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- [00:00]
Narrator
Craving your next action packed adventure, Audible delivers thrills of every kind on your command. Like project Hail Mary by Andy Weir where a lone astronaut must save humanity from extinction. Narrated with stunning intensity by Ray Porter. From electrifying suspense and daring quests to spine tingling horror and romance and far off realms, unleash your adventure aside with gripping titles that'll keep you guessing. Discover exclusive Audible originals, hotly anticipated new releases and must listen bestsellers that hook you from the first minute. Because Audible knows there's no greater thrill than the one that speaks to you. Discover what lies beyond the edge of your seat. Start your free 30 day trial at audible.com wondery us that's audible.com wondery us for weeks.
- [00:57]
Brett
I'm Brett. And I'm Alice and we are the prosecutors. Today on the Prosecutors, we start the timeline of the investigation. Hello everybody and welcome to this episode of the Prosecutors. I'm Brett and I'm joined as always by my MAD co host Alice.
- [01:59]
Alice
Mad respect that Brett literally left the hospital today with a brand new baby and he is here recording because that's how much we love you guys.
- [02:08]
Brett
It's true. It's true. But that's not what I was talking about because I wasn't late because of the baby. Oh, no. I was late because the basketball game Roll Tide March Madness keeps going. I did not know that rolling into.
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Alice
The elite, when you said, hey, can I have 15 more minutes? I was like, oh, sweet baby needs 15 more minutes. You were watching basketball.
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Brett
That's true. It's true. You know, Alabama broke the record for most three pointers in the game tonight, which probably means we won't make a single one in the next game. Just get blown out. Just saying. Just saying.
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Alice
That is how averages work though, right?
- [02:37]
Brett
Is it though? And that's like the gambler's fallacy, right? I mean, we could just make three pointers forever.
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Alice
That is the gambler's fallacy forever. Anyways, they will not make any later because then it'll average out now.
- [02:47]
Brett
There you go, Jessica. Basketball. Alabama is a basketball school. I don't know what you're talking about. I never heard of football.
- [02:52]
Alice
So, you know, allegiances really switch quickly.
- [02:57]
Brett
Hey, the allegiance is still there. I just have to switch sports. Baseball team is pretty good too. But anyways, I digress and I know how much you guys hate digressions, so. So with that in mind, let's reset. We're about to get into the investigation and I think it's worth taking a step back and looking at the sort of Key points in the timeline. Just to sort of orient you as we move forward, as you're thinking through sort of what the police are discovering, what the evidence is that comes in. So with that in mind, let's reset. So here are the critical times on the day of the murders. Now, look, these times are assuming that everyone is telling the truth and remembering accurately telling the truth is important because I'm going to give you the statements of the eventual West Memphis three, the three defendants as well, just so you see how this all shakes out, if everybody's basically telling the truth. So the last confirmed sighting of the boys occurs at between 6 and 6:30 by Cynthia Rico and between 6:30 and 6:45 by Jeff Martens and Brian Woody. I think those are best last times. The very last time anyone claims to see them is at around 7, when Christopher Wall sees the boys. Now, the problem with Wall's statement is he's the only one putting them that late, sort of going into the woods. These are all heading in the direction of the woods at this point. And he says he saw the kids as he was coming home from class. His girlfriend would later say that she talked to him at the school payphone around 7:30 and that that was something they did all the time, basically since the old days, guys, before we had cell phones, right? So she would wait at the payphone, or he would wait at the payphone at around 7:30 and she would call the pay phone number and he would pick it up and talk to her. That's the way they would do it. This actually comes up not because the police are checking the timeline, which I want to talk about in a second, but because someone actually accused Wal of being involved and said, you know, he kind of was into younger boys and he would have been able to befriend them and this sort of thing. And so they talked to her and she's like, no, he was on the phone with me at 7:30. So this is a little shaky. Now. It could be a different night that she talked to him through the fog of time. It is impossible to know. So before I get to the other thing, I want to criticize the police for a second because the police are up for a lot of criticism in this case. Some of it is unfair. But I will tell you what is absolutely fair and what is incredibly frustrating if you are trying to follow this case. What is incredibly frustrating is that the police never nailed any of this down. The last sighting of the boys. You know, people talk about where they were at 3:30 and all sorts of stuff that's great, that might be important, but what's really important is the time they entered the forest. And the police never should have started.
- [05:46]
Alice
Then they truly, if they had nothing else, they should have pinned that down within a spectrum. But the reason it's so hard to find the spectrum is because the police don't have it pinned down whatsoever. In fact, they're like, I don't know, maybe they were north, maybe they were south. And like, no, no, no, this is the most important thing to pin down because this is the beginning of the end.
- [06:03]
Brett
Yes, it is the absolute most important thing to pin down. And they don't do it. So they do the right thing initially. They canvas the area and they get these reports and some of them will be used at trial in sort of vague ways. But they never go back and talk to these people and follow up and bring these people into the station, really get them to talk about what they saw, how they know what they saw, nail this down. They don't do it. So we're left guessing about when the boys actually entered the woods. And that's really important because they were not murdered before they entered the woods. That is just a fact. No matter what you think about this case, even if you think they were taken away from the woods, murdered and brought back, they met their killer in the woods. Like everybody agrees about that. So it's really important to know when they went in. But for the purposes of our discussion, there's nothing we can do about this except just assume that the boys entered the woods no earlier than 6:30 and probably closer to 7. And it's safe to say they were murdered sometime between 7 and 9. And I think that's generous, but I'm going to keep it generous. A two hour window when they could have been murdered probably a little later than seven, probably a little earlier than nine, but we'll say seven to nine just for our purposes here.
- [07:14]
Alice
So in other words, a very tight timeline.
- [07:17]
Brett
Very tight timeline.
- [07:18]
Alice
Especially when we're talking about a triple murder.
- [07:21]
Brett
Exactly.
- [07:21]
Alice
So that's a tight timeline for one murder. To murder three people and then to obviously do the covering up of their bodies is an incredibly tight timeline because we're not talking two hours, we're talking something short of two hours.
- [07:32]
Brett
And it's hard to say exactly how long it would have taken to, to commit these murders and clean up. Obviously that's hard to say. And people, I mean, I've never committed a murder, but I have to imagine if you're murdering someone, your Adrenaline is pumping. You're probably moving faster than even you think. You're not taking your time. So it probably was faster than we think. But given, as Alice said, it's three people. They're not shot, they're murdered in a very visceral way. They're tied up, they're hidden in the water, their clothes are hidden in the water. This would have taken a little while. So remember that as we're going through this. At around 6:30 we have our first alibi. This is, as I've said, the infamous slapping of Cody Dollar by Connie Mulder, legend in the trailer park. Had it not been for the murders, they'd probably still be talking about it today. Supposedly at 6:30, Jesse is at or around Stephanie Dollar's house witnessing the aftermath of this. And then according to Jesse, at around 7, he leaves to go to Daisy to wrestle. If that's true, Jesse has an alibi, he did not commit these crimes. So 90210 comes on at 7. And according to Damien's family, they are visiting another family at around that time. Two members of the family will confirm this, that at least when 90210 was beginning, Damien was there with his family at 7:00. This is not necessarily the same kind of ironclad alibi as Jesse would have if he went to dais at 7, which is 45 minutes away and there's no way he was involved. But it's still a pretty good one. We're going to talk about it in depth later on at around the same time, 7:00, Dana Moore is looking for Michael. In the 7:00 hour, she will talk to Terry Hobbs. This is interesting if you're a Terry Hobbs fan of committing the murder and Terry Hobbs is the one we know the least about exactly where he was when. So we kind of have to piece it together just a little bit. But if he is seen by people in the 7 o'clock hour, it's hard to believe he's also managed to be in the woods, murder the kids and clean up. Because whoever did this would have at least been wet, would probably have been muddy and might have been bloody. So we don't know exactly what happened there. But in that 7:00 hour she's talking to Terry Hopps. At 7:30, John Mark Byers is talking to a police officer. At 8 he is calling the sheriff's department. Which means, John Mark Byers, if really any of these statements about when the kids went into the woods are true, it couldn't have been John Mark Byers. He's talking to the police officer at 7:30. That's when he runs into him. So that means he's been in the process of getting to where the police officer is some period before that. There's no way he could have done this. Shortly thereafter, after he calls the sheriff's department, Dana Moore is at his house. At 8:08, Regina Meeks is talking to John Mark Byers at the Byers residence. So really seems difficult to figure out how he could have done that. Sometime in the 8 o'clock hour, Terry Hobbs will join John Mark Byers to look for the boys. So if it's Terry Hobbs, if that's your alternative suspect to the West Memphis three, incredibly tight timeline for him too. There are windows where maybe he could have done this, but they're very small windows and he has to have gone into the woods, murdered the boys, come out of the woods, into the neighborhood, the very neighborhood where the boys disappeared from, where people are looking for them, probably muddy, probably wet, maybe bloody, get back to his house, change clothes, run into Dana Moore, talk to John Mark Byers in a very short period of time. So hard but not impossible for him.
