the murder and from the, I guess autopsy is the closest word I can think of right now, but he looked at pictures of their wounds. And that's when we were talking about those bite marks on Stevie Branch's face. He's like, bite mark evidence can be a massive thing. We need to cast these men's teeth and see if they match. And then the teeth end up being a big thing. Do these teeth marks match Jesse and Jason and Damien?
00:40:16
Speaker
He also discussed how he believed there was three stages to this murder. There was a kidnapping, the murder, and then the bodies were removed. I remember saying that Chris Byers had been beaten with a belt before he went out to ride bikes. There were wounds on his buttocks that kind of confirmed that. However, this man said that those wounds were
00:40:40
Speaker
would have been too painful for him to have been riding a bike afterwards, so he thought that was a bizarre part of Chris Byers' story.
00:40:47
Speaker
He also believes that the three boys, there was no defensive wounds, like they'd been snatched off the streets. He believed that that meant that they knew their captor, that they'd gotten willingly into a vehicle with somebody. He also said the lack of blood evidence at the scene. This is graphic and I apologize for this, but he said that essentially these children would have been in severe pain and they would have been screaming. This would have been a scary situation. It would have been loud.
00:41:12
Speaker
And since that medical examiner believed the other one from the trial believed that they'd been murdered after midnight and people were in these woods, combing these woods, somebody would have heard that. And no one reports hearing children screaming.
00:41:26
Speaker
He also says the lack of blood evidence is another indication that these children were moved after the fact because there would have been sufficient blood evidence from the wounds on Chris Byers and these boys in general. There would have been from the mutilation that would have caused a lot of blood loss. So in general, a lot of things are adding up because this entire, because for the cult theory,
00:41:49
Speaker
Their leading cult witness said that they would have been murdered by this water intentionally. However, it also is evident that they weren't murdered there at all. They were in fact moved and dumped there. So that's calling into question that sort of thing as well. All of this is kind of like sparking this like slow burn of public outrage and people looking into things. And so another documentary ends up being made. The sequel would be about advocating for the accused in an attempt to prove that the three proven guilty were actually innocent.
00:42:18
Speaker
Well, many people from the first documentary didn't want to be interviewed again. In fact, Pamela Hobbs, one of the boys' mothers, had actually filed a lawsuit against the original filmmakers because graphic images from the trial, she said that they weren't going to use them originally. They were using that. That had been a breach of the contract they'd come to.
00:42:37
Speaker
Um, actually even in that lawsuit, the court of law sided with the filmmakers. So it didn't, she sued them, but she did not win. The only person from the original documentary who was willing to be in front of camera again was John Mark, John Mark Byers. Chris is his father. Actually Byers was more than willing to be on camera and filmmakers took full advantage of this. They made him out to be their new prime suspect. And this is the case.
00:43:06
Speaker
Yes, I didn't go into it too much in this because not even 30 years later, it's not been proven. But there's a lot of evidence about John Mark Buyers that I think we're going to have to address in a future episode. But I really was not comfortable. I already feel like I've gotten
00:43:21
Speaker
fairly bias. I know where I stand on this and it's been very evident, so I never want to issue a new suspect like that, but definitely did not shy away from that. There's a lot of information. We talked about that knife evidence earlier. They actually have more knife evidence involving a knife that belonged to John Mark Byers that actually had blood on it. Did they test this blood? They did, and they found it could be consistent with one of the children, but then that blood evidence was lost.
00:43:52
Speaker
As we said, John Mark Byers knew a lot of cops and he knew them well for some good reason that they were friends with someone, but he also had a lengthy criminal history. He did? He did. Actually, Melissa Byers, Chris Byers' mother, before some of these retrials take place, she would actually pass away and it would be investigated as a homicide. Did they ever figure out who did it? No.
00:44:22
Speaker
It's a lot of speculation, but a lot of it adds up. And I don't want to pull like, after getting into like, all this makes sense if you look at it through the scope of this, but this is why they didn't do it. I don't want to point it in the direction of another individual, but I do think we should do another episode on in the future. I think so. But this episode's already almost 50 minutes and we're about halfway through my information. So I'm going to go a little faster. But yeah, Melissa Byers had passed away at this point of the second documentary and her death had been investigated as a homicide.
