That November, he says, HBO agreed to give an honorariumroughly $5,000to the families on both sides. Cinemorgue Wiki. Hobbs denied the accusation, saying that his family does have secrets, but none of them have to do with murder. 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. A source said the evidence was transferred to shipping containers where there was a fire, and some of the evidence was destroyed. The governor of the state of Arkansas who will one day pardon the West Memphis Three is probably in junior high right now, he says. 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. (2 weeks at #1, on for 19 weeks!) Years of solitary confinement and the abuse he said he suffered at the hands of prison guards had taken its toll. He began his career in the plumbing business at a very young age, workingfor his . Jesse was gonna take it anyway. Hes subdued when discussing the facts of the case, but he comes alive while recounting his work with the Jaycees while in prison, or buying Metallicas Black Album when it came out in 1991. A statement he made to the producers of Paradise Lost: The Child Murders at Robin Hood Hills did little to help his public image. In 1994, Dr. Dale W. Griffis was a retired police officer who had embarked on a second career as a self-styled consultant on occult and cult-related crime. He was just taking in the enormity of the defining event of his life to that point, which had been committed to film and was now playing for him inside the cavernous, auditorium-style visitation room. In West Memphis, Hobbs worked as an ice cream delivery man and Hicks worked at a restaurant. 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. 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. The next day, their bodies were found in a nearby canal. The obituary was featured in Idaho Press Tribune on March 13, 2021. According to Griffis, black hair, black T-shirts, and black jeans were signs that a kid was in league with the devil. All three had been submerged face down in the mud, stripped naked, and bound with their shoelaces. Terry Hobbs was born in 1958 and grew up in Northern Arkansas. This is a story of justice delayed and justice denied. The consequences of that online campaign were ruinous: The person they targeted, a Mexican metal musician who worked under the name Morbid, was harassed into hiding. During Misskelley's trial, Hutcheson testified that she had attended an "an occult Satanic meeting" she referred to as an "esbat." Although the Alford Plea set the West Memphis Three free, they are, at least in the eyes of the law, guilty, and therefore, the state of Arkansas is under no obligation to continue investigating the crimes at this time. . Dan Stidham, the original attorney for Misskelley, who would also work on Baldwins and Echols appeals, says he has the answer. Paradise Lost also led to a famous citizen-activist campaign championing the release of the three teens that caught on at the dawn of the Internet Age and would eventually pull in Eddie Vedder, Henry Rollins, and a whos who of the rich and famous. The test results showed that no genetic material on the crime scene evidence was a match to Echols, Baldwin or Misskelley, reported the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. People in West Memphis are going to tell their kids stories. Get all your true crime news from Oxygen. Even without a smoking gun, the circumstantial evidence was enough for a conviction in a place like Crittenden County, Arkansas. Share Memories & Support the Family. Its headlined by not only the films directors, but also Sheila Nevins, its executive producer and winner of 32 individual Emmy awards, more than any other person in history. there are no assignments to cushion your grade, so either pass or fail. 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. Berlinger also concedes Revelations had some ethical problems, chiefly because it raised the possibility that Mark Byers committed the killings. In fact, for the better part of 1993, it was nearly impossible to find anyone who believed they were innocent. The third put forth the unusual theory that the killings were committed as a cult ritual. March 8, 2021, Terry Hobbs passed away on March 8, 2021 in Boise, Idaho. Oxygen Insider is your all-access pass to never-before-seen content, free digital evidence kits, and much more. 1.0. . Searching obituaries is a great place to start your family tree research. With a large population of fundamentalist Christians, the American South was particularly subject to occult paranoia. 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. He had been expecting a visitation, but was instead led to the prison chapel office, where inmates were typically brought only if someone close to them had died. While Berlinger says that the work of people like Bakken and Sauls was more impressive than that of any celebrity, its undeniable that the famous and influential brought a megaphone and funding mechanism to this case that most never get. Minutes later, Sgt. He was an actor, known for Sleepaway Camp II: Unhappy Campers (1988), Fast Food (1989) and In the Heat of the Night (1988). A later confession during the trial phase would prove equally problematic. Hobbs, with the help of an author, put all that journaling intoa book about the 1993 murders of his stepson Stevie Branch, and Branchs friends Michael Moore and Chris Byers. He responded proudly, 11.. When he was released in 2011, he met John Hardin, who worked with the West Memphis Three support group Arkansas Take Action, and the two bonded over a desire to do for others what had just been done for Baldwin. Misskelley, who reportedly had an IQ of 72, changed his story several times, and only a small part of his statements was recorded. Jason Baldwin had no idea what was happening when a fellow inmate at the supermax prison in Varner, Arkansas, woke him up early one morning in 1997. Under order of the Arkansas Supreme Court, there were to be new evidentiary hearings in the case. Terry Hobbs, Actor: Sleepaway Camp II: Unhappy Campers. By the end of Paradise Lost, you cant believe they were found guilty, Bakken says. 