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I don't know how legal this is but you can find Paradise Lost 1 & 2 on YouTube in their entirety. Edited, chopped into multiple sections, bad quality. Not the best way to watch these amazing films but in a pinch...
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Keep in mind when reading this article that the hair was found in Michael Moore's bindings not Hobbs' stepson, Stevie Branch. Makes that kind of transferance even more unlikely.
Earthtimes.org
WEST MEMPHIS, Tenn., July 20 Police said the stepfather of one of three Tennessee boys killed in 1993 isn't a suspect even though DNA has linked him to a hair found with the bodies.
Investigators said they believe that the hair was transferred to Stevie Branch, 8, through living with his stepfather, Terry Hobbs. The bodies of the three boys were found naked, bound and submerged in a ditch in a wooded area in West Memphis, Tenn.
"I have nothing to hide," Hobbs told The Memphis Commercial Appeal. "I still didn't have nothing to do with them boys dying."
West Memphis Assistant Police Chief Mike Allen said that Hobbs has never been a suspect.
Evidence from the crime scene has been extensively tested in the last two years. Lawyers for the three men convicted of the crime, who were teenagers in 1993, argue that they should be released because their DNA hasn't been found.
One of the three was sentenced to death and the others to life in prison.
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The Evening Times
By Laura Smith
Terry Hobbs, the stepfather of one of three West Memphis boys brutally slain in 1993, said he's gotten by during the 14 years since the murders by going to church and spending a lot his time on his knees in prayer.
“That, and being raised in a preacher's home,” he said. “My parents taught me the Bible; there's a whole lot of things in there, if you'll look at them, they'll help get you by and get you through.”
At the time of the murders, Hobbs was married to Pam Hobbs, the mother
of 8-year-old Stevie Branch who was killed with his buddies Christopher Byers and Michael Moore.
The murders changed the course of the lives of the boys' families.
He and Pam, who's from the Blytheville area, were together for 17 years before they divorced in 2003.
“I had a restaurant up there; that's where we met,” he said. “And we had a dream that we would move to the big city, work, save some money and go home and retire. It just didn't happen like that for us.”
John Mark Byers was married to Christopher Byers' mom, Melissa Byers, at the time of the killings. A few years later, the couple moved to Cherokee Village, where Melissa Byers died in 1996. John Mark Byers has reportedly moved to Millington, Tenn. He declined comment for this
article, and accurate details as to Todd and Dana Moore's whereabouts were nil.
But the news of the results of DNA testing on crime scene evidence has brought local and national attention back to the victims' families, to the three men in prison for the murders - Damien Echols, Jessie Miskelley Jr. and Jason Baldwin - and West Memphis itself.
The results found that no genetic material recovered at the crime scene belonged to Echols, Miskelley or Baldwin, and, with the exception of one hair, all of DNA recovered at the scene that was tested belonged to the victims.
The hair was reportedly Hobbs', and police attributed his hair to secondary transfer.
Hobbs said he was recently questioned by police, who have put any speculation of Hobbs' involvement to an end, with Assistant Police Chief Mike Allen noting that Hobbs wasn't a suspect 14 years ago, and he isn't now. In the state's response to a report on the results, Prosecutor Brent Davis said the state stands behind the convictions.
“I went and talked to the police in West Memphis for a follow-up,” Hobbs said. “I've always been willing to cooperate, so I went over and done that.”
He recalled the day Stevie went missing.
“I worked that day like I've worked everyday of my life,” he said. “I got home about 3 or 3:30, and Stevie had gone off riding his bicycle, playing with Michael Moore.”
Stevie was supposed to be home at 4:30, and when he wasn't home Hobbs became concerned. Hobbs picked Pam up at work at Catfish Island at 9 p.m.
“Her dad and mom came down; she went with them to look,” he said. “I went with a friend. At different times we'd go to the police department. We spent all night driving around.”