00:44:52
Speaker
The West Memphis police and West Memphis people still thought the documentary was terrible. They just thought it was people coming from out of town, looking at their situation and trying to determine
00:45:03
Speaker
things that they didn't have the knowledge to do because they hadn't been there the first time. But people were upset. Actually, one of the filmmakers would say that at one point he knew someone who was directly working for Bill Clinton, the president at the time, and he asked him, like, will you give him these films? Can you give him these documentaries? And they were like, yeah, yeah, we can do that. And then he actually got a letter back from Bill Clinton.
00:45:28
Speaker
um on official like White House letterhead that said that while Bill Clinton, which this is from the president, so he said while Bill Clinton said while he found the movies disturbing he could not um let's see while he found the films disturbing he had no influence on the courts in Arkansas. Well I can understand that like you do have we have our balance of powers for a reason like the executive branch really shouldn't have any sway over state um judicial branches
00:45:58
Speaker
So I can understand that as much as the president felt that his hands were tied and that he couldn't help these three, even if he did find the contents to be disturbing, which is it's not like.
00:46:11
Speaker
a ton of information. It's like you're saying, I think you're 100% right, but I can't do anything. But even though the president felt this way, Metallica, the band, felt differently. Really? And had been in support of the West Memphis Three since the first documentary. They had actually donated their music to be used in that first documentary.
00:46:30
Speaker
because Metallica came up a lot, Dungeons and Dragons came up a lot. A lot of these alternative things came up because remember evidence of Jason Baldwin wearing a Metallica t-shirt was admitted and that Metallica was a indication that dark forces were being contacted.
00:46:47
Speaker
And many bands actually felt upset about this case. It makes sense to me, the court made their music, the music these boys listen to, into be the root of their murderous desires. And so of course, they felt that these three had been waylaid, but they also felt that it was unfair to say that their music was the cause of it. I thought it was kind of cool. It's an aside. I'm going to have to cut this out for time. But a CD was actually put together in an effort to bring attention to this case, and it was sold. And concerts were actually performed. You ever heard of the band Pearl Jam?
00:47:18
Speaker
No, I haven't. I'm sorry. Pearl Jam and many other artists contributed to this effort. This was about seven years after the three have been sent to prison. So this is years in the making. So what we're seeing here is many big names are supporting the three. However, there were many people who believed that the correct people have been found guilty.
00:47:38
Speaker
Well, which again, two sets of juries, Jesse's jury and then Jason and Damien's jury found them guilty. So they're down to that one last defense, a Rule 37 defense, which is where they're going to say that their representation was inadequate.
00:47:53
Speaker
This would require the three to pay for their defense, but again, they didn't have money. Their families didn't have money. But because of the popularity of these two documentaries, Barry Scheck, who worked on the OJ Simpson trial and Edward Mallett, two defense attorneys saw this and Edward Mallett contacted Damien Eccles and said, we will work your case and we will work your case for free. Whoa. Yeah. If they could get OJ off, I bet they could help actually get off. I believe that was just Scheck who worked with OJ Simpson and he was actually known for
00:48:23
Speaker
for using, being able to work really well with DNA evidence. Yeah, because if a glove fits, if the glove doesn't fit, you must quit.
00:48:34
Speaker
Goodness. So Mallet actually came in. He met with Price, who was Damien's initial trial lawyer. And he said that he found him to be very nice, not the kind of person you'd want as a professional enemy. So one thing he asked about was the lawyer had signed off on Damien to participate in three different interviews for that first documentary, For Money.
00:48:59
Speaker
And this could be seen as a very bad idea to allow your client to speak to a whole documentary crew, like probably not the best idea. And so when he asked why he did that, why he let Damien partake in these interviews, he said, Price said he needed money for expert witnesses as they didn't believe Judge Burnett would allow them to have the money to get their own expert witnesses.
00:49:24
Speaker
because they shouldn't have had to pay for that out of pocket. That should have come from the court. Oh, I see. This is also when Mallett found out that the defense lawyers had not been paid for years. And when they were paid, they were underpaid. And these people had to take money out of pocket to pay for expenses throughout the trial. So in general, it just took forever for them to be paid.