- [10:59]
Alice
So some things to note about this because we're talking about these things through the timeline with if you're just joining us on episode five, you know, there's the caveats of we're giving you all of the timeline of it is going to be who knows if it's really true because we have conflicting times within the timeline. But note the things the timeline purposes for Hobbes and for John Mark Byers are confirmed outside of themselves. Right. There's the police talking, there's other people who have no incentive to create alibis for them who are giving us these times. Whereas this is why we're going to have to spend more time obviously on the alibis that you're beginning to hear of those who were ultimately convicted of these murders. Obviously if the timeline you just heard is true, they couldn't have done it. They have great alibis, but we have to go more into them. So this is a little confusing if you're just listening to us for the first time because we're giving you all of these things as a timeline, but not all of these entries within the timeline should be taken with equal weight.
- [11:58]
Brett
Now one person I have not mentioned is Jason Baldwin. Jason Baldwin, typically when people look at this case, he's the one that strikes people as the most likely to be innocent. If the West Memphis three, some of them committed the crime and some of them didn't. Jason Baldwin is the one that people just don't think did it because they've seen Paradise Lost. He looks like an absolute child in Paradise Lost. And some of the things we'll talk about later lead people to doubt that he was involved. But I haven't mentioned him because of all of them he has the weakest alibi, basically has none. He has various people who put him in different places. And we'll talk about that in depth later. But none of it really hangs together. Now look, he's a 17 year old kid, 1993, so he may not have been keeping that close tabs on where he was, but everybody else at least has somewhere they were at various points. Okay, Mr. Bojangles. Mr. Bojangles. At 8:40 Bojangles will call the police about their visitor who has come to be known as Mr. Bojangles. Now no one saw him arrive. He comes into this restaurant, he goes into the women's restroom. We'll talk about this more in depth later. He's in the women's restroom basically when a customer goes to use it and comes back and says hey guys, there's a dude who's like covered in mud and blood who's in your restroom. And it's really weird, you might actually call the police. So no one sees him come in. So we don't know exactly when he came in but we know that the manager will later testify that he gave the man about 15 to 20 minutes to leave before he called the police. So he goes into the women's restroom and basically is like hey man, you need to get out of here. Like I don't know what's going on with you but you need to get out of here. He then waits to around 8:40 to call. So that would indicate that Mr. Bojangles arrived in the restaurant much closer to 8:00 than 8:40 in. The walk from the scene of the crime to Bojangles would have taken at least 30 minutes, maybe longer. The most direct route is through the bayou. He almost certainly didn't go that way so he would have had to have gone down some roads. It's about a mile and a half. Probably it would have taken him at least 30 minutes. That means he's leaving the crime scene at around 7:30. Not impossible, but once again incredibly tight timeline if you think Mr. Bojangles involved. But then we have the timing aspect which if you believe it, blows all this out the water. And that's Ryan Clark. So Ryan Clark is in the woods with his friends and they hear noises in the woods that sounds like loud splashes in the water. Five loud splashes is what they describe. And later a gunshot. This is between 9 and 9:30. This is one of those things that keeps me awake at night. Like if they had just gone on into the woods, like, what would they have seen? You know, that. That sort of moment, maybe they wouldn't have seen anything. Obviously it's three boys. They're teenagers, but they're still young. Their senses are heightened, their adrenaline is pumping. They're liable to hear a lot of things in the woods. So we cannot say for certain that what they're hearing is any kind of COVID up. But if you think it is a cover up, then everyone we've just talked about, except for the West Memphis three themselves, could not have done it. It could not have been Terry Hobbs. It could not have been John Mark Byers. It could not have been Mr. Bojangles. In order to reopen the door for those suspects, have to disregard what Ryan Clark said and what he saw. And really other than just we can come up with reasons why he would have heard something that didn't happen, there's no, like, good reason to think that, you know, there's no reason to think he would lie for some reason. For instance, at 9:19, and this is to further reinforce this, Terry Hobbs calls the police from the Catfish island restaurant where Pam works. And at 9:20 we have Jennifer Bearden who's going to say she talked to Damien. Now, she says this in her initial statement to police. We'll talk about why that time is probably much later. Later on, between 9:30 and 10, the Hollingsworth family see Damien and Dominique, who they describe as Domini, near the crime scene on the service road that runs parallel to the interstate. Both are described as muddy. This sighting, and we're going to talk about it a lot, is really important for what I think should be an obvious reason. If we talked about the timeline, if Ryan Clark is right and the splashes really happened, and then shortly thereafter, the Hollingsworth see Damien, that is pretty damning for Damien. If you believe the Hollingsworth clan, it is a really bad piece of evidence for Damian. We will talk about them later why there may be problems with their statements and why their statements may be believable. Okay, so that is where we are at the timeline up to this point. Alice, do you have anything to add before we dive back in?
- [16:50]
Alice
No. So this was already covered in the last episode. We basically condensed it for you guys here. But when you condense it and kind of get rid of the extraneous chit chat, maybe the one stars will say, you begin to see really how tight this timeline is. And you begin to see problems with a lot of the alternative suspects to those who are convicted. And look, there's still a lot to cover here, but you can begin to see you have to deal with all these different points. And obviously these are all witnesses who report what they think is their timing. People's timing is really off. We do it all the time. What time is it right now? Any one of you don't look at the clock. You know, maybe you just looked at the clock. Even if you just looked at the clock, you may get it wrong. And so keep this all in mind. You guys want direct evidence. This is direct evidence. It is so faulty. It is so faulty. And that is what's so difficult about this timeline is really the lack of a lot of circumstantial evidence to back up these timelines. Not because anyone's necessarily lying. Although later on, as statements change, there's reason to believe either wanting to minimize or create sorts of alibis for people that they want to create alibis for. But just purely on a direct evidence standard, people's timing and memory of times is incredibly, incredibly faulty.
- [18:07]
Brett
So let's go to May 7th. So now the police are very much investigating this and they draw up a questionnaire for canvassing the area. I believe this was done in consultation with the FBI me. The questions were typical, but a few indicated the type of person the police were initially looking for. A couple of the questions that stand out, if they or anyone they know in the area is a Vietnam veteran. Now, one of the reasons they wondered about this is because apparently, and I don't know if this has ever been confirmed or not, but this is what the police were under the impression to be true. The way the boys were tied, which is very strange, and it's not actually hog tying, that's what everybody calls it. Apparently there were people who said the Viet Cong in Vietnam would tie prisoners that way. So they thought maybe a Vietnam veteran is familiar with this way. Someone is tied up, sort of brought it back with them. So Vietnam veteran becomes someone they're looking for. Also they think whoever did this may have some sort of mental illness. People who came back from Vietnam had a lot of PTSD that was untreated. There was just this notion of sort of, I mean, Rambo. You've seen Rambo. This notion of just people, whether true or Not, I'm not casting aspersions on Vietnam veterans, but there was just this notion that Vietnam veterans were unstable. So another possibility there. They also said if anyone in the area wore a uniform is another thing tied to this Vietnam veteran type thing. It was any kind of uniform. And one thing they thought was uniform could mean Vietnam veteran. It also could be something used to control the boys because kids are more likely to react to people in authority. And police would later expand this to include anyone with an injury to their penis. The theory was that the reason that Christopher Byers was emasculated the way he was, and we're going to talk about that more later, was because of someone who had their own injury acting that out through this murder. So the very typical thing you might hear from the behavioral analysis unit. So now we're going to talk about some of the people they ran into. And let me just go and tell you, we're going to talk a lot about the satanic panic. We have a whole thing. We'll probably end up spending a couple episodes on it. I'm not sure what to think. I will say this. I always just believed whatever satanic panic. The police were just completely off the rails. There were some weird people in West Memphis and you're gonna see there was.