The bodies of the boys were found a day later, and police arrested Echols, Miskelley and Baldwin a month after the murders. They were convicted of the murders in 1994.
Hobbs said he believes in their guilt.
“I'm more than convinced because [the police are] more than convinced,” Hobbs said. “Mike Allen's a good man, and I believe what I know, and I only know what they tell me.
“I think it's just a sad, desperate attempt for the defense to be doing what they're doing.”
But the recent attention does take its toll, Hobbs said.
“I try to go on the best I can, then something like this comes up, you know, and Hawaii looks pretty good sometimes, just to get away.
“This isn't how things could have been or should have been for all of us. We only came here to live a dream, and it's been a totally different life, living this."
Posted at 06:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
MEMPHIS, Tenn. (WHBQ FOX13 myfoxmemphis.com)- After 14 years, new evidence is emerging in the West Memphis Three case. It's a case that's still getting national attention. The new evidence has a mother of one of the three little boy's murdered wondering if the men serving life in prison are innocent.
Watch video here.
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DNA Could Link Him to 1993 Murders
MEMPHIS, Tenn. (WHBQ FOX13 myfoxmemphis.com)- The stepfather of Steven Branch, one of three young boys brutally murdered in West Memphis in 1993 is talking about new evidence in the case. DNA evidence could possibly link Terry Hobbs to the crime. Terry Hobbs says this new development proves nothing because he didn't do anything wrong.
Watch video here.
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WEST MEMPHIS, Ark. (WHBQ FOX13 myfoxmemphis.com) -- Three teens - now grown men - have all been tried and convicted for the 1993 murders of three little boys. Now 14 years later, DNA evidence could tie one of the victim's family members to the crime scene. FOX13's Cori Lake reports from West Memphis on the reopened investigation.
Watch video here.
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Video clip here.
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![]() | KLRT Fox 16 Little Rock - (KLRT) Jul. 21, 2007. 10:35 AM EST Police have not said if the new evidence is enough to reopen the case |
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DNA ties hair to '93 Ark. scene but police say he's not suspect
Confronted with new DNA evidence, police have interviewed the stepfather of one of three 8-year-old West Memphis boys found murdered in a watery ditch 14 years ago. Terry Hobbs said Thursday that West Memphis Police detectives interviewed him three weeks ago, asking for his whereabouts on the night of the 1993 murders.
Full story here.
Posted at 05:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
ARKANSAS TIMES
by Mara Leveritt
Reviving an investigation that ended 14 years ago, West Memphis police recently questioned the mother and stepfather of Stevie Branch, one of three 8-year-old boys murdered in 1993. Three teenagers were convicted of the killings.
In a telephone interview on Monday, Stevie’s stepfather, Terry Hobbs, confirmed that West Memphis police had videotaped an interview with him within the last three weeks. Pam Hobbs, Stevie’s mother, also said she had been interviewed by police. The Hobbses are now divorced.
Terry Hobbs, who lives in Bartlett, Tenn., said police requested the interview with him as a result of recent DNA tests on items found with the bodies. Prior to the police interview, he said, he had been informed of the test results by Ron Lax, a Memphis private investigator.
Terry Hobbs said, “Ron claims that a piece of my hair is in the knots that tied up [victim] Michael Moore.”
“Does that bother me?” Hobbs continued. “No, ma’am, it does not. Why? Because I don’t believe a thing he has to say because he’s working for the defense team. And because if my DNA was at the crime scene, I think [Prosecuting Attorney] Brent Davis would be the one to call me about that, and not Ron Lax.”
Attorneys for the convicted men have said no DNA was found that matches their clients.
Terry Hobbs said police asked him “a bunch of questions” about his activities on May 5, 1993 — the day Stevie, Michael and Christopher Byers, the third victim, disappeared — and the following day, when the boys’ bodies were discovered submerged in a drainage ditch. He declined to answer further questions about what he was asked by police.
