Sinofsky family connection aside, Berlinger says this was an important part of the film: The prosecutors had put heavy metal lyrics and Baldwins and Echolss Metallica fandom on trial as much as the teens themselves. weaving supposedly anti-Christian and occult messages into their songs, he discovered her while Googling cold cases, funded an extensive private investigation, a November 2010 Arkansas Supreme Court ruling, biggest allies in the years before his 2020 death, acquitted of capital murder in 2018 after a 25-year legal saga. To authorities working in West Memphisa largely Southern Baptist communitysatanic activity seemed to be the most likely cause for the killings, in part because the boys bodies were bound and appeared to have been mutilated. We use cookies and other tracking technologies to improve your browsing experience on our site, show personalized content and targeted ads, analyze site traffic, and understand where our audiences come from. Nevertheless, Echols made no incriminating statements. The first being that boys were killed by someone they knew. The great irony of the 18-year quest to free the West Memphis Three is that it didnt begin as a crusade. They were naked and hog-tied with their own shoelaces, and showed signs of blunt force trauma and mutilation, the latter of which may have been the work of wild animals, reported the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette newspaper. Dan Stidham, the original attorney for Misskelley, who would also work on Baldwins and Echols appeals, says he has the answer. Events. 2 Investigators never found any evidence that tied him, Jason Baldwin, or Jessie Misskelley to the murders of the boys, Stevie Branch, Michael Moore, and Christopher Byers. I wouldn't do something like that. Making his way through the muck on his hands and knees, Ridge soon discovered clothing twisted around sticks and thrust into the ditch's bottom. And without substantial physical evidence, police zeroed in on a pair of teens they knew well: Echols, a self-professed Wiccan who wore all black and read Stephen King, and his best friend Baldwin, who was considered an outsider because of his love of drawing and bands like Metallica. He says his dad and Berlinger werent seeking notorietydocumentaries certainly werent a means to get rich or famous in those days. I had a big box. Hobbs was Branch's stepfather. You need corroborating evidence.. A theory held is that Terry Hobbs was the one who actually killed the three boys and had pinned it on the Memphis 3 boys. Griffis also found the devil in nearly every number associated with the crime. As reported by the Arkansas Times, examination of the shoe laces used to bind Michael Moore contained hair "not inconsistent" with that of Stevie Branch's stepfather, Terry Hobbs. Over the years there has been lots of speculation and finger pointing as to who was responsible. He began his career in the. TERRY HOBBS OBITUARY Terry Roland Hobbs, 62, of Sweetwater, passed away on Saturday, September 11, 2021. By 2005, Rollins himself had raised $100,000 for the cause. Misskelley told Hutcheson that he really didn't know much about Echols other than that he was "a weird person." Its first season ostensibly focused on the disappearance of a Georgia beauty queen, but it spent nearly as much time digging through the salacious details of the victims love life and dipping into amateur psychology as it did looking at evidence. Self. If the state of Arkansas has a deep and abiding belief that the West Memphis Three are child murderers and did these terrible crimes, then shame on them for letting them out after 18 and a half years because a bunch of celebrities are whining about it, Berlinger says. of Auburndale, FL passed away Monday, August 16, 2021. But I had to. February 27, 2023 (76 years old) View obituary. Unaware of what was to come, Allen explained that he just wanted to ask him some questions. It is with great sadness that we announce the death of Terry Lee Hobbs of Auburndale, Florida, born in Winter Haven, Florida, who passed away on August 16, 2021, at the age of 56, leaving to mourn family and friends. I deeply admire that and I thought it was worthy of putting on film.. Like everyone else who was familiar with the case, they wanted to know who committed the crimes, but their main goal was advocacy, not using the opportunity to play investigators. Make a life-giving gesture But inside, he was just another prisonerBaldwin didnt know who he could trust. A month later, authorities arrested Baldwin, Echols, and Misskelleythree teenagers who lived in trailer parks near West Memphis and had previous run-ins with the law, though nothing rising to the level of murder. Classmates at Weaver Elementary School, the three were active in their Cub Scout troop and responsible enough to be trusted to roam their neighborhood without supervision. But the lawyer quickly noticed