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. Berlinger and Sinofsky began to take notice. 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. A graveside service will be conducted on Wednesday, March 17 at Cloverdale Memorial Park beginning at 11am. Armchair detectives of today, I think a lot of them dabble in conspiracy theory, Berlinger says. Now, I see they can. He was 56. 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? 25, 2021. A spiritual successor to Errol Morriss The Thin Blue Line, and a forerunner of more recent documentaries like Making a Murderer, the film stands today as the most affecting examination of one of the most studied legal cases in U.S. historyone that put heavy metal lyrics and black T-shirts on trial and helped lay the groundwork for the current thinking around false confessions. The concept of citizen investigations intrigues Berlinger just as much as it did in the 1990s, though today hes often more concerned with the moral implications. The trio assumed that the convictions had already been overturned by the time Bakken received the screenerthis was a modern-day witch hunt, they thought, and surely the state of Arkansas had already corrected the course. They saw this movie and they felt like, I have to do something.. Its my perspective of what happened in 1993, 26 years ago in West Memphis, Arkansas, said Hobbs. Little kids will be looking under their bed 'Damien might be under there! Misskelley returned to life in West Memphis. When they searched online, they found little to no information about the case. Terry Hobbs (1969 - 2019) Sleepaway Camp 2: Unhappy Campers (Nightmare Vacation II) (1988) [Rob Darrinco]: Stabbed and hanged (after gaging), off-screen by Pamela Springsteen in Walter Gotell's office; his body is shown afterwards when Carol Martin Vines discovers him. Dec 13th, 2021. 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. I had a big box. Paso Robles, California. It was a call about Damien Echolshe wasnt dead, but his wife, Lorri Davis, feared he might be soon. As the West Memphis Three languished behind bars for 18 years, thousands of supporters called out for their freedom while others vehemently declared their guilt. 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 . One of the keys to understanding the West Memphis Three murders is the phenomenon known as the Satanic Panic. 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. This article was updated after publication to add more context about the honorariums paid to the families of the victims and the West Memphis Three and also to correct the time frame in which Berlinger and Sinofsky informed HBO about the changing scope of the documentary. He died on April 4, 2019 in Panama City Beach, Florida, USA. Hobbs said he wrote the book so people, especially other victims of crime, could understand the tragedy he has gone through and how it impacted his life. Coverage of the latest true crime stories and famous cases explained, as well as the best TV shows, movies and podcasts in the genre. Case Details Parties . On August 19, 2011, all three accepted the deal and were immediately released from prison. 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. Initially, Misskelley repeatedly denied having knowledge of the crime, aside from rumors that Damien Echols was involved. But its closing moments point to how the filmmakers felt: that a horrific tragedy had just been compounded by a monumental miscarriage of justice. By the time she got done watching it, her life was forever changed. Terry Hobbs was born on November 25, 1969 in Columbus, Georgia, USA. Despite the best efforts of the police, dozens of volunteers, a search-and-rescue team, and a helicopter dispatched from nearby Memphis, Tenn., searchers came up empty handed. Family and friends are welcome to leave their condolences on this memorial page and share them with the family. Michelle McNamara helped crack the Golden State Killer case by poring over thousands of pages of case files while working on her book Ill Be Gone in the Dark, which was published two years after her 2016 death, while Chris Lambert and his podcast Your Own Backyard were highlighted by authorities after two arrests in April in connection with the 1996 disappearance of Cal Poly student Kristin Smart. 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. 