Pam Hobbs, who lives in Blytheville, said a lieutenant for the West Memphis Police Department also questioned her about her family’s activities around the time of the slayings. In the last couple of months, she has stated publicly that she now believes that the men convicted of the murders — Damien Echols, Jason Baldwin and Jessie Misskelley, Jr . — are not guilty.
“We have stages of grieving that we go through,” she said. “I guess I came to forgiveness. I’ve always wanted to know the truth, and when I was called by the defense — knowing the DNA was being retested — I guess that was the big eye-opener.”
Pam Hobbs said she “chose to believe all those years” that Echols, Baldwin and Misskelley were guilty, despite her realization during the trials that the prosecutors “didn’t have anything” and persistent doubts afterwards that the defendants “were smart enough or hateful enough to have done it by themselves and clean it up.”
The state medical examiner ruled that Stevie and Michael died by drowning and that Christopher, who’d suffered stab wounds to his groin, died from loss of blood.
Pam Hobbs said that in 2002, at a point when she and Terry Hobbs were separating, she sent a package containing “14 or 15 knives” owned by her husband to one of the defense lawyers.
Pam Hobbs said that she had done so after discovering among the knives “a little pocket knife” that her father had given to Stevie.
She said Stevie “carried it around with him all the time, because it was like part of his granddaddy. He would have had it May the fifth. He carried it with him from the day my daddy gave it to him until the day he was murdered.”
Asked why, five years ago, she had given the knives to a lawyer for the defense, she said it was because she “didn’t trust the prosecution ... because of the evidence that was not presented at the trials.”
Terry Hobbs dismissed the knives as having had “nothing to do with anything.”
“I’d bought some, and found some and Pam bought me some. I just threw them in a drawer, and that’s where they’d been for years.” He added, “Them knives were stolen out of my home and I’m fixing to try to get them back.”
Asked whether one of the knives was a pocket knife given to Stevie by his grandfather, Terry Hobbs responded: “I don’t know. It could have been. And it could have been it was in the drawer because we didn’t want him to have it. I didn’t want a kid of mine to go around with a pocket knife — not a kid who was 8 years old. Would you?”
Terry Hobbs said, “I raised Stevie from the time he was a year and a half, until he was 8. I tried to be a good daddy.”
As for his ex-wife, he said, “Pam’s got some problems. This thing has taken a toll on her. It’s really hurt her.
“I don’t think she really supports the idea they [the convicted men] are innocent. I think she’s doing it out of anger. As a matter of fact, I know it’s out of anger. It’s being angry at the world and not knowing how to deal with her anger.
“It’s kind of sad. And I’m really sorry that people think she supports that theory.”
Pam Hobbs acknowledges that she has “held anger toward Terry,” in part because of his actions on the night Stevie disappeared.
Terry usually got off work by 4 p.m., she said, in time to watch Stevie and their daughter Amanda, while Pam went to her job at a restaurant. On the day of the murders, Stevie, who had gone riding bikes with Michael, was supposed to be home at 4:30. He had not returned by 4:45, when Pam left for her job.
She said she assumed that he was just late, and that it was not until 9 p.m., when Terry drove to the restaurant with Amanda to pick her up, that she realized Stevie was not in the car.
“Terry told me he really thought he was going to find him and he didn’t want to burden me at work,” she said. “ But I held anger toward Terry over that — that he didn’t tell me Stevie was missing.”
Another element of her anger, Pam Hobbs said, relates to her brother, whom Terry Hobbs shot in the abdomen during an altercation 10 years ago. That brother died last year.
Terry Hobbs dismisses the episode. “The truth is,” he said, “when a man is trying to kill you, you have a right under the United States Constitution to defend and protect yourself.”
Nevertheless, he acknowledged that he was charged with aggravated assault, fined and placed on probation.
When asked if she now considers her ex-husband a suspect in the murders, Pam Hobbs answered, “Yeah. And I don’t know if it’s because of the anger I still hold toward him for not telling me when Stevie was missing, and from some of his other actions or not. But I haven’t been able to shake that feeling.”