inconsistencies in Misskelleys purported confession. Leave a sympathy message to the family in the guestbook on this memorial page of Terry Hobbs to show support. They were released after prosecutors agreed to an Alford plea, in which the men maintained their innocence but pleaded guilty. But further down, in the section for the music department, theres a curious inclusion of a consultant who never worked in film again: Alex Sinofsky, the son of Bruce who was 12 at the time of Paradise Losts release. The specter of the church looms over Paradise Lost, best represented by an early scene in which Mark Byers leads his congregation in prayer and song. By choosing I Accept, you consent to our use of cookies and other tracking technologies. Paradise Lost is a narration-free documentary filmed with a journalistic remove. Few celebrities at the time did as much as Henry Rollins, however. Reaching its apex in the late 1980s and early 1990s, the Satanic Panic was a wave of paranoia rooted in the belief that Satanic cults intent on corrupting the souls of the young had infiltrated American society. So with less urgency surrounding full exoneration and no documentary cameras rolling, the question 25 years later becomes: Who is paying close enough attention to the case to pick up the fight? As detailed by The Hollywood Reporter in 2011, Jackson and Walsh helped fund key investigations for the West Memphis Three's defense during the last seven years of their incarceration. Nobody was saying, This is an outrageous case that needs to be looked into.. The judge ruled that Hobbs could not establish actual malice, and ordered Hobbs to pay Maines legal fees amounting to more than $17,000, according to the Associated Press. I don't entirely think Hobbs did it, but I . (Despite Misskelleys statement, the coroners examination found no injuries on the victims consistent with sexual assault.) Main Page; Misskelley returned to life in West Memphis. People would drive by and yell at us, Theyre going to burn in hell, Sauls says. In the minds of many, the bizarre nature of the Robin Hood Hills murders could only have been committed by one of Satan's minions. When the case was given the option for DNA evidence, everyone but Terry Hobbs said yes. While police had focused on Echols and Baldwin in the intervening weeks because of their reputation, the arrests came largely because of a confession by Misskelley, which was leaked to the largest newspaper in the area, the Memphis Commercial Appeal, and ran under the banner headline Teen describes cult torture of boys. At a press conference shortly after the arrests, the lead investigator was asked how confident he felt about the case on a scale of 1-10. Peter Jackson, who would produce a separate documentary about the case titled West of Memphis in 2012, and his partner, Fran Walsh, funded an extensive private investigation and helped hire forensic experts to comb through evidence. Berlinger and Sinofsky began to take notice. Under order of the Arkansas Supreme Court, there were to be new evidentiary hearings in the case. In the joint trial of Baldwin and Echols, which took place separately from Misskelleys, Berlinger and Sinofsky filmed the surreal moments that juries were actually present for: a rundown of the books Echols checked out of the library, a parade of band T-shirts worn by the pair, a copy of a Blue Oyster Cult record found in Damiens girlfriends house that became evidence because of the word cult and song titles like Dont Fear the Reaper. What the cameras couldnt capture, however, was the introduction of physical evidencethe prosecution didnt offer much of that aside from a knife that was never directly linked to the crimes and fabric threads deemed microscopically similar to items found in Baldwins and Echolss homes, an assertion that has been questioned in the years since the trials. Their bikes were found by a pipe nearby. Although blood scrapings were taken, the West Memphis police lost the evidence. It just needed a catalyst. People have come out of the woodwork and said this and this and people have done things and a lot of them are wrong, said Hobbs. Updated: 9:42 AM CDT June 11, 2019. But its closing moments point to how the filmmakers felt: that a horrific tragedy had just been compounded by a monumental miscarriage of justice. Baldwin, who had been coached by his lawyers to avoid speaking to the press, says money was the only reason he agreed to the added pressure of appearing in the documentary, especially when everyone else in a position of authority seemed adversarial toward him. After roughly 18 months of editing, Paradise Lost debuted at Sundance in January 1996 before heading out to other festivals. " Every crime, no matter what it is, gets blamed on Satanism.". Inevitably, the West Memphis Three case always comes up. Its no surprise the juries found the prosecutions narrative compelling, Leveritt