Armchair detectives of today, I think a lot of them dabble in conspiracy theory, Berlinger says. Terry Hobbs Obituary (1959 - 2021) - Sweetwater, TX - Sweetwater Reporter They were releasedfrom prison in 2011 on whats called an Alford plea, after new forensic evidence was presented as part of the case. 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. Misskelley, who had entered the West Memphis police station that morning with hopes of reward money he might use to purchase a new truck for his father found himself instead charged with murder and facing life plus 40 years in prison. We are sad to announce that on September 11, 2021 we had to say goodbye to Terry Hobbs of Sweetwater, Texas. 2012 West of Memphis (Documentary) Self - Steven Branch's Stepfather. After hours of questioning, a frustrated Morgan blurted out that he had been hospitalized for drug and alcohol abuse and might have committed the murders. According to Griffis, black hair, black T-shirts, and black jeans were signs that a kid was in league with the devil. . Further down, it includes names such as Rick Dior, a sound mixer who worked on Apollo 13 and Dirty Dancing, and Bob Richman, a three-time Emmy-nominated cinematographer whose rsum also includes renowned docs like An Inconvenient Truth and Waiting for Superman. (Maines briefly became a part of the story when Terry Hobbs, stepfather of another . There are no events scheduled. (Maines briefly became a part of the story when Terry Hobbs, stepfather of another of the victims, sued her for defamation after she wrote a blog post pointing out that physical evidence at the crime scene potentially pointed at him and not the three convicted for the crime. She says she is too because they believe they are hearing different stories. " Every crime, no matter what it is, gets blamed on Satanism.". In 2013, Jackson and Damien Echols produced a fourth documentary about the case. In West Memphis, Hobbs worked as an ice cream delivery man and Hicks worked at a restaurant. Baldwin is the co-founder of the legal advocacy organization Proclaim Justice. He began his career in the. Find the obituary of Terry Hobbs (1957 - 2021) from Caldwell, ID. That didn't make sense to me. People in West Memphis are going to tell their kids stories. Since the West Memphis Three were released, no one else has been charged in the murders of Stevie, Christopher and Michael. The next to be found was Stevie Branch, quickly followed by Christopher Byers. 21, 2021 at 1:51 PM PDT CALHOUN COUNTY, Fla.. The third put forth the unusual theory that the killings were committed as a cult ritual. The West Memphis Police Department interviewed Hobbs, who was dismissive of the findings, claiming the hair could have been picked up during a visit to his home since the victim "played with our little boy regularly," according to the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. But on the subject of Paradise Lost, he speaks emphatically: He understands how important the movies were in helping him, Echols, and Misskelley walk free 10 years ago this August. That November, he says, HBO agreed to give an honorariumroughly $5,000to the families on both sides. This is a story of justice delayed and justice denied. Under order of the Arkansas Supreme Court, there were to be new evidentiary hearings in the case. I don't entirely think Hobbs did it, but I . As rumors of a Satanic sacrifice swept the community, the minds of many in West Memphis were already made up. Searching obituaries is a great place to start your family tree research. Filming the activists work seemed like the best place for Berlinger and Sinofsky to turn their attention; what better way to show the continued plight of the West Memphis Three than to show regular people dedicating their free time to fighting for them? In 2004, Vicki Hutcheson recanted her trial testimony, stating that she had lied on the stand. Terry Hobbs passed away in Nampa, Idaho. It had been a long fight to clear their names, and the odds seemed better than ever. However, in 2010, a series of rapidly unfolding developments turned the tide for Damien Echols, Jason Baldwin and Jessie Misskelley. Essentially, it allows the accused to assert their innocence while pleading guilty, conceding that the prosecution has an overwhelming amount of evidence to procure a conviction. To learn more, watch The Forgotten West Memphis Three on Saturday, March 28 and Sunday, March 29at 8/7c on Oxygen. In 1996, HBO released the documentary film Paradise Lost: The Child Murders at Robin Hood Hills. They were found nude and hogtied in a creek in a wooded area in West Memphis. People would drive by and yell at us, Theyre going to burn in hell, Sauls says. 25, 2021. Case Details. Everybody Id come in contact with was hostile to the truth, Baldwin