For his part, Terry Hobbs said he’s not worried and that he has nothing to hide. With regard to the retested DNA, he said, “I’ve been told that nothing that’s going on right now is going to change a thing.”
Asked who’d given him that assurance, he replied, “Brent Davis,” the prosecuting attorney.
Davis would not comment on what Terry Hobbs said about either the reported DNA or the chance that new findings would change the case. When asked who ordered the renewed questioning by West Memphis police, he explained, “I can’t comment on anything, one way or another, as it’s still in appeals and litigation.”
Posted at 04:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Results disclose none of the genetic material at the crime scene belonged to Damien Echols.
--------------------------------------
THIS IS A CAPITAL CASE
IN THE ARKANSAS SUPREME COURT
DAMIEN WAYNE ECHOLS Defendant,
STATE OF ARKANSAS, Plaintiff.
Case No. CR 94 -928
Case No. CR 99 -1060
Craighead Co. Circuit Court Nos 93 -450, 450A
DEFENDANT ECHOLS
SECOND STATUS REPORT RE: DNA TESTING
DENNIS P. RIORDAN
(CA SBN 69320)
DONALD M. HORGAN
(CA SBN 121547)
523 Octavia Street
San Francisco, CA 94102
Telephone: (415) 431 -3472
DEBORAH R. SALLINGS
(AR SBN 80127)
Cauley Bowman Carney & Williams
11001 Executive Center Drive, Ste. 200
Little Rock, AR 72211
Telephone: (501) 312 -8500
(Local Counsel)
Attorneys for Defendant DAMIEN WAYNE ECHOLS
In response to this Courtís letter of June 27, 2007, counsel for
Petitioner/Defendant Damien Echols provides the following report on the
status of DNA testing being conducted in support of his motion for
relief under 16 -112 -201, which motion is now pending in the Craighead
County Circuit Court.
(1) The extensive DNA testing which was the subject of an initial
agreement by the parties and which was embodied in the Circuit
Courtís
First Amended DNA Order for DNA Testing filed on February 23, 2005 has
essentially been completed. Such testing has been conducted at Bode
Laboratories in Virginia.
(2) The DNA testing results returned to date disclose that none of the
genetic material recovered at the scene of the crimes was attributable
to Mr. Echols
Echols co -defendant, Jason Baldwin, or defendant Jessie Misskelley
Arkansas v. Misskelley
[CR 94 -848]).
(3) Although most of the genetic material recovered from the scene was
attributable to the victims of the offenses, some of it cannot be
attributed to either the victims or the defendants.
Counsel for Petitioners/Defendants Echols, Baldwin, and Misskelley
Craighead County Prosecuting Attorney Brent Davis have entered into
discussions concerning how best to determine the evidentiary
significance of the laboratoryís results returned in the initial
round
of testing. These discussions have resulted in a recent agreement to
subject certain critical evidentiary items to more extensive testing in
light of their potential significance to establishing the identity of
the perpetrator(s) of the offenses. In addition, the parties are
presently discussing whether, in light of the current test results, a
limited number of other items impounded during the investigation should
be subjected to testing by Bode. We will inform the Court within sixty
days of the outcome of those discussions.
Counsel for Echols is, of course, prepared to provide the Court with
any further information it should request concerning this matter.
DATED:
July 17, 2007
Respectfully submitted,
DENNIS P. RIORDAN
DONALD M. HORGAN
DEBORAH R. SALLINGS
By DENNIS P. RIORDAN
Attorneys for Defendant DAMIEN WAYNE ECHOLS
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With all of the recent developments in the West Memphis Three case we thought we'd start a blog to keep people up to date with the case and allow them to share opinions on articles, photos and commentary posted here. We're just getting started but will be udpating often.
Burk Sauls
Lisa Fancher
Grove Pashley
KathyBakken
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