- [20:25]
Alice
Definitely something going on here. It's not just this whole satanic panic thing. There was some real satanic stuff.
- [20:32]
Brett
The police were hearing things from so many different people, including Damien Echols. They were reinforcing their idea that this was somehow satanic related. And you're going to see that as we start going through this investigation. So we'll start with their canvassing the neighborhood and they run into someone called King David Samuel Beasley. This is one of the first people they run into.
- [20:56]
Alice
I don't think this was his given name.
- [20:58]
Brett
You don't think that was his given name?
- [20:59]
Alice
Chosen name? Well, that's my guess based on the other things he's going to say.
- [21:04]
Brett
You would think if you're named King David Samuel Beasley, you would be sort of the leader of whatever group you're part of. But he, in fact was not. He. He was a follower of his roommate, Sir Michael Williams. Williams. So the police, just imagine the police, they're already thinking, man, this seems weird. Might be cultist. They knock on the door and William shows up in the black robe that he always wears with a white cross on it. Meanwhile, you have Beasley, who's wearing a necklace that has a Star of David on it, which the police in West Memphis probably were like, that's a pentagram, right? They probably didn't recognize the Star of David, right? So these two instantly pique their interest, but they're able to confirm their alibis and they're very quickly able to sort of push them to the side as possible suspects. But they, in a lot of ways kind of set the stage for what's going to happen as this canvas continues.
- [21:58]
Alice
This is like a fun house of what are you going to get behind the next door? You're going to see that this is the case. And of course, here you have like Sir Michiel and also King David coming to the door. So on May 7, the police receive a tip that Steve skaggs, who's a 34 year old, often spends time in Robin Hood Hills. That's the tip, by the way, that he spends time in Robin Hood Hills. You know, people are desperate. We don't know who's done this horrendous crime. And so because they get this tip, the next day, officers meet with Skaggs. Now, Skaggs worked as a mechanic and lived in a junked Cadillac behind the shop. And he claimed that he was at work on the day of the murders from 8:30 in the morning all the way until midnight, which is quite the shift. That's a very, very long work day. It's just about an entire day. Interestingly, though, Skaggs quit his job on May 6. The day before that tip came into the police about Skaggs and he and his brother intended to leave town. But his brother was arrested for unpaid fines on May 7, which is why he was still around when the police came knocking. So this is all interesting timing. So. So his job was his alibi. And not only was it his alibi, it's a pretty intense alibi. You know, it's not. I worked from 8:30 to 11, took a lunch break, went around, saw these people, came back and worked. It was that he worked all day, basically from sunup until midnight. I don't know who's getting their car fixed at midnight, but apparently there was something to be done at midnight. Even more interestingly, if you're working such intense hours, you would think it's because you're very dedicated to your job, you have a lot of work, business is good, you make a lot of money there, but then all of a sudden you quit and your intention is to leave without anyone knowing in the dark of night. And you would have gotten away with it had it not been for some pesky unpaid fines which your brother didn't pay. And then in addition the reason Skaggs lights up on the board for the police is that he has served time on a breaking and entering charge in 1982. So he's not clean as a whistle. Now, breaking and entering is quite the same as triple homicide, but I will say breaking and entering is actually one of those crimes that we find to lead to incredibly violent other crimes down the line. It is not the same as petty theft. To breach someone's personal property and to be able to go in is a different type of criminal character makeup. So even though it's not a triple homicide, I will say that's the type of crime that if I'm looking at someone's rap sheet, I'll say, hmm, that's interesting. Even though it's not technically violent, it's only oftentimes not violent because no one was there to be violated.
- [24:44]
Brett
Let me just say, actually, Skagg's a pretty good initial suspect. Spends time in the area, he has the breaking and entering, which, as Alice said, is the kind of crime that escalates. He quits his job immediately after. Which people in the BAU will tell you big time, life changes right after a murder, indicative of something. And he's fleeing the area, which is another thing people talk about. So Skaggs is pretty interesting. The police are going to lose interest in him, as you're going to see, and we'll talk about that in a second. But initially, not bad, not bad, not bad at all.
- [25:11]
Alice
Oh, and on top of all this, he's essentially kind of a floater, right? He doesn't have a house, he lives in a junked out Cadillac. I mean, this is the profile you would think of. Basically a wanderer who has nothing to lose, who may be doing something like this. So the police go talk to him. And when asked if he'd heard anything about the murders, Skaggs says he kept hearing the name Damien and that this Damien might be involved in devil worship. Now, you might be thinking, well, duh, if I did it, I'm definitely going to point my fingers elsewhere. So I agree with you. If, if I'm talking to the police and they're like, have you heard about these murders? And I am guilty of it, I would definitely try to divert attention away. But what's interesting is he names Damien and he names him in the context of, of devil worship. Now, Skaggs isn't sure of the last name of this so called Damien and he believes Damien's last name might be Ren, like the bird. Now, in a later interview, Skaggs will say that Damian had Changed his name from Michael in the same interview, he'll say he'd heard that Stevie Branch's father had been a big time drug dealer and the murders could be revenge for that. This is all over the place. Is it Damian? Is it not? You don't know who Damien is, but you somehow know that he changed his name from Michael. Because that's pretty personal. By the time Damien is like here and known about town, people know him as Damien. So for you not to know who he is, but to know some very detailed facts about something that probably not everyone would know, certainly not a stranger off the street would know, is an interesting fact. So you clearly do know him a little bit better than you're letting on. And then if you're deflecting attention to someone else, this Damian guy who's a devil worshiper, why are you now throwing spaghetti at the wall and saying, and you know what, one of the victim's fathers is a big time drug dealer. Because what you're implicating, of course, is that the drug cartel are after what the boys in order to pay back some sort of terrible debt that one of the fathers has. So he throws all this out there at them. This interview is all over the place. Your head should be ringing. And so what do the police do? They give him a polygraph test and he passes the poly test. We've said this many times before. Polygraph test doesn't actually read your mind. You could be lying and pass a polygraph test. So it is not admissible in court. It is possible to pass it if you are lying. It just looks at your biometrics, but it certainly tells you if someone's nervous or not. And for whatever it is, he passes this test and then the police lose interest in him.
- [27:48]
Brett
And this interview, the second interview, is on May 15th, by the way. So not that much later, he's talking about Damien some more. I think another thing you can criticize the police for, they lived and died by these polygraphs. They believe them in a way. And look, we've talked about this before. There are a lot of police who, if you pass a polygraph, you're pretty much cleared. If you fail it, you may never be cleared. And I get that. But there was a lot of smoke with this guy and the fact that he has all the smoke and he's trying to point his fingers at other people, I think he would have been a good person to follow up on, but he's not. So sorry. It's just. It's just a person who sort of passes through this case and then passes out of it. And that's just the way it is.
- [28:30]
Alice
Which is really too bad, because there's nothing we can do about it. Like, we've given you all the information we have. But if I were on this case, I would be like, well, great, you passed it. Let's keep going. There's still a lot of smoke here.
- [28:41]
Brett
Yeah, but that's not what they do. Now we're about to talk about Damien again. And if you've watched Paradise Lost, there's a sort of Damien Echols tunnel vision they talk about, which I don't believe is real. And as we go through this timeline, you'll see that Damien Echols was definitely a prominent character from the very beginning. And he was someone that people focused on more and more as the investigation continued. But the main people who were focused on him were sort of ancillary to the investigation. They were these juvenile officers, Steve Jones and this officer Sudbury, who was another person who'd been on the scene when the bodies were found. And one thing I just want to note about those people. Look, juvenile officers, very important. They do great work. I'm in no way disparaging them, but homicide detectives are at the very top of the pyramid when it comes to the police. Juvenile officers are pretty much at the bottom. I mean, probably below patrol officers, frankly. So the notion that just because these, you know, juvenile officers were like, it's Damien Echols. He finally killed somebody, that the entire West Memphis Police department was suddenly like, yes, we must frame Damien Echols is silly. They very much believed this was a valuable avenue of investigation, and they will pursue it. But the West Memphis Police Department is not a monolith. And I think at this early stage, Gary Gitchell is not thinking this was satanic. This was Damien Echols. And you're going to see that as we go through. But Steve Jones and Shane Griffin and officer Sudbury, they're thinking, hey, we got this violent kid in the community. Let's go look at him. And they actually go to Damien's trailer to talk to him. When they get there, they note a pair of tennis shoes and combat boots, both which were caked in mud. Now, Damian will later say that only the tennis shoes were caked in mud and that he kept his combat boots spotless.