says. Id like to see this put to rest. The bodies had been removed from the water and placed on the adjacent embankment, possibly disturbing physical evidence or otherwise contaminating the scene. The news was devastating beyond just word of his friends suffering. New evidence points to new suspects in West Memphis 3 case - Action News 5 But its closing moments point to how the filmmakers felt: that a horrific tragedy had just been compounded by a monumental miscarriage of justice. None of the initial trio behind WM3.orgnor their friend Lisa Fancher, who later became a key part of the efforthad ever considered themselves an activist to that point. He says his students seem to have a better grasp on the idea of coerced confessions than any of his peers in 1994. They werent telling me I was lying, even if they may have been saying that in their minds. Echols tweeted, New technology and evidence in science would now allow us to test DNA in amounts so small that it would have been previously impossible. All of those factors combined to create a tipping point, says Leveritt. Damien Echols (@damienechols) July 7, 2021 Terry Hobbs, the stepfather of Branch who was under suspicion but never charged, said he welcomes new DNA testing. 2011 Paradise Lost 3: Purgatory (Documentary) Self - Stepfather of Stevie Branch. Although Damein Echols had a teenager's typical disdain for authority, he nevertheless trusted that the system would work in his favor. She said it was one of the highest-rated pieces they had. A year after the DNA results were released, Hobbs sued Dixie Chicks singer Natalie Maines for defamation, claiming she implied he was a murderer on the bands website and at a 2007 rally, according to The New York Times. Terry Roland Hobbs Obituary - Tribute Archive With the guards blessings, Mojo led Baldwin to Varners visitation room, where everything had been put away aside from two chairs set up in front of a cart holding a small TV and a VCR. He was handed the phone. The cult part of the Commercial Appeals headline signaled how the case would be defined by both the media and prosecutors. At the suggestion of the police, Hutcheson hid microphones in her home and borrowed occult books from the library to inspire Echols' interest. Polygraph tests revealed deception in the answers of both men in regard to the crimes. Terry Hobbs, one of the men named in the documents. Baldwin remembers grabbing a Mountain Dew and a burrito and sitting down, still unaware of what he was about to watch. 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. Terry was born on September 11, 1959 in Sweetwater, to Jack Harvey and Marjorie Hobbs. After new DNA evidence was discovered, the West Memphis Three were released from prison in August 2011 by agreeing to an Alford plea, which allowed him to proclaim their innocence while admitting the prosecution had enough evidence to convict him. Terry Lynn Horn Hobbs -Miller (1953-2021) - Find a Grave Memorial Its evidence that Damien Echols attorneys wanted to do new DNA testing on. Now, he was being asked to consider something that he never dreamed he would: accepting a plea deal that would set the West Memphis Three free, but require them to give up their quest for exoneration. Covered in wounds, all three showed signs of having been beaten. I don't know if the other 2 did, but even if they did polygraphs aren't admissible in court. Terry Hobbs, Actor: Sleepaway Camp II: Unhappy Campers. But inside, he was just another prisonerBaldwin didnt know who he could trust. Iwould journal something and put it in the box, said Hobbs. I wouldn't do something like that. He began his career in the plumbing business at a very young age, workingfor his . Damien Echols, Jessie Misskelly and Jason Baldwin were originally convicted of the killings and released from prison in 2011 after making a deal with prosecutors. Branded the West Memphis Three, the mens case was featured in multiple documentaries, earning them support from an array of high-profile musicians, celebrities and activists. hangyermoon 2 yr. ago. At the time of the West Memphis Three trial, Griffis claimed to have given seminars to 38,000 police officers all over the globe. But none of that support has been able to fully exonerate the trio, something theyre still fighting for. They werent connected in any direct way, Bakken says. The footage included raw jailhouse interviews with the defendants, strategy sessions held by legal teams on both sides, and extended monologues from Mark Byers, the tall, goateed stepfather of one of the victims, who spoke as though he were reciting the Book of Revelation and who, at one point in Paradise Lost, fired a handgun at a pumpkin while reciting the names of the accused. Three teenage boys were arrested for the crimes Damien