00:49:49
Speaker
However, Judge Burnett and county officials would be paid promptly and for their time accurately. She thought that was relevant. They would be paid on time and with that argument which is another thing that the defense attorneys had to go and argue to be paid years later.
00:50:06
Speaker
That's so messed up. So Jason, Jesse, and Damien all were paid $7,500 for three interviews each. That money was placed into a trust and their lawyers were made signees on this trust so they could take money out. Which they shouldn't have had to do that to pay for witnesses because that should have come from the courts. So when they're doing this Rule 37, they bring up that inadequate
00:50:32
Speaker
representation because the lawyers had to feel felt that they had to get outside money, which was a conflict of interest because of this documentary, which I think out of all the way to go about it, it was probably the most respectful way to their previous lawyers to say they had no money. So they contacted this documentary team, which made it a conflict of interest because now money was involved instead of being like they just didn't care enough to do their jobs right. That kind of thing. So that came up in trial for the Rule 37. Now the annoying part about the Rule 37
00:51:00
Speaker
is this goes back to the initial judge and it's hard to win a Rule 37 trial because that judge, Judge Burnett, has to agree that the trial he conducted was not fair or adequate. Just a given human nature, that doesn't happen too often.
New Evidence and Appeals
00:51:24
Speaker
One thing that came up in these trials were those bite marks. They had a forensic debt. These trial lawyers brought in a forensic dentist to check out those bite marks, and they did a cast of Damien, Jesse, and Jason's teeth. They said, none of these bite marks match any of these. Forensic dentistry, nowadays, I think it's more accurate. It used to be less accurate, but again, you're just matching teeth.
00:51:48
Speaker
like to bite mark. And they're like, this is so much. But then the other side, the opposition brought in another random forensic dentist and they said, he consulted with us during the initial autopsy and during the initial trial. And there was no notes from this. There was no paperwork stating that he had been billed for his time.
00:52:11
Speaker
of course because we don't write down or record anything here anything but he said he testified so that he had been there and at that time he had also concluded that the bite marks on steamy branches face were likely from animals oh no which is why they didn't test against
00:52:32
Speaker
their teeth at that time. That's what they said, that it was likely from animals, so we didn't test against it. Also, if they came out and said the bite marks on this boy's face didn't actually look like they came from any of the accused, could have poked a hole in their case. Anyway.
00:52:47
Speaker
So again, Burnett had to look into this Rule 37 petition, and perhaps unsurprisingly, he denied it. He felt that everything that was presented in court was accurate, and that Damien and Jason's representation had been adequate originally.
00:53:07
Speaker
Jesse's lawyer Dan Sittem had in fact filed a rule 37 petition for him as well. And it took years, literal years for Burnett to acknowledge it and to bring it to trial and give it a trial date. And wasn't it a big deal that Jesse's lawyer did that himself because he's saying his own work wasn't sufficient. So I feel like that's something you should pay attention to. If he was one of his lawyers,
00:53:36
Speaker
Yeah. And then I feel like it was also mentally, but yeah, there was a, it wasn't Dan's. I'll double check that and edit it as I need to. But yeah, it was a big deal that it was filed at all. And then it was just ignored for ages. So.
00:53:49
Speaker
In 2001, a writ of quorum nobis was filed. A writ of quorum nobis is basically saying an error so grave was committed during initial trial that it deserves a retrial or that it needs to be looked at again. Specifically, Damien's lawyer said that Damien was not mentally competent to stand trial. Really? Because of why? Why?
00:54:13
Speaker
Damien was considered mentally disabled, 100% mentally disabled, and was receiving Social Security payments. So the government had already said that Damien Echols was mentally disabled because of his history of mental illness, and he was receiving support checks for this disability, and they still allowed him to continue this trial despite this.
00:54:40
Speaker
Well, that makes sense to me because this group doesn't seem to believe in paper trails, so I don't know why they would. They really don't. Actually, this is not mentioned by Damien or his family at the time of the original trial. In fact, his mental state was not really considered despite his lengthy history with mental illness and hospitalization for this mental illness. Price, his original lawyer, had requested these records from the Social Security Office, but they had not arrived before the trial.