- [30:33]
Alice
This is really interesting because you only wear one pair of shoes. Typically only one of them needs to be muddy for this necessarily to matter. But also, it doesn't necessarily mean the combat boots weren't muddy. He's himself saying, if they were muddy then I cleaned them. So either way, I don't think it really says much.
- [30:52]
Brett
So they interview Damien. They note that he has a pentagram on his chest. Damien tells them that he was a patient of Little Rock Memorial Mental Hospital, where he was diagnosed as manic depressive and schizophrenic. He tells them that he was previously involved in a Wiccan religion and a local group called the Covenant of the Divine Light, which he describes as a white witchcraft group. He tells the police he thinks the murders were a thrill kill. He also tells them that his sister Michelle was sexually abused by his stepfather, but that didn't really bother him. And this is something we've talked about earlier, that all was percolating below the surface as well. So this is the discussion they have with Damien on this day.
- [31:29]
Alice
This is all really interesting. This is not just Damien, this is also the other people they've talked to so far. All these people who are opining about the murders. I don't know about you, I just wouldn't opine about an active investigation where there's a murder because I'm not going to tell you what I really think about it. I just think it's really interesting that all these people who are talking to the police are giving their insights on the murder when like the thrill kill part, if they are not the ones to have done have murdered these boys, I don't understand why they are opining and wanting to be part of the investigation and talking about it like this with the police. This isn't just gossip with their friends. So this is just an interesting side note of the way all of these people in town are talking about this investigation and how confusing it may be for the police officers who probably this is the first triple murder they've ever investigated.
- [32:17]
Brett
So obviously they're taking exactly what Alice said and they're gonna take it back to West Memphis. And they say, hey, we talked to this guy Damien. You know, we got concerns about him. And he's saying all this stuff about being in a cult and his shoes are muddy. You need to follow this up. So at this point, on May 9th, Officer Shane Griffin and Bill Durham are going to go talk to Damien. They show up basically at Jason Baldwin's house. Damien Echols is there, Dominique Tear is there, and Jason Baldwin is there as well. And they talk to them in the front yard of the house. According to Jason, the three had gone to Jason's uncle's house to cut the grass. After that, he and Damian were at the laundromat in Missouri and North Washington Street. And his dad picked him up at around 6pm his father then took Domini and Jason home while Damien walked home. Now, we've talked about this before. This whole thing about where they were and when they were at the Laundromat and how they got home is inconsistent across the board. Everybody tells different stories on this. Doesn't necessarily mean anything nefarious. It's just hard to nail down when they're at the Laundromat. And after this, the police are going to start talking to the people that I actually think were their first suspects. Damien's always in the back of the mind, but now they're going to move on to people who really, I think to this day maybe there are some people who are curious about these individuals.
- [33:38]
Alice
Right. So on May 9, the police interview Murray Ferris, who was a student at the local high school. And the reason he's kind of on their radar is Murray had once pulled a knife in school and threatened to kill another student. Now 18, he was said to be involved in cults and was described by Jennifer Bearden as the head of the local cult. In fact, Jennifer said that Damian speculated he might have killed the kids. Again, very interesting. This is all like he said, she said. But I guess that is how tips work. Before there were, you know, cell phones.
- [34:11]
Brett
Yeah.
- [34:11]
Alice
So I guess this is their form of tips. Right. So Damien, apparently this is only through Jennifer, speculated that Ferris may have killed the kids. Ferris told the police that he was the leader of a cult. He's like, yep, he's owning that of white witches called the Order of the Divine Light. You have remembered hearing about them. Damien also said he was part of this order. And police noted the hex mark, a pentagram that he wore on a necklace. So think about this. The police are investigating. They've already heard basically, like, cult witchcraft come up in multiple contexts. Now they're talking to this guy Ferris and they see this pentagram around his neck. And so what do they do? They go to their trusty, dusty polygraph machine and they ask Murray to take a polygraph test. And lo and behold, he passes it. So the police are like, well, there you go. He passes it again. If you guys haven't followed us for a long time, you may not know our beef with polygraph test because a lot of people truly think that it tells you if you are lying or not. It measures things like how fast your heart is going and the biometrics that usually are affiliated with you being nervous and nerves being affiliated with lies. Look, these people are all like, if they are in fact in kind of these alternative religions, self described cult leaders, they're probably cool as cucumbers. Doesn't mean that they would have failed the polygraph test. But these are not your typical people. I would fail a polygraph test if I were lying. I just know it. That's just the way I operate. And you could tell if I'm lying. That's probably what's going to happen. They're talking to pretty interesting characters to begin with who probably don't fall into your bell curve of where most people react in certain ways. And the polygraph is really for the middle of the bell curve, how most people react. I would say they're talking to people on the fringes of this society already and then they're putting them within a method of interrogation that is meant for the masses. When I think we can say that they are not really your typical person off the street.
- [36:20]
Brett
Yeah. And if I ever say that a polygraph means somebody's innocent or guilty, call me out on it because I just have so little faith in them. I mean, I get they can be useful investigative tools. They're really useful when you tell somebody they failed them because they're like, oh, I failed, you know, the truth.
- [36:33]
Alice
They're useful for like lying. Right. To strong arm someone. Which, by the way, you're allowed to lie in interrogations.
- [36:40]
Brett
I mean, honestly, I think the most effective polygraphs, the one in the wire where they just like they have a copy machine and they make him think that it's measuring where they tell us the truth or not, it just spits out a copy that says lie. I mean, that's as effective as any polygraph. But anyways, I know there's plenty of people who disagree with me on this. I want to just mention because the police get a lot of grief for all the satanic panic stuff. Right. You know, West Memphis is Second Salem according to Damien. But if you think about this sort of zeitgeist they're in and the fact that people across the country, including at the FBI and various police departments, believe this whole cult ritual murder thing is happening. And they keep hearing this stuff from various people, you can understand why this was forefront at the forefront of their mind, particularly with the brutality of this murder. So just something to remember, they didn't just grab this out of the sky. There are people they are talking to who are saying things like, I am the member of a cult, not a member, the leader. The leader of a cult. That's going to keep this coming up in their head.
- [37:42]
Alice
Okay? So the next day on May 10th, Chris Luttrell, who's a 16 year old member of Murray's coven, would tell police that Damien had attended a few of their coven meetings. Which is not surprising because remember, Damien said he was part of this group. Chris told police that Damien liked to stab frogs with sharpened sticks to see how long it would take them to die.
- [38:05]
Brett
Damien had also probably did that all the time.
- [38:08]
Alice
I did not. I never.
- [38:09]
Brett
Gigging frogs left and right.
- [38:12]
Alice
Definitely did not.
- [38:14]
Brett
Earrings.
- [38:15]
Alice
I was like 5 years old at this time, so I could absolutely have done this. No, never. I love animals. Huge proponent of animals. If they died in my care, it was for a greater purpose. I did not like seeing things suffer. But here, this is interesting, of course, because we know the correlation between, you know, animal abuse and then it escalating to human abuse or serial killer tendencies. Now this is interesting whether Damien did it or not, but this is what Chris is saying Damien did. Damien had also told Chris that he was immune to fire. And he says this because he supposedly burned down his father's garage and stood in the flames and had also poured gasoline on his foot and set it on fire. Real quick on this Covid. I can imagine if Damien said this, it was to impress everybody, right? Like this would be the type of thing to be like, guys, I am a higher power or I belong here because I am immune to fire. So first of all, do I think that really happened? No. Does it really matter? I can absolutely see Damien saying this. And does it have anything to do with his propensity to have murdered these kids? No. I think it shows that he wanted to be part of this group and told a look how tough I am or how divine I am, accept me or follow me or whatever it is. I just don't think it's tied to this. It shows how weird they're talking about these sorts of things, but it actually isn't even that weird if we already know he goes to this order, goes to their meetings and their self described activities. His story of being immun to fire seems to fit right in of what you would say if you wanted to impress this group.