Echols, Jason Baldwin and Jessie Misskelley Jr. and prosecutors argued they killed the boys as part of a Satanic ritual. In 1994, the FBI said there was scant evidence that violent satanic crimes had ever occurred in America outside of a few isolated incidents, but that was long after TV hosts like Geraldo, Sally Jessy Raphael, and Oprah had spread moral hysteria about musicians weaving supposedly anti-Christian and occult messages into their songs, and long after wrongful convictions were handed down in the infamous McMartin Preschool sexual assault trials. Getting that kind of creative validation was exciting, but we were also extremely frustrated that it didnt move from the entertainment page of the newspaper to the editorial page, Berlinger says. However, under pressure, leading questions, and scare tactics, Misskelley wove a contradictory story that first placed him at the crime scene as an eyewitness to the murders and then as an active participant. No charges have been brought against Jacoby, and he has never been named a suspect by the West Memphis Police Department. Over the years there has been lots of speculation and finger pointing as to who was responsible. Two of the West Memphis Three's most ardent supporters were director Peter Jackson, best known for The Lord of the Rings films, and his partner Fran Walsh. 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. As the 20th century turned to the 21st, the movement seemed to be picking up steam. As part of the deal, they cannot file wrongful-conviction lawsuits, which both Berlinger and Baldwin say couldve cost the state tens of millions of dollars. 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. Berlinger says that after months of filming, the parents of one of the victims raised the issue of payment. Los Angeles Times Obituaries (1985 - 2023) - Los Angeles, CA 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. . He also lost the defamation case because of his violent past. 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. It was so emotionally taxing to watch and go through it again, he says. "I'd like to see this put to rest. The documentarians found me in one of the worst things a person could go through, Baldwin says. But the list of people who have looked at the facts of the case and come away believing Baldwin, Echols, and Misskelley are innocent is long. (WMC) - Not a single piece of evidence ever connected the West Memphis Three, Damien Echols, Jason Baldwin, and Jessie Misskelley, to the 1993 murders of Steve Branch, Christopher Byers, and Michael Moore. According to Dan Stidham, the attorney for Misskelley, that money became essential for the cash-strapped defense teams, who needed to pay for expert witnesses and other expenses. Baldwins attorneys even avoided putting him on the witness stand or mounting much of a defense, believing the burden was on the state. Hobbs said, I still believe in my heart that Jessie, Jason, and Damion Echols are responsible for what happened to our children., He added, You look at what happened and then you wonder, what if this did not happen, where would our boys be today? Creator Payne Lindsey, a filmmaker with no previous experience investigating crimes, had no connection to the victim before he discovered her while Googling cold cases in hopes of finding his own version of runaway successes like Serial and Making a Murderer. Theyve had several victories, including the case of Daniel Villegas, who was acquitted of capital murder in 2018 after a 25-year legal saga. This case was filed in U.S. Bankruptcy Courts, Tennessee Western Bankruptcy. Feigning a romantic interest in Echols, she asked Misskelley to arrange a meeting. How do you measure the legacy of Paradise Lost, which is one of the best reviewed documentaries of all time and considered among the most influential, but whose mission is only partly complete? June 29 Terry Hobbs, 34, 1718 Spyglass Lane, Mishawaka, booked on a warrant from Elkhart County. It was also revealed in 2012 that Hobbs nephew allegedly told his friends, My Uncle Terry murdered those three little boys," and that the killings were a Hobbs family secret, according to, I still believe in my heart that Jessie, Jason, and Damion Echols [sic] are responsible for what happened to our children, Hobbs told Memphis ABC affiliate. Funeral Home Services for Terry are being provi. He retired from the US Air Force, and he was the Deputy Supervisor for Polk County Supervisor of Elections. Initially, Misskelley repeatedly denied having knowledge of the crime, aside from rumors that Damien Echols was involved. Critics were effusive in their praise and stunned by the footageparticularly Roger Ebert, who wrote in a four-star review that at the end of the film I was unconvinced of their guilt. The film