00:55:10
Speaker
And I'm not shocked. Damien's new lawyer also claimed that Burnett did not consider all the arguments presented in his case for the Rule 37 petition. Because Damien was on death row, they said that they had not been considered to the fullest extent that would be needed to be acceptable. And so they filed this new writ to see if they could get that pushed through again. And in fact, the High Court found that Burnett had been too broad in his review, and they sent the case back to be reviewed by him.
00:55:40
Speaker
So this is a win in the sense that the High Court was like, yeah, this wasn't done correctly, but it's also kind of a lose because they're sending it back to Burnett, who predictably just gave more response as to why he was right the first time and denied it again. And that's also when we talk about how Jesse's was denied for years, and it was just a big, big mess. In 2003, actually,
00:56:08
Speaker
We're gonna jump ahead a bit. Vicky Hodgeson stated that every word she gave the police was a fabrication. Oh my goodness. Vicky. She said that the police had implied that if she did not cooperate, they would take Erin away from her and the rest of her children. What?
00:56:28
Speaker
I bet this wasn't written down though, were recorded. She said that when she visited the police station, they'd had photographs of the West Memphis Three on the wall and that they'd been using them as dark targets. I got that from Wikipedia, I don't know how reputable that is, but that the police station, either way, she reiterates the police station had it out for these three boys.
00:56:47
Speaker
and that she had been forced into making these confessions at risk of losing her children. She also said that that audio tape that we talked about last week where it was unintelligible and you couldn't hear what Damien was saying and then they lost it.
00:57:02
Speaker
She said it was perfectly clear and contained no incriminating statements. And that's why it was inaudible. Interesting. This is again, Vicki Hutcherson, who has lied throughout this entire thing by her own admission. But we take what she says with a grain of salt, but at the same time, it does show she's not a reliable witness. Like you can't build a case off of Vicki because you don't know what's true and what's a lie.
00:57:31
Speaker
In order to jump forward to 2007, because this episode is over an hour long at this point and I still have to edit it. So in 2007, DNA collected from the crime scene was tested and none of it was found to be a match for Damien, Jesse, or Jason. In fact, a hair that was found tied in those ropes from, I believe we mentioned that in the first episode, it was actually found to be not inconsistent with Terry Hobbs, who was Stevie Branch's stepfather.
00:58:01
Speaker
So, we're to be not inconsistent with that just means that there's a likelihood that it was his hair, but they can't 100% prove that because hair testing is strange like you need the entire hair shaft as well as the follicle. And even then, it's again, this was back in 2007. So a lot of the knowledge I have comes from our recent cases, so I'm not even gonna really
00:58:21
Speaker
get into that. So this was, again, brought up in media because it was a big deal. But the prosecution said in a statement that the state stands behind its conviction of Eccles and his codefendants. Because even though, again, DNA evidence is not linking them to this case, a jury did convict them. So they're going to stand behind that.
00:58:41
Speaker
Pamela Hobbs, however, said she had a May 5th, 2009 declaration to the United States District Court, specifically the Eastern District of Arkansas. She mentioned this is the anniversary of her son's death. Ten years passed.
00:58:59
Speaker
She said in this statement, I read it verbatim. Additionally, after the murders, my sister, Jolin McCauley, and I found in Terry's nightstand a knife that Stevie carried with him constantly, in which I had believed was with him when he died. It was a pocket knife that my father had given to Stevie, and Stevie loved that knife. I had been shocked that the police did not find it with Stevie when they found his body. I had always assumed that my son's murderer had taken the knife during the crime. I could not believe it was in Terry's things. He had never told me that he had it.
00:59:30
Speaker
Also, my sister, JoLynn, told me that she saw Terry wash clothes, bedliddens, and curtains from Stevie's room at an odd time around the time of the murders. There was additional new evidence discovered in 2007 that I cannot recall. There were also a couple other people who said they potentially had information linking Terry Hobbs to the murders, but they were initially ignored by police. Again, this is not something that was specifically
00:59:54
Speaker
tried. I don't believe Terry Hobbes ever tried for this, so I'm not going to speculate. But this is just showing that there were more avenues that could have been followed that weren't because they were so dead set on the Satanism angle and these three teenage boys.