says: For them, the image of killer satanists headbanging to Metallica was more than plausible. But Echolss situation changed Baldwins thinking. And that is why Echols has attorneys who want to use a new DNA test called M-Vac, a wet vacuum system that can find more DNA than older tests. Spotting a small, black tennis shoe in the water, Jones radioed for help. Baldwin is the co-founder of the legal advocacy organization Proclaim Justice. The arrest, trial, and conviction of the three young men known as the West Memphis Three came under national scrutiny as details of the case became public. The cult part of the Commercial Appeals headline signaled how the case would be defined by both the media and prosecutors. Terry Hobbs is absolutely terrible. Defense attorneys also pointed out that Griffis' doctorate was obtained through a notorious diploma mill and had been awarded with Griffis having never attended a single class. Terry Wayne Hobbs was born on May 21st, 1958. He says that while he was in the supermax prison in Varner, he would write letters trying to drum up support for not just himself, but also for other inmates he believed were wrongfully convicted. Titled West of Memphis, the film, directed by Amy J. Berg, presents an overview of the West Memphis Three's 18 years in prison, the revelation of new evidence, and explores the possibility of an alternate suspect. Luminol tests, which reveal the hidden presence of blood, were not performed at the scene until six days later. Please also read our Privacy Notice and Terms of Use, which became effective December 20, 2019. Theyve had several victories, including the case of Daniel Villegas, who was acquitted of capital murder in 2018 after a 25-year legal saga. That there were three victims was a link to the biblical number of the beast. there are no assignments to cushion your grade, so either pass or fail. More than 25 years after the murders of three 8-year-old boys in West Memphis,a new book gives a first-person account of what was happening behind the sce More than 25 years after the murders of three 8-year-old boys in West Memphis,a new book gives a first-person account of what was happening behind the scenes. But for every Your Own Backyard or Ill Be Gone in the Dark that has applied journalistic rigor to their research in the past two decades, theres an Up and Vanished, which has been at the center of ethical debates since the podcast debuted in 2016. In November, Judge David Burnett, who had presided over the trial, was elected to the state senate. Terry Roland Hobbs <p>Terry Roland Hobbs, 62, of Sweetwater, passed away on Saturday, September 11, 2021.</p> <p>Terry was born on September 11, 1959 in Sweetwater, to Jack Harvey and Marjorie Hobbs .Terry graduated from Sweetwater High School in 1977. But we stuck with it, and every so often something would happen, and little by little, people would come around., They spread word about the website through online discussion groups and by hanging flyers in the art houses that screened Paradise Lost, and by 2000, WM3.org was getting 4,000 to 8,000 hits a day. In 1996, a screener for Paradise Lost passed her desk. And the seemingly endless stream of threats against them and the frequent clashes with Mark Byers did nothing to dissuade them. 24 to Jun. I spoke with one of the jurors, years later after the trials and convictions, and he said he had no doubt that people could throw their lot in with the devil and be commanded to do things that they wouldnt have done otherwisethat they have basically made the deal with the devil, Leveritt says. To this day, it is still unclear who is responsible for the killings. We were mainly in it for the aesthetics of filmmaking, but the last scene of Paradise Lost, when Damien is chained up and sent away to death row, that was just heartbreaking and devastating for us, Berlinger says. Oxygen Insider is your all-access pass to never-before-seen content, free digital evidence kits, and much more. They even hired experts to examine the case, including a forensic criminal profiler who discovered what appeared to be bite marks on one of the victims that didnt match any of the convicted. For Rollins, it was a moral imperative: Id find myself up at 3:30 a.m. thinking about Damien. Terry Roland Hobbs September 11, 1959 ~ September 11, 2021 (age 62) Terry Roland Hobbs, 62, of Sweetwater, passed away on Saturday, September 11, 2021. Baldwins attorneys even avoided putting him on the witness stand or mounting much of a defense, believing the burden was on the state. After ending his first marriage, he wed Pamela Hicks Branch in 1986, when her son Stevie was almost 2 years old. MEMPHIS, Tenn. (localmemphis.com)More than 25 years after the murders of three 8-year-old boys in West Memphis,a new book gives a first-person account of what was happening behind the scenes.
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