- [39:52]
Brett
He's a world class BSer.
- [39:54]
Alice
He is.
- [39:54]
Brett
No question about that.
- [39:55]
Alice
And that's absolutely right. If you watch Paradise Lost, if you watch his interviews before they're convicted, during the, you know, entire trial process after, and then the many decades after, he is such a wonderful chameleon, whether he did this or not, it's amazing how Different. He can portray himself at every stage of this case. Just go watch his interviews and see for yourself. They seem like completely different people, in fact. Okay, so he's immune to fire. And then after Domini became pregnant, Damien also indicated that he intended to sacrifice the baby. This is not the first time we've heard this, by the way. Though at a later date, he decided the better course was to marry Dominique and collect a government check. Welfare always reach out on the human sacrifice.
- [40:43]
Brett
I was gonna sacrifice my child to the dark gods to attain immortal power. But you know what? If you have a child, you get a larger welfare check. So maybe I'll just do that. I love that. This is great.
- [40:55]
Alice
Really principled here. Okay, so that's. That's Chris Luttrell. He's really. I don't know how much. This is a very interesting investigation, because this is how investigations are done. You talk to people who know the person, and you begin to kind of do circles until they're tighter circles until you zero in on the suspect to see if that's the person. So this tactic isn't that unusual, the things these people are saying. It feeds into this whole after the fact, whether they're just being convicted of satanic panic or not. They didn't seek out Chris Luttrell because he's part of the cult. They're trying to find out more information, and this stuff is just coming out of people's mouths. So there is something weird going on in this area, no matter what you say about if they're a satanic panic or not.
- [41:40]
Brett
So Chris Luttrell and Murray Ferris, you know, they remain sort of on the police's radar. On May 10, Jim Agee, who's the youth counselor at a local Baptist church, tells police that Chris Luttrell and Murray Ferris had recently attended his church and seemed scared for reasons that he wasn't clear about. The final line of the report states, both of these two boys go to West Memphis High School and are noted for being involved in cult white witchcraft, exclamation point. So, you know, once again, sort of tying them to this whole witchcraft idea. Now, the problem with Latrell and Ferris is that Latrell had an alibi for the day of the murders, and so did Murray Ferris. They were actually attending services at the Baptist church when the murders were committed. So to the extent that Chris Litchell and Marie Faris were interesting, they have a much better alibi than just about anyone else in the case.
- [42:31]
Alice
I mean, it is interesting that they go to a Baptist church and then they also go to their Covid meetings.
- [42:36]
Brett
Yeah, I mean, you know, what are you going to do? You got to fit in an aside. Weird fact. This is the depth of our research, people. In 2000, the Los Angeles Times did a story on polyamorous relationships highlighting a Tennessee throuple, Shane and April Divilbus and Chris Luttrell. Shane, you may recall, was Deanna Holcomb's boyfriend. After Damien, the one that he threatened to claw the eyes out of. He, like, jumped on him and tried to claw out his eyes. So these three would eventually appear on the MTV show sex in the 90s. It's a group thing. The group would eventually separate and tragically, Shane would die in his sleep in 2012 at the age of only 37.
- [43:23]
Alice
This has nothing to do with the case. It's just such an interesting. They do pop up later and they are on an MTV show, but not for the West Memphis Three.
- [43:33]
Brett
So on May 10, and this is my personal favorite alternative suspect in this case, a mysterious person is going to come up on May 10th. There's an anonymous tipster who is going to call the police and tell them that Damien and Domini killed the boys and that an LG took and laundered their clothes for them. This person, who was apparently a woman, says that Damien has parts of the bodies in a box. If you've seen West Memphis Three, you may recall there's a moment where John Mark Byers talks about this very rumor. And this person will say that LG's mother would lie about his whereabouts. LG is going to be LG Hollingsworth. We're going to spend a good chunk of time on LG Hollingsworth. He is sort of a. This could have been the West Memphis Four. And if it had been the West Memphis Four, L.G. hollingsworth would have been the fourth. So we're going to talk about him a lot later on. So on May 10, also something else happens that's very important. Ridge will interview Damian, and it's an interesting read. And we're going to spend probably the rest of this episode talking about this interview. Just to like, for the sake of time, I'll read through it and Alice, we can comment on this. So on May 10, we have this conversation with Damien Echols that is recorded in this report, most detailed report so far. Remember, they've talked to Damien several times, but this is really going to become important in this case. So he comes in for an interview concerning any information that he may have concerning the homicide. He talks to Rich about this. Go through his viral statistics, all that stuff. Now, Damien says this is consistent with his prior interviews that he was a member of a white witch group that he referred to as Wicca. He stated that his belief was there was a goddess and not a God. This is something that he will echo in later testimony in court. He stated that everyone in the group works towards a divine light. Upon reaching that state, they become like gods themselves. And he says he has been a member of the group for about five years.
- [45:43]
Alice
So when he was like, 13.
- [45:44]
Brett
Yeah, right, exactly. Which isn't really consistent with the timeline that we've heard before about when he got into this, because we've heard they got into it with Deanna Holcomb and.
- [45:52]
Alice
He'S going to talk about her about two years earlier. It's just interesting to note, like, again, in terms of wanting, if the longer you are somewhere, maybe the more authority you have.
- [46:00]
Brett
Exactly. So he meets this person that he considered to be a priestess of this religion, and this was Deanna Holcomb. And they had started dating. He said that she worshiped cats and what she did was her form of witchcraft. He sort of went through his day of the murders, that he was at home. He got out of bed about 10:30 to 11. They went to Lakeshore. He said that a lot of his friends lived at Lakeshore and that he used to live there with his stepfather, Jack Eccles. And remember that as a rough relationship. During this meeting, he was wearing a necklace that he claimed he had just bought at the Mall of Memphis on the Saturday before the interview. Now, this is interesting because the Saturday before the interview would have been shortly after the murders. This necklace is actually going to become important because it has blood on it, and the blood is either Jason Baldwin's or one of the boys who was murdered. And we'll talk about that more when it comes up. In the case itself, the necklace had a pentagram as a pendant, and Damien explained that this was a good symbol for Wicca magic. He said that on Wednesday he was with Jason Baldwin and Domini Teare. He said they had gone to Jason's uncle's house and that Jason had cut the grass while he was there. And then later on, they went to the infamous Laundromat where they were picked up. They took Dominique home, and he talks about how Dominique is his girlfriend, she's pregnant with his baby. And then he basically hangs out and he's on the phone for the rest of the night. He gets off the telephone at around 11:30. So basically his Thing is, he gets dropped off. They go and see the Sanders, which is the family, by the way, that was watching 90210. They go there. He includes this in his statement. It's a very early part of his statement. So if he's fabricating that, he fabricated it very early on. And then after that they go home and he talks to these girls on the telephone and that becomes basically what his story is going to be for the rest of time. Went to see the Sanders, watched a little 90210, went home, talked to these 12 year olds on the phone. That is his alibi.
- [48:03]
Alice
Can we just note again that they literally are 12 year olds and he's like 18 at this time.
- [48:07]
Brett
They're in elementary school.
- [48:08]
Alice
Yeah, that's a good point. And I think this is relevant, by the way, if you think he did it, because this is an interesting thing. There are different ways to prey on young children, male and female. So an 18 year old talking romantically to a 12 year old is, even in these times in the 90s, is predatory behavior.
- [48:27]
Brett
Yeah. And we've already got people defending it. Oh, it was a different time, you know, things.
- [48:30]
Alice
It was not a different time. It was, oh, they were poor.
- [48:33]
Brett
Poor people do these kind of things.
- [48:34]
Alice
And it's like, oh, my goodness.
- [48:35]
Brett
I grew up in dirt poor Appalachia, coal mining town. When the coal mines had closed down, that's where we were in 1993. And if some 18 year old had been talking to somebody in fifth grade, we would have had a problem with it. And I just don't, I don't understand. Look, Damien Echols may be innocent. We may say at the end he's innocent. The cult of Damien is not going to exist in this podcast. Okay. Damien Echols is creepy. He's creepy in a lot of ways. One of the ways is when he was 18 years old, he was seducing a 12 year old. So you can love Damien Echols all you want, but we're not.