01:00:05
Speaker
Yeah. In July 2008, it was revealed that Kent Arnold, who was the foreman of the jury on Jason and Damien's trial, had discussed the case with an attorney before the beginning of deliberations. So he was accused of advocating for the guilt of the West Memphis Three. And so basically, he'd already spoken with a case, he'd spoken to a lawyer, which means that that was not allowed. It was misconduct on the part of the jury, and he should not have been allowed to be the jury foreman because of this.
01:00:32
Speaker
Yeah. In September 2008, former lawyer for Jesse, Dan Stidham, he was now a judge. Stidham would then testify under oath that during the trial, Burnett had made an error because he'd improperly communicated with a jury during deliberations. He'd overheard Burnett discuss taking a lunch break with a jury foreman and heard that the foreman who, I don't believe that was, that would not have been Kent Arnold that was mentioned earlier. This was at Jesse's trial.
01:01:00
Speaker
that the jury was almost finished. He testified that he'd heard Judge Burnett say you'll need food for when you come back for the sentencing and said that the foreman asked him to determine what would happen if the defendant was acquitted. So this is saying that on both cases there have been jury misconduct. So there have been a request for retrial. This is in 2007. This is 14 years.
01:01:22
Speaker
after the murder. These men had been in prison for 14 years. One of them was 17 when he went in, one was 16, one was 18. This is reaching the majority of their life has been spent behind bars.
01:01:36
Speaker
On October 9th, 2007, Damien's defense lawyers filed paperwork to ask for a retrial or for his immediate release from prison based on this new DNA evidence, linking Terry Hobbs, which again, Stevie branches her father, to the crime scene. And also Pamela Hobbs, who was now divorced from Steven Hobbs, his ex-wife was saying that the thing about the pocket knife and how now she was starting to suspect her own ex-husband.
01:02:00
Speaker
It was also believed at this point that the supposed knife marks on the victims, as well as the castration that had occurred to Chris Byers, it was now believed that it could have potentially been animals in the water after they'd been dumped in the body, in the body of water. So it could have been that Chris Byers had not initially been assaulted that way, but after the bodies had been dumped in the water,
01:02:26
Speaker
that they've been attacked by animals, or not attacked, but the animals had fed on the bodies, and that's where these stab wounds and the mutilation had come from. Oh my goodness. And this was just a theory. I'm not sure if that was ever fully proven, because they did believe that a serrated knife had been used, but it was worth looking into, essentially. On September 10th in 2008, circuit court Judge David Burnett, he'd gone up to circuit court, he was now in charge of this
01:02:56
Speaker
allowing asking for a retrial because he's a circuit judge. He denied this retrial request, citing that the DNA tests were inconclusive. Now, they weren't conclusive in linking Terry Hobbs, but they were conclusive in not-linked, if we convicted men. They appealed with the Arkansas Supreme Court, which heard oral arguments about the case on September 30th, 2010.
01:03:21
Speaker
So on November 4, 2010, this Arkansas Supreme Court, um, they ordered for a lower judge to determine whether or not the new DNA evidence could exonerate three. They also were told, they told this lower judge to determine whether or not the jury misconduct was enough to exonerate this conviction. But basically they said, um, the, they told the lower court to examine the misconduct claims and see if that was
01:03:46
Speaker
part of what led to the death row sentence for Eccles and for the life convictions for Baldwin and Miss Kelly.
Alford Plea and Aftermath
01:03:56
Speaker
So, but in December 2010, Judge Burnett was elected to the Arkansas State Stenet.
01:04:03
Speaker
goodness, which meant circuit court judge David Lasser or Lazer. David Lazer, I'm gonna say Lasser. David Lasser was selected to replace Burnett. And so he would preside over these hearings mandated by this appeal. However, the plot thickens. I'm gonna say right now, officially,
01:04:27
Speaker
Jesse Mescali Jr., Jason Baldwin, and Damien Eccles are still convicted of the crime. They are still, according to their plea, guilty of this crime. However, on August 19, 2011, Damien, Jason, and Jesse were released from prison.
01:04:49
Speaker
This is because of something called an Alfred plea. Have you ever heard of an Alfred plea? I have not. An Alfred plea is a legal precedent that says that you are able to plead guilty while maintaining your innocence.