won Emmy and Peabody awards to go with more than a dozen other nominations. In her recantation, Hutcheson stated that when she asked Echols directly if he had killed "those three kids," he replied, "No. Terry Lee Hobbs Obituary (1964 - 2021) | Auburndale, FL - Echovita He said Boxful of Nightmares is his memoirs unedited. Local 24 News EXCLUSIVE: Terry Hobbs on his new memoir on the West And that makes him hopeful that exoneration is on the horizon. Misskelley's coerced confession, as contradictory as it seemed to the evidence, was consistent in implicating Echols and Jason Baldwin. Among them was a disoriented, muddy, and bleeding African-American man who stumbled into a West Memphis Bojangles restaurant men's room less than a mile from the crime scene. 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. So much progress had been made in the fight for new trials, most notably a November 2010 Arkansas Supreme Court ruling that ordered a hearing on new DNA analysis and other evidence not considered in 1994. Berlinger and Sinofsky, the latter of whom died in 2015 at age 58, were able to gain incredible and immediate access to seemingly everyone the case had touched: the families of the victims and the accused, the judge, the lead investigator, members of the community. We made a promise early on that we would never pretend to be law enforcement or detectives, Sauls says. Terry Hobbs - Biography - IMDb It has happened to a lot of people that just dont have the spotlight of a documentary, he says. Certain that, under what he felt were ridiculous circumstances, Echols' confidence and, on occasion, flippant attitude during the trial was often misinterpreted as evidence of his coldness toward the victims and their families. Branded the, What has never been definitively answered, however, is who committed the 1993 murders, and , Due to marital problems stemming from Stevies death, the couple divorced in 2004, reported, The test results showed that no genetic material on the crime scene evidence was a match to Echols, Baldwin or Misskelley, reported the, The West Memphis Police Department interviewed Hobbs, who was dismissive of the findings, claiming the hair could have been picked up during a visit to his home since the victim "played with our little boy regularly," according to the, "They said close to the crime scene because at one time I did walk near where they had found the kids with Terry Hobbs But I didn't wear hats back then, my hair could have blown around anywhere, Jacoby told Memphis NBC affiliate, A year after the DNA results were released, Hobbs sued Dixie Chicks singer Natalie Maines for defamation, claiming she implied he was a murderer on the bands website and at a 2007 rally, according to, In 2009, three witnesses filed affidavits claiming they saw Hobbs with the murdered boys the night they disappeared, contradicting Hobbs previous statements to police, according to. One of the prosecution's key pieces of evidence linking Jason Baldwin to the crime a survival knife with a serrated edge recovered from a lake behind his home has also come under scrutiny. On August 19, 2011, all three accepted the deal and were immediately released from prison. Quality. On the evening of May 5, 1993, three 8-year-old boys disappeared from the streets of West Memphis, Ark. There also were issues with other details he provided, including how the victims were bound and whether the boys were raped. This is not a smoking-gun-type case.. I dont know if they were questioning it, but they werent mistreating me and telling me that what I was telling them wasnt true., While Berlinger admits that he and Sinofsky may have tilted pro-prosecution in the early days of filming, that quickly changed after witnessing how the cases came together and spending time with the three teens during pretrial jailhouse interviewsparticularly Baldwin, who Berlinger describes as sweet and studious.. Example video title will go here for this video. Terry Hobbs | 2:21-BK-21177 | Court Records - UniCourt Misskelley initially told police that the killings happened during the day; knowing that they actually occurred some time after dusk, the officers corrected him, helping him retrofit his story to the cases few known facts. Boxful of Nightmares is the personal memoirs of Terry Hobbs, the stepfather of one of the children murdered. This is a brand new website dedicated to the internationally famous musician, Terry Gibbs. He knew that if he ever got out, hed want to do that in a more organized way. By getting to the story quickly, the directors were able to document the post-arrest period and two trials that followed in painstaking detail. Rather, they were fighting for something they believed in. They asked to see a cut, and they immediately said, Not only are we going to let you use all that music, but were not going to charge you anything for it., Metallica would be the first celebrities to throw their support behind the West Memphis Three, but they were far from the last. Who Killed The Forgotten West Memphis Three? Paradise Lost is a narration-free documentary filmed with a journalistic remove. 