- [49:11]
Alice
While he had impregnated his girlfriend.
- [49:13]
Brett
Yes.
- [49:13]
Alice
I mean, there are lots of things. These are just facts that we're putting out there. It may or may not have anything to do whether he committed these murders. But you're right, you can think he did not commit these murders and still recognize certain patterns in here that we don't need to bless. All of this is unfortunately the mind hive.
- [49:30]
Brett
And we've talked about this so often. You know, there is just this tendency in the innocence community to act like anyone who is wrongfully confused of a Crime is an angel is a saint. We should build statues to them and worship them, right? That's so ridiculous. Most of the people who are accused of crimes are accused for a reason. And we've talked about this before. You don't have to whitewash their background to defend them as innocent. You don't have to whitewash Damian, you don't have to whitewash Temujin Kinsu. You don't have to whitewash these people's lives and what they did and why the police focused on them. And this is an aside, but yeah, he's Talking to this 12 year old on Wednesday. Guess where he is on Thursday. He's with his pregnant girlfriend. That's what he's doing on Thursday. So I don't know, I find that to be concerning. But maybe it's just me who he.
- [50:13]
Alice
Self proclaimed was gonna sacrifice, but nah, gonna get a government check instead.
- [50:19]
Brett
So he suggests that one possible person who could have been involved in this is Jason Baldwin, but not his friend Jason Baldwin. And another confusing fact. In this case, there's another Jason Baldwin. Guys, we're all trying to tighten up our spending these days, but the fact of the matter is there are hidden costs. You don't even know you're paying for all of those streaming services, those subscriptions, they add up fast and often you don't even notice. And you ended up signing up for some subscription because you wanted to see one show. You saw the show, it was great, it got canceled, and now you're still paying for that same subscription. You don't even know about it. And that's where Rocket Money comes in. Rocket Money is a personal finance app that helps find and cancel your unwanted subscriptions, monitors your spending, and helps lower your bills so you can grow your savings. And I run into this all the time. I am always signing up for different streaming services for all the various true crime documentaries they have, because there's always on different ones. You know, one day it's on this streaming service, then it's on the next, and I need to be up on it so that I can talk about it with you guys. And so I'm signing up for these things. I fully expect to cancel them. Half the time I think I did, and it turns out I didn't. But with the Rocket Money, I'm able to see what streaming services I'm paying for at any one time. It saves me money. And it will save you money too.
- [51:42]
Alice
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- [52:22]
Brett
Prosecutors Guys, we want to talk about one of our favorite podcasts and one of our favorite creators, Crossing the Line with M. William Phelps. You know him as the New York Times best selling author of 46 books. He's an investigative journalist and winner of the Excellence in Investigative Journalism Award from the Society of Professional Journalists. And if there's one thing we need more of in true crime, it's people who actually understand how to research and chase a story. And he has absolutely done that. In fact, he consulted on the first season of the hit Showtime cable television series Dexter. And he is the executive producer, writer and co host of the number one Apple true crime podcast franchise, Paper Ghosts.
- [53:08]
Alice
And you guys, Phelps is the real deal. He didn't just glow in with the wind when true crime became popular. He has been part of the true crime space for 25 years. He's consulted on over 350 hours of true crime television, executive produced documentaries, weekly series, and he's even written seven books about these true crime stories. He's a highly sought after expert and speaker for his extensive knowledge regarding historic and contemporary serial killers. Check out Crossing the Line with M. William Phelps weekly podcast and number one narrative podcast paper Ghosts from iHeartRadio, both executive produced, written and hosted by M. William Phelps. How very interesting. By the way, I will say this, he is the way these interview. You should read the interviews that Damien gives because he is very savvy in the way he speaks. It is very smart, by the way, to name someone as a suspect who has the exact same name as someone who ultimately will become a suspect. Because if they're scuttlebutt around town and someone's saying, hey, I heard a Jason Baldwin was involved, he can say, yeah, I heard that too. Oh, but not this one. This is a fantastic tactic. Talk about throwing confusion and throwing dust into people's eyes. So this, whatever it is, it's a savvy tactic.
- [54:34]
Brett
And so he talks about this Jason Baldwin. He's 18, he's 300 pounds, he's known to do things like kill animals just for the fun of it, which, ironically, is something Damian is also accused of. He also talks about LG Hollingsworth, who's going to come up, and he says LG Is weird. He says that he wanted to trade girlfriends with Damian for a night at one point. So he's sort of throwing out possibilities of people who could be involved. And then he starts talking about the things that are going to get him in trouble. So he's asked what he heard about the murders, and he said that the boys probably died of mutilation. He said that some guy had cut them up. He said he heard they were placed in the water and they may have drowned. He said that because of what he had heard, he believed at least one of the boys had been cut up, which is all. I mean, all this is accurate. It's a thing. Right.
- [55:24]
Alice
And this is May 10th as a reminder.
- [55:26]
Brett
Right. So only a few days later, he said that one of the boys may have been cut up more than the others. And once again, remember what we talked about the night of the murders, A bulletin went out from the West Memphis police, and it was vague and it included information that the police misreported that all the boys had been mutilated. Right. Well, Damien is already saying that one of the boys was cut up more than others. And this was something that the West Memphis police actually kept pretty close to the vest for a long time. People have tried to prove that this part leaked, but there's no good evidence of that. But Damian is already saying that one of the boys had been cut up more than the others. And he said the homicide may have been for the purpose of scaring someone. He said, and this is also interesting, he said it's probably one person, because if there was more than one person, somebody would probably tell. Which is interesting just because Jesse Misskelley is going to confess later on whether you believe it to be true or not. He's asked if water had any type of meaning in the Wicca or black magic religion. He says water is a demon type symbolism, which is not even true. I don't know where he got this from. He's just throwing this out there. And then all people have demonic forces inside of them. He said that people have control over the demonic forces in them. When he was asked about how he thought the person felt who had committed the homicides, he said the person probably felt good about it and felt good that he had the power to do what he had done. When asked why he thought the victims were so young. He said that the younger the victim, the more innocent the victim, the more power one would get from sacrificing that victim.
- [57:04]
Alice
So this is all really interesting to note, right? He's asking questions about the killer. These are not directed at him. How did you feel? This is not their tactic right now. They're like, wow, when you killed him, how did you feel? They're asking him questions and he is already. Note what his answers are. He is the one framing these murders as a cult murder. This is very interesting. His answers are about why they're young. It's for cult purposes, not just, I don't know, Kids are easier to control. Someone was preying on them. Whatever. He's framing himself, all of these. Now, it might just be because he's in the occult and this is his frame of reference for everything. But I do think it's really interesting that he is framing this without the police framing it as occult murders to him. When we're talking about where the satanic panic started or why did the police have it in their mind that this was a murder that related to the occult? It's Damien's answers here.
- [57:58]
Brett
He goes on to say that the boys were not big, not smart, and they would have been easy to control. He felt the killer would not have been worried about the boys screaming due to it being in the woods and close to the expressway. He further stated that the killer probably wanted to hear the screaming. I mean, maybe Damien is just like a BAU profiler in training or something here, but, I mean, he is. This is chilling for the West Memphis. When the West Memphis police hear him talking about this, they're like, what in the world is wrong with this person? Right? Like, these are not the responses they expect. But he continues to give them these things. He said he told them he was on antidepressant. He was asked how the person who killed the boys was feeling now, and he said the person probably thought it was funny and they didn't care whether or not he got caught. When asked what kind of items they should be looking for, he said they should be looking for stones in the area, candles, a knife, and some type of crystals. They're gonna find knives later on. And there's candle wax on one of the boys shirts, which is probably just random, but nevertheless, the fact that he's sort of telling this and they then find it makes them even more suspicious of him. He said the murderer would be someone local and that the person would not flee from the area. He said he was then Asked about his sex life, he said that he thought sex was boring. I don't know why he was asked about that. But nevertheless, it was noted that Damien had a tattoo evil across his left knuckles. And he stated that Jason Baldwin had the same tattoo on his knuckles. If you don't spell well, that's evil. He was asked if he would submit to hair samples and blood samples. He said he didn't object to the samples being taken. He was asked if he was willing to take a polygraph test and he said sure, he would take the test as well. At this point, Sudbury actually leaves the room to try and set up a polygraph examination. He said that he thought he was very intelligent. He dropped out of school, but he was self taught. He was very smart and he was more intelligent than most people. That's Damon's opinion of himself. At this time, he was turned over to Detective Durham for a polygraph examination. After a time, Detective Durham came and met with me and other officers and reported that Damien had been untruthful and according to the polygraph was involved in the murders. And so at this point, the investigation into Damien starts to ramp up. Before this, you basically had a few juvenile officers who are interested in him. He's now come in, he says all this weird stuff. They do the polygraph, they find him to be untruthful, whether accurate or not. And so now they're really going to look into Damien. And the investigation into Damien will ramp up, though I will note on a track parallel with the rest of the investigation, which is going to continue to look into various people in and around West Memphis.