01:05:04
Speaker
Really? That's a thing? Yes. We'll have to go into the history of the Alfred plea because it is interesting. It's named after the man who first used this defense because he stated that I am pleading guilty because based on where he was and the situation he was in, if he pleaded not guilty, he stood likely to lose his life by the death penalty because he did not believe that a jury of his period would not convict him. So he was going to say, I'm going to plead guilty to take that off the table, but I'm going to maintain my innocence and say that I did not do this, but I will plead guilty.
01:05:34
Speaker
Interesting. Well, that sounds like a case we'll have to cover in the future because I want to learn more about that. So part of Damien's defense team negotiated this plea. And so this would only work if all three of them were willing to say that I will plead guilty, but say that I'm innocent. And I saw a report in one place that Jason Baldwin didn't want to say he was guilty, but he was willing to do so. So Damien could get out of prison because Damien has spent this time on death row, which means he is in solitary confinement.
01:06:05
Speaker
Well, he spent a lot of time in solitary confinement. I don't know if he's always in solitary confinement, but he's alone a lot. He's not in a good place. He was repeatedly assaulted in prison and just, there was another part of the, I didn't include this, but he had to write a letter to someone because he was being continuously assaulted by an inmate who was kind of, there was like some prison misconduct and within that, within the hierarchy of prison officials even that actually resulted in several people getting fired because he wrote a letter about it.
01:06:35
Speaker
But it was not a good situation for him. But under this plea, the judge would vacate their previous convictions, including the capital, like murder convictions, and they would get a new trial. So in this new trial, all three would enter this Alfred plea and say that we are pleading guilty, but we are maintaining our innocence.
01:06:54
Speaker
Throughout this trial, what happened was they were still convicted and they changed from first degree to second degree murder pleas while maintaining their innocence verbally. And they were sentenced and they were found guilty, but the judge sentenced them to time served, which meant that the three of them got to walk out of court that day as free men. They didn't even have to deal with parole or anything like that. They were free. 17 years later,
01:07:24
Speaker
That's crazy. And it took so much just to get them there, like the lawyer that stayed on these documentaries, the people looking into their story.
01:07:34
Speaker
It was insane. Just how much work had to go into this? And there were people who believed them to be completely guilty who were so angry about this because it's such an unusual plea and they're allowed to walk free after 17 years and we're not even keeping tabs on them. However, they are still considered legally their felons. They have a record, so they can't vote. They can't do a lot. Consider how hard it would be to get a job after this. Yeah.
01:08:00
Speaker
And I just, reintegrating into society must have been crazy. Damien Eccles had a son when he went in, and his son would have been 17 years old at that point. Yeah. Which was his age when he went into prison. That's crazy. Well, Eccles was 18. But still, that's the conclusion to this crazy story is there is freedom, but no justice.
01:08:20
Speaker
because they're still considered murderers. In this case, it's considered closed despite there being mounting evidence against other individuals. We still have the man from Bojangles that we mentioned in part one and two that was never investigated. That evidence was lost and never tested.
01:08:37
Speaker
And actually, as early as this year, Damien Eccles is still trying to find justice for these three boys. He's still trying to figure out who did this to them. And he still works hard. I believe he works specifically. He has a lot of motivational speaking. I believe Baldwin does as well. I think Miss Kelly, Jesse Miss Kelly, I ended up having a couple of
01:08:56
Speaker
couple more run-ins with the law, not murder run-ins, but like I believe I saw a DUI or something on his record, I can't quite remember. But he lives a pretty quiet life. But Damien Eccles is still married to Laurie Davis who he married in prison in 1999. He has to wear sunglasses all the time because being in that solitary confinement all the time ruined his eyesight. And
01:09:17
Speaker
Again, like I said, freedom but no justice. He's still working. I saw an article as early as this year, earlier this year, they found more evidence. One point I saw reported that they were looking for more evidence. His lawyer is trying to find
01:09:32
Speaker
more evidence to reopen this case and to look into other suspects to fully clear his record. But the police office, the West Memphis Police Department said that the evidence had been lost in a fire. Oh my goodness. There's no record of this fire, even with the fire department who came out and said, yeah, we don't have a record of a fire at the police department. Bailey, they don't believe in paper trails. I'm sorry. I shouldn't say that. That's probably not the whole department. But it seems to me. The fire department didn't see a paper trail.