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. every single person in my class was either . So when I saw this tiny little article in the Times, I wasnt about to free anybody that was guilty. People would drive by and yell at us, Theyre going to burn in hell, Sauls says. Terry Hobbs passed away in Nampa, Idaho. TERRY HOBBS OBITUARY Terry Roland Hobbs, 62, of Sweetwater, passed away on Saturday, September 11, 2021. Unaware of what was to come, Allen explained that he just wanted to ask him some questions. We were finally winning, he says. Terry Roland Hobbs September 11, 1959 ~ September 11, 2021 (age 62) Terry Roland Hobbs, 62, of Sweetwater, passed away on Saturday, September 11, 2021. The causes most high-profile moment came in 2000, when Trey Parker said the slogan at the MTV Movie Awards while collecting an award for Best Musical Sequence. They were released after prosecutors agreed to an Alford plea, in which the men maintained their innocence but pleaded guilty. Throughout the late 1990s and early 2000s, defense attorneys working for the West Memphis Three filed multiple appeals on their behalf scrutinizing the lack of physical evidence against them. 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. But I had to. The next to be found was Stevie Branch, quickly followed by Christopher Byers. 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. Wading into the murky water, Allen unknowingly dislodged the pale, grotesquely arched form of Micheal Moore. Id like to see this put to rest. 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. None of the three believed that, but Echolss healthand the possibility that even if he survived, he would still be on death row should the fight for retrials failmade it an imperative. Baldwins attorneys even avoided putting him on the witness stand or mounting much of a defense, believing the burden was on the state. I kind of enjoy it because now even after I die, people are going to remember me forever. Much of Cecil Hotel focuses on the amateur investigators who turned coincidences into conspiracy theories, ultimately accusing an innocent person of her death. 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. He said, J.B., youre going home, man, youre going home.. Family and friends can send flowers and/or light a candle as a loving gesture for their loved one. But none of that support has been able to fully exonerate the trio, something theyre still fighting for. Mojo was right. Leave a sympathy message to the family in the guestbook on this memorial page of Terry Hobbs to show support. hangyermoon 2 yr. ago. 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. Here's when clocks will 'spring forward' in 2023. Hold for Elkhart County. Echols said in 2012, he will never give up his mission to exonerate himself. In 1996, a screener for Paradise Lost passed her desk. Terry Hobbs is absolutely terrible. Inconsistencies in Terry Hobbs' alibi, as well as revelations about subsequent violent acts, have also led many to believe that he may be the actual killer. As recounted in Mara Leveritt's book, Devil's Knot, a thorough search of Robin Hood Hills directed by Chief Inspector Gary W. Gitchell of the West Memphis Police Department commenced early on the morning of May 6, 1993. '", In 1999, a more mature Echols explained the comment. 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. On the surface, 18-year-old Damien Echols, an intelligent, but psychologically troubled teen with interests in Wicca and extreme music, fit the profile. Im seeing the things I experienced, but not through my own point of view. It was so emotionally taxing to watch and go through it again, he says. They had a daughter together, Amanda Hobbs, who was 4 years old at the time of her brothers death. Local 24 News EXCLUSIVE: Terry Hobbs on his new memoir on the West Memphis 3. I don't entirely think Hobbs did it, but I . Mara Leveritt, a journalist who followed the case throughout the 1990s and wrote the 2002 book Devils Knot: The True Story of the West Memphis Three, calls the strain of Christianity that runs through the region very literal and says that even her children faced harassment as teenagers for playing Dungeons & Dragons and listening to Ozzy Osbourne. 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? Case Number : 2:21-BK-21177. Echols' disdain for authority, penchant for black clothes, and propensity to make shocking statements didn't help his plight. The evolution of how the teens were perceivedon behalf of both the filmmakers and even part of the defense teamis captured on camera early as Stidham and his colleagues began to consider whether Misskelleys confession had been coerced. Last year, I noticed that Terry went missing. All of those factors combined to create a tipping point, says Leveritt. Misskelley told Hutcheson that he really didn't know much about Echols other than that he was "a weird person." This family in-fighting led to him shooting his brother-in-law. Stidham, who was just 30 years old and not long out of law school when the court appointed him to be Misskelleys attorney, went in thinking he would negotiate a deal for his client, who had told police that his acquaintances Baldwin and Echols committed the crimes and that he was present and played a role as an accessory. It was clear that Paradise Lost was resonating. What has never been definitively answered, however, is who committed the 1993 murders, and The Forgotten West Memphis Three, premiering Saturday, March 28 at 8/7c on Oxygen, reexamines the case and key theories. That there were three victims was a link to the biblical number of the beast. However, within the first crucial hours after the bodies were discovered, mistakes were made at the crime scene that negatively impacted the investigation.