- [60:36]
Alice
So a few observations. These are not your typical answers in an interview, right? We've seen their interviews with other people who are initial suspects or initial people of interest. And they also said some weird things. But it can fall into two camps. It can first be like, wow, this is really weird. If he were sitting in front of me and these are the answers he was giving me to my questions, I would be like, there's something not right with him. Either he's involved or there's something not right with him to be speaking like this. This is not how most people respond to a police interrogation. But number two, I think this is also coming off in what the profile that you're seeing of him. He's just a smart ass right now. If he's just a smart ass, these things are going to get him into a lot of trouble. So I don't want to minimize the fact that he may just be spouting off because he clearly thinks, thinks very highly of himself. He thinks he's very intelligent. He thinks that he can control other people and he does. He's described by other people as like the leader. People flock to him. He's a natural leader, that sort of thing. Right. So I'm not saying put every, put all your stock in this weird interview. It is a weird interview. It may also just be because he is this type of a personality who basically wants to flick off everyone around him. You want to ask me questions, I'm going to give you smart ass answers and I'm going to have you spinning in circles. But also note this, he's having them spin in circles and they should investigate these things because these types of answers are troubling whether or not he passes the polygraph. So the police do continue to investigate down this line because they are avenues of investigation that Damien puts before them. So if you want to say that they're creating these like occult lines of rabbit trails or rabbit holes, the police are being given these lines of investigation from Damien and they're supposed to follow them, which they do, rather than the other way around, which I think we often hear in this context that the police laid out this path of the occult and then they tried to fit Damien and the rest of the West Memphis three within it. From this interview here, you can see that's not the order of events.
- [62:35]
Brett
And look, I think when we cover these cases, these famous cases will do these deep dives. As important as what of our final conclusion is to me is giving you the truth of what actually happened. Because so much of these cases is just, I mean, I hate to say they're lies, but they're lies. It's their myth, it's lore, right? And if you've seen Paradise Lost, the lore is Damien Echols were black and listen to Metallica. And so they said, oh, you're a devil worshipper, you must have killed these kids. And that's not what happened. And did they maybe buy into too much of the devil worship stuff? Did they listen to Damien too much? Did they give him too much credit? Should they have been more incredulous when they're listening to him? Maybe that's a fair criticism, but I think they had to follow this stuff up. When they're talking to some random kid and he's like, well you'll probably find candle wax there and they find candle wax there. And he's saying things like. Because this is something people talk about to this day and we've mentioned it's so small. It's such a small patch of woods. How did nobody see anything? How did nobody hear anything? Well, Damien has an answer for that. Well, it was in the woods and you had the expressway right there. So the noise would have covered up the murders. This from someone who later on is going to say he wasn't really that familiar with Robin Hood Hills, which is a lie, by the way. But he's giving them sort of the kind of information that frankly a lot of cocky killers give when they are interviewed by the police. They give real information because it's almost like, you can't get me. Like I'm going to give you just enough, right? But you can't get me. I'm too smart for you. Right? I'm smarter than most people. This is what Damien says. So if Damien is innocent and if he spent all those years in prison as an innocent person, he bears part of the responsibility for that, for the way he acted. Now he's 18 years old and 18 year olds are stupid, but nevertheless he is doing these things like you can read it for yourself, go to Callahan, you can read his comments, you can read his statements and you can see why the police maybe improperly were led down this path that's going to lead eventually to Damien being convicted for this crime.
- [64:41]
Alice
So following this interview, Damian was given a polygraph like we talked about. And on the relevant questions, deception was indicated. So we're going to be consistent here. When we said, whatever, if you pass polygraph test, that may say nothing here. Also, all we're saying is he's getting nervous or he's breathing faster, all those sorts of things, right? But on the questions that are relevant to the murders now in the Post interview, Damian was asked what he was afraid of and he responded, quote, the electric chair. And if you read the report, it says after a short period of time, the subject ceased to deny his involvement. Admission through absence of denial.
- [65:19]
Brett
He then said, so whatever that means.
- [65:22]
Alice
I know, I'm not exactly sure what that means. Basically it is a subjective way. It's not saying I did it, but rather he has said he didn't do it. I don't know how much that means. If like an hour or two hours in, you stop saying, I didn't do it, I didn't do it, but the person probably did this, you know, So I would say it's probably a holding. He didn't do an about face and say, yep, you caught me, I did it. That's not what happened. He just stopped continuously saying, I didn't do this now. The report then goes on to say that Damien said, I will tell you all about it if you will let me talk to my mother. Detective Ridge brought his mother into the office to talk to him. And after talking to his mother, he again denied being involved in the murders. After approximately 20 minutes, I asked, you're never going to tell anyone about this but your doctor, are you? And he replied, no. Very interesting. First interview, May 10. He fails a polygraph test. He himself says, I'll tell you all about it, but then talks to his mother and then continues to deny it. But this is like an interview tactic or an interrogation tactic. So you didn't do it, but if you did do it, you would only tell your doctor, Right? So take it for what it is. But this is all they had to follow up on him. He is. He could be a red herring, but he is absolutely a red herring. You have to investigate. So the fact that they hone in on him is not surprising once you read this first report.
- [66:46]
Brett
So basically, at this point, you've got at least some members of this investigation who now very much consider Damian their prime suspect. It's going to continue. They're going to look at other people. We're going to talk about that next week some more. But more and more the focus will turn to Damien until we get to the point where Jesse Misskelley is going to give a confession implicating Damian and Jason Baldwin. So I do want to. Quickly, as we get to the end of this episode, some of you have been asking for books to read on this case. Since we'll probably be doing this for the next six months or so, you know, you want something to do in the interim. Plenty of time just to run through. To run through the books we read. There are more books, but these are the books we read that I think are worth reading to a certain extent. Harvest. Okay. So on the side of the defense. So if you're looking for pro defense books, Harvest of Innocence by Dan Stidham. Dan Stidham is the attorney for Jesse Misskelley. Very interesting book, I think. I think there's a lot of truth revealed in that book that Dan didn't mean to reveal. I have a lot to say about Dan and his approach to this case later on, but it's a good book to read. Just know that some of the way he characterizes things that happened at trial, if you actually listen to the trial, you'll see it's not entirely accurate. I look, all the trials are available, transcripts are available in callahan. There's a YouTube channel which I've shared on the gallery where you can listen to the trial. It's a very fascinating trial to listen to. You can't watch it, unfortunately, but you can listen to it. Do that. But anyways, Harvest of Innocence by Dan Stidham and then the Devil's not by Mara Leverett. These are both books that obviously start out from the perspective that the West Memphis Three are innocent. If you want books by the Family, Box Full of Nightmares by Terry Hobbs and Untying the Knot by John Mark Byers. Very interesting for their perspectives. The most middle of the road book, the best book on the case. I wish it had been updated. I wish it were still in print. Is Blood of Innocence by Guy Real, Mark Parasquia and Bartholomew Sullivan. It's not available to buy new, but you can find used copies all over the Internet, so check that out. And then the West Memphis Three are Guilty Perspectives. The Case against the West Memphis Three by Gary Meese. He actually has a couple other books, but that's the one I read was the Case against the West Memphis 3. An abomination by William Ramsey. I like the Case against the West Memphis Three better, but Abomination, if you don't want to read Callahan. Ramsey basically just quotes entire documents from Callahan. Most of his book is quoting documents from Callahan, which can be valuable if you want to hear the documents in Callahan that are the worst for the West Memphis Three, he's going to highlight those. So that's a bunch of books that you can read. They are Harvest of Innocence, Blood of Innocence, the Devil's not are great. Really good reads. Box Full of Nightmares is pretty good. Untying the knots. Okay. Case Against Weapons Three can be tough, but really good for laying out the argument that they're guilty. And like I said, Abomination is just sort of rounds up the documents. Well, we are five episodes into this. We are halfway through our preliminary outline. So probably only about 20 episodes to go in this case. I know y'all are saying it's a.