01:10:00
Speaker
But this fire is not reported. And then also his lawyer was able to walk in, found the box they were looking for, because they said they'd lost those ligatures, the rope specifically, and a couple other things. And I'm like, oh yeah, we lost that. It was lost in a fire. He walked in and found it. It was there. Oh my goodness. So this burnt in a fire evidence with a fire that never seems to have existed was still there.
01:10:26
Speaker
But that's where we stand now. The West Memphis Three, in reference to both the moral leverage said it very well at the end of her book. She talks about how Chris Byers, Michael Moore, and Stevie Branch all had their lives taken away from them 30 years ago.
Reflections on Justice and Investigation Flaws
01:10:43
Speaker
When we started this case, it was the day after the 30-year anniversary. But Jason Baldwin, Jessie Miss Kelly, Jr., and Damian Eccles all had their freedom taken away. And it's such a sad and tragic case because
01:10:56
Speaker
even if it came out like tomorrow, that they did do it, which I don't believe at this point. The way they were treated and the way this was handled just was such a gross misrepresentation of justice that it just makes you angry. That is the case of the West Memphis Three broken into three parts. Yikes. Any concluding thoughts?
01:11:20
Speaker
I just think it's so sad. Like I can't imagine with those three little boys, I can't imagine being their moms and like having to deal with that. Like just the scary feeling of not being able to find them and then finding them the way they did. I just cannot imagine. And it's so sad for the Memphis three as well. Just their whole lives were completely changed. And it's sad to me because obviously
01:11:44
Speaker
I know we came down really hard in the West Memphis Police Department. That doesn't mean we're coming down hard on all police officers, because obviously we need our justice system. We need all the parts of it. But it does show us how terrible it is when people don't do things the way they're supposed to, and they don't follow those procedures and those rules that are set in place. And so it's really sad because you see how these institutions that are for good, like they do good, can, because they're run by humans, also do things terribly as well.
01:12:11
Speaker
It's extremely, extremely sad that when we think of this case, we think of Jason Baldwin and Jesse Mascali Jr. and Damon Echols, who we should remember them, and we should think about what has happened to them and how this was a terribly miscarriage of justice. But when you say the West Memphis Three, that's who you think of. You don't think of the three literal children.
01:12:33
Speaker
Who were brutally murdered and based on evidence that we didn't get into I didn't really get into what the family Had to say as much not that I want to like silence the family's voice or anything But I didn't want to represent their anger and their hatred of Jesse Mascali jr. Damien echols and Jason Baldwin because they said a lot of things about them that if they if they had done it they deserved like but I didn't want to kind of
01:13:01
Speaker
paint them in a bad light or make it seem like they were.
01:13:04
Speaker
I didn't want to get into it. I feel like they've been discussed to death. I feel like they've been picked apart a lot, and the families don't deserve that. Sounds like two cops potentially could. John Byers, which we will have to get into that in another episode, because Devil's Not, Mara Levert wrote that book, and it's obvious that she feels that he was either guilty or that he was
01:13:34
Speaker
definitely a better suspect. And honestly, with a lot of the evidence that she was managing to find, it does seem that he should have been looking to, but he definitely should have been looking to you much.
01:13:46
Speaker
Yeah. Much more. I don't know. It's one of those cases I said in the beginning, it's going to make you angry and it should. I feel like with these cases, with these types of murders, you should always look into families first because typically speaking, in cases where children are hurt, they're either molested or hurt. It's often someone that they know. Right. It's not just some random stranger usually. It's usually a person that they know. Yeah. That's what's absolutely
01:14:14
Speaker
That's what's crazy about cases like this is that I don't want to say it never happens, but more often than not, it's not someone random off the street. It's somebody that you know, or someone who you have met. It's not a completely random individual. And there's like a saying within the true crime community, if you want to call it that, but that the husband did it. And that's just because statistically,
01:14:37
Speaker
the person you know very well has the most time to get emotionally involved in killing is emotional and it's just I don't know it's just it's tragic it's terrible and all the other buzzwords we can throw in there but it kind of leaves you with this feeling of wow I can't believe that's not solved
01:14:58
Speaker
I can't believe that even now it feels like the police department is trying to cover themselves instead of saying, Hey, we're a new police department. We are newly staffed. We don't have all these old ties. You don't even have to admit like, yeah, we did it incorrectly because that's not, I hate the concept of somebody else apologizing for someone else's wrongdoing.