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. 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. Evidence in West Memphis Three case missing or destroyed - Action News 5 Additionally, the judge in the original trialswho under Arkansas law presided under the requests for retrials in the years following the convictionshad been elected to the state Senate that December, meaning someone new and possibly more sympathetic would oversee the case. Nobody was saying, This is an outrageous case that needs to be looked into.. But on that early morning in 1997, Jason Baldwin wasnt concerned with Berlinger and Sinofskys craft, or legal precedent, or crusading celebrities. However, within the first crucial hours after the bodies were discovered, mistakes were made at the crime scene that negatively impacted the investigation. They had a daughter together, Amanda Hobbs, who was 4 years old at the time of her brothers death. One of the keys to understanding the West Memphis Three murders is the phenomenon known as the Satanic Panic. 34465541-95D0-45B0-BEEB-B9E0361A315A The level of corruption in the American justice system is glaring and sickening.. The nonprofits work hasnt always been easyfundraising is hard, and because hes a convicted felon, hes unable to visit clients in prison or discuss pleasbut its been essential for him as he strives to live the words by 14th-century Persian poet Hafez that he keeps as an email signature: The small man builds cages for everyone he knows / While the sage, who has to duck his head when the moon is low / Keeps dropping keys all night long for the beautiful rowdy prisoners. Baldwin says hes learned that justice isnt a computer programthat you can input all the evidence and testimony and still get the wrong results. Also, law enforcement chose not to focus on the victims' families as the starting point of the investigation as is the norm. Their main worry was Damien, who was staring down the threat of lethal injection should the appeals fail. Sign up forOxygen Insiderfor all the best true crime content. A benefit album was released in 2000, and the phrase made it into a Dawsons Creek episode when Pacey shouted Free the West Memphis Three over an airport intercom. (WJHG) By Nikki Sheaks Published: Jul. Terry Hobbs, the stepfather of eight-year-old victim Stevie Branch, has been named in documents released in Marian, Arkansas by the attorneys for Pam Hobbs, Stevie's mother. All three had been submerged face down in the mud, stripped naked, and bound with their shoelaces. William Holford Griffiths. Even though they said they didnt murder the three boys, they are technically convicted killers. 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. Support came from unlikely corners: a classroom of kids who held a cookie sale that raised $30, local bands in Chicago who held a benefit show and sent $150. Its gone from a controversial legal theory to an accepted phenomenon. Quickly, however, he realized Berlinger and Sinofsky were taking a different approach. But it wasnt in the ways its directors had hoped. 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. 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 . February 27, 2023 (76 years old) View obituary. Dan Stidham, the original attorney for Misskelley, who would also work on Baldwins and Echols appeals, says he has the answer. Terry Hobbs - IMDb (Its worth noting that despite the issues raised by Lindseys work, the first season of Up and Vanished renewed interest in the case, which ultimately led to arrests, albeit of people that Lindsey hadnt previously covered on the podcast.). I said, Im going to send some kids down there., Those kids turned out to be Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky, the young documentarians who had recently completed the acclaimed Brothers Keeper, a film chronicling a death and the resulting trial in a small upstate New York village. Today, Berlinger calls Revelations the weakest of the three films in the trilogyadvocacy in search of a story as opposed to the in-the-moment, on-the-ground approach of the first Paradise Lost and the in-depth exploration of new evidence in 2011s Purgatory. That type of support made observers question the verdicts perhaps more so than any rock star who shouted Echolss name into a mic because of an HBO documentary. The second postulated that they had been slain by one or more strangers.
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