- [70:11]
Alice
Complete, like, misnomer that we're halfway through the outline. Because this is outline, one of many outlines.
- [70:17]
Brett
Yes, this is the initial outline. And just. Just to remind everyone what we're doing here, by the time we finish this 50 page, 30,000 word outline, basically, we want you to be so well versed in this case that you know the case and you now can really discuss it. Right. Because we got to get you up to speed on all the facts so that when we dive into the Alibis and the history.
- [70:41]
Alice
This is just giving you the tools to have the discussions. We haven't even. Discussions.
- [70:45]
Brett
This is like Western Civ 101 and 102. Like, you got to take those classes so that you can take like the history of the Roman Empire, right? Or like the rise and fall of, you know, the German Empire or the British Empire, whatever. You got to take those base courses. And that's what this is. This is the base course in West Memphis 3. And then we're going to do your PhD level classes when we get done with this, so.
- [71:10]
Alice
And then the existential questions of what is exactly.
- [71:14]
Brett
By the end, we'll get to what is. So buckle up. Like I said, we're going to be doing sort of one off episodes in between. Not in between, but in addition to some of these episodes for those of y'all who get tired, just to give you a little. What is it? A palate cleanser. What do we call it? It's the French word for that. An amuse bouche. I'll give you some amuse bushes.
- [71:36]
Alice
Did you have an amuse bouche when you ate your whale?
- [71:39]
Brett
I wish. I wish I just had an amuse bouche. Better off. All right, do you have time for a question or do you need.
- [71:45]
Alice
Absolutely.
- [71:47]
Brett
Okay. A poor wife's probably like, I wish you would come help with the baby.
- [71:51]
Alice
Okay, this is true.
- [71:52]
Brett
Jc103 wants to know, do you have any advice for someone who wants to start a podcast?
- [71:59]
Alice
No. Yes, I do. Very low barriers to entry. So anyone truly can do it, but obviously, because anyone can do it, it's a very crowded space. Talk about something that you really are passionate about. Because first of all, it takes a lot of time. It's a lot more work than I think people actually realize. And then see what sort of angle you can bring. Even though it's a crowded space, there's also a lot of viewpoints that maybe are not represented. So think about what angle you bring. Don't just be another rehash and then do it on something that you care about. So it's fun and not work.
- [72:34]
Brett
Absolutely. The things I would say is, if you want to do a podcast, do a podcast. Do it about something you love and do it for yourself. That's the most important thing. And then as you continue, do it for the people who love your podcast. Never, ever, ever tailor what you're doing to the haters, because the haters are always going to hate you. They'll never make them happy. I used to believe in constructive criticism. And I still do. Like, if Alice gave me constructive criticism or if some of our most loyal listeners, the people in the chat right now, gave me criticism, I would listen to them and consider, you know, maybe changing things up a little bit. But you cannot try and change.
- [73:11]
Alice
Can I go with the wind? You will never please everybody.
- [73:13]
Brett
Because people who hate the fact that we have so much banner, if we got rid of the banner, guess what? The people who like the banner would now be angry that we got rid of the banner. Right? You can never. You can never satisfy those people. The other thing I'll say, and this is a do as I say, not as I do, ignore the trolls. There's no point. The only reason to engage with the trolls is if you enjoy it, which I enjoy it. Like, then you engage with them. But just know it makes them happy that you care about what they think. Because most of them are sad, pathetic people with nothing in their lives. All that they get joy out of is when someone who is not as sad and pathetic as them responds to one of their comments. And that's like the great. Oh, you care. You care about. You care about what I said. It's like the most important thing in my life, right? So just know that, like, no matter what you get out of it, they're going to enjoy it, too. So only do it if you really enjoy it. Don't do it to try and put them in their place, because you never will. You'll just make them happy that you're responding. So that's my toddler.
- [74:06]
Alice
They just want attention however they get it now.
- [74:08]
Brett
I mean, there are times, like, there was. I'm so bad. I'm such a bad person when it comes to the Karen Reid case, because I just love getting those people riled up. And it's so easy because they got posted.
- [74:18]
Alice
They just absolutely walk into every trap.
- [74:21]
Brett
I literally said, the great thing about Karen Reed is you can just mention her name and all the people just come like flies to honey and give you engagement. And, like, there was turtle boy commenting on it. There were all these idiots commenting on it. I'm like, guys, you're doing exactly what I said you would do today. I put up a post and then sent a message to the gallery that it was bait. And it was like, they just fell for it just completely. You could make a living just tweeting about Karen Reid and getting engagement from all the crazy people. It's wild. So if you enjoy that, do it. But don't. Don't engage.
- [74:54]
Alice
But you will not have time to have a podcast, you will just be a tweeter. You'll just be a flamethrower on tweet.
- [74:59]
Brett
Exactly. Which can be fun, but I admit, shouldn't do that. You know, it's beneath me. I know I'm immature. I'm working on it, trying to get better. But that's my advice on doing a podcast. Just do it. Do what you enjoy. I mean, that's the main thing, right? If you enjoy doing a podcast, do it. If you enjoy.
- [75:18]
Alice
You enjoy doing a podcast, you come on two days after having a baby.
- [75:22]
Brett
Exactly. I didn't have a baby. But, you know, I mean, you had. I was around when it happened. So. Anyway. Okay, well, love you guys. Thank you all for joining us for this. Shoot us an email. Prosecutors pod gmail.com, let us know what you're thinking. If you have any episode request, send them there. You can comment on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, all those places. The conversation is no doubt going on in the gallery about this case and many other cases. Join that conversation. Or if you would like to get your episodes early and ad free, join Patreon. And in fact, you can actually watch us record these episodes and interact with us as we do it for as little as $3 a month. All right, Alice, What? Do you have anything else you want to add before we sign off?
- [76:09]
Alice
No, it's. We're getting rolling here, guys. We made it through the day and have talked about a lot of very interesting encounters with different people who are suspects, alternate suspects, who knows? So come back because we are laying the groundwork like we said, and when we get to the meat of the discussion, you want to be a part of it. There's so much to discuss in this case. We just got to make it through West Memphis 3, 101 and 102, and we are going to be off to the races.
- [76:34]
Brett
Look, this is the be all, end all Westminster three coverage. Ain't gonna be nothing after that. It's just this.
- [76:40]
Alice
There are no updates. That's true.
- [76:41]
Brett
Y'all want to be a part of this? Be here at the ground level. Okay, guys, we'll be back next week with more of this discussion, but until then, I'm Brett.
- [76:50]
Alice
And I'm Alice.
- [76:52]
Brett
And we are the prosecutors. I'm ready to go live. Let me go live.
- [77:16]
Alice
I'm ready, man.
- [77:17]
Brett
Do it live.
- [77:18]
Alice
Okay, Just make checking my levels real quick.
- [77:21]
Brett
You can do it. Hold on. Am I doing anything weird for you?
- [77:25]
Alice
No, you sound fine. Do I sound okay? I sound a little echoey.
- [77:30]
Brett
So I'm gonna add a little echoey. Yeah. Mine was just moving slow. I'm not sure.
- [77:34]
Alice
Can you hear me? Does mine sound echoey to each to you?
- [77:37]
Brett
It does not sound echoey to me.
- [77:39]
Alice
Okay, perfect. Perfect. I added an additional pillow.
- [77:43]
Brett
Roll tight, everybody. Roll tight. Roll tight.
- [77:45]
Alice
I don't know how you have so much time to watch sports.
- [78:48]
Brett
Did you talk about progressing? Progressing? Because I was going to regress. I don't know. We're regressing today because what we're going to do is we're going to take a step back in the timeline and just hit the highlights that we've already covered. Because I know in the last four episodes, we. We covered a lot of times, put a lot of information out there. We're about to get into the investigation, and I think it's worth taking a step back and looking at the sort of key points in the timeline just to sort of orient you as we. As we move forward, as you're thinking through sort of what the police are discovering.