01:15:19
Speaker
Right. Because it doesn't mean anything coming from them. I don't think that should be a burden they have to carry. I think if anything, you should be able to say, hey, we're not those people, and here's how we're going to prove it. Here's this evidence. Let us help you. Let's figure this out. Even if it may reflect poorly on us, we're going to stand strong in the face of this opposition, and we're going to do what we know is right, despite the fact that it may not be the easiest. I always find that to be way, way, way more impactful and way more
01:15:43
Speaker
impressive than just clamming up and saying, we don't have this evidence or we didn't do anything wrong. And again, it's a very emotional response. I have a very emotional response. There are only a couple cases that I am very, it's difficult for me to take myself out of a place of just absolute reaction. And this is kind of one of them. If it was truly one of them, I don't think I would have been able to cover it. Like I'll never be able to cover the Matthew Shepard case because that one just makes me angry and I can't
Unresolved Case and Future Hopes
01:16:09
Speaker
do it.
01:16:09
Speaker
But this case, I feel, needs to be discussed in the sense that it's 30 years later. There are still people out there who think that justice has been served and then lost, which is completely valid. If that's what you feel, I'd love to have a conversation with someone like that and see their evidence. But the fact that it's armchair detective work from people just with podcasts talking about it now, instead of being able to say police have said this definitively,
01:16:37
Speaker
And I don't think that they would have let them walk if they didn't have sufficient evidence to say that they didn't do it. Because why would you want three child murderers on the street? And this is they were released 12 years ago, and none of them have like re offended with murderous intent. So any, any thoughts? No, that about sums it up. It's just, it's just sad. I feel like it's what we say at the end of every episode. Every episode is just sad. Well, it's sad. It's tragic. And
01:17:09
Speaker
This is a good case to keep following because they're still finding information. So maybe one day we'll be able to give an update and say they found them. They know who it was, but fortunately with older cases, when it comes to old DNA evidence, there's always an unsatisfying end because you'll find out who did it, but they're dead or you can't really do anything about it then. But I know I would love one day to see a notification pop up on like Apple news on my phone or something and just be like,
01:17:36
Speaker
Killer finally caught 30-some years later. So, who knows. Here's hoping, here's praying that justice can be served for the both sets of the West Memphis Three. But Sierra said the West Memphis Six. But that wraps up the three-part series on the West Memphis
Podcast Break Announcement
01:17:50
Speaker
Three. I think this might be our last episode for a little bit because Sierra is leading us to go to a Wi-Fi-less pit.
01:17:57
Speaker
Yeah. Going out to the bush, so. So she will be having a good time with your family. Yeah. So I'm not sure when our next episode will be out.
01:18:11
Speaker
It's the summer, and traveling is a big thing for us, because I'm out of town right now anyway, as we said, with the whole mic kerfuffle. So I don't know. If we get more information, maybe we can post a brief update about what we're going to do. But we really don't have a plan right now, but we don't get paid to do this. So this is just for funsies. Yeah. We'll be coming back. We just don't know what time. We will be back.
01:18:36
Speaker
But we'll have a couple of pre-recorded Tangent Tuesday episodes that should I ever feel the motivation to try and use Audacity again. I'll record those and post them for people, but it will be sporadic. And once we have a better idea, one of us, if we were able to discuss it before Sierra goes on her
01:18:56
Speaker
pilgrimage to the wifi-less zone. I shouldn't have called it a pit. It seems like a lovely area. When she goes out to the wilderness, I'll post a quick update and say, here's when we'll be back. But it may not be for a few weeks. Not that we've been very terribly consistent over the past month. And that's my fault. Sorry. Life happens. Life happens.
01:19:17
Speaker
life seems to happen to me a lot i don't know about you guys but anyway that wraps up today's episode so we will see you at a later undisclosed date but until then be aware take care and we'll see you in the future goodbye bye