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- [00:01]
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- [00:34]
Alice
From.
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Sara James McLachlan
The waters of Lake Erie.
- [00:36]
Brett
It was raising flags. He said there's no way that that fish should weigh 7.9 pounds. It's just not big enough.
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Sara James McLachlan
To a nondescript office building in Richmond, Virginia, home to a $700 million fund for children with special needs.
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Brett
If there were a cliche list of how to blow money that you just stole very quickly, this guy did all of them.
- [00:59]
Sara James McLachlan
To the ski slopes of Salt Lake City, where a former Olympic snowboarder landed on the FBI's most wanted list.
- [01:06]
Brett
Ryan James Wedding is one of those interesting Norcos who have had two very successful careers, one legal and one illegal.
- [01:14]
Sara James McLachlan
We're pulling back the curtain on a fresh lineup of opportunists who stopped at nothing to get ahead. These are the stories of people who saw a loophole, a moment of weakness, a chance to get ahead and took it. I'm host Sara James McLachlachlan. Join me for a new season of the opportunist on May 19th. Follow now wherever you get your podcasts.
- [01:57]
Brett
I'm Brett.
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Alice
And I'm Alice.
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Prosecutors Ad
And we are the Prosecutors.
- [02:12]
Brett
Today on the Prosecutors, we discuss the autopsies. Hello, everybody, and welcome to this episode of the Prosecutors. I'm Brett and I'm joined as always by my Valpurgis co host, Alice.
- [03:00]
Alice
You know, I literally. Sorry about this. I really yawned as we were starting. Not because you're not the most exciting person I've ever talked to, Brett, or actually very much. Looking forward to digging into the science of today, but it's been a long day. But that word woke me up. I have no idea what it meant.
- [03:17]
Brett
You better wake up because you got to dance around the bane fires all night. Today is the witch's Sabbath, which is appropriate that we're talking about this case. We should have saved the satanic panic discussion for tonight, but yeah, the May.
- [03:32]
Alice
Eve, it's all floating perfectly. Actually, it's here, right?
- [03:36]
Brett
You excited? You don't know what we're talking about. Do you know those of you?
- [03:40]
Alice
I only know because of our Satanic panic episode. So I learned a lot from the SAT episode. But I'm not going to say that I knew.
- [03:48]
Brett
I posted Night on Bald Mountain from Fantasia posted on the gallery. It's about Walpurgis Night, so check it out. Anyway, that's all I have to say about that for.
- [04:00]
Alice
For uil. And I think we may have placed first in Texas, like, decades ago at this point. My orchestra, we played Night on Bald Mountain.
- [04:10]
Brett
Wow.
- [04:10]
Alice
Yes.
- [04:11]
Brett
That's cool.
- [04:12]
Alice
It is a very difficult first violin song to play, which is the part that I played.
- [04:17]
Brett
That's awesome. Well, look at that.
- [04:19]
Alice
Thank you.
- [04:19]
Brett
Alice has done everything.
- [04:21]
Alice
You know, I have not done everything.
- [04:23]
Brett
To her experience, including Night on Bald Mountain.
- [04:26]
Alice
But I will say this about Night on Bald Mountain. Night on Bald Mountain is a really intense song. If you haven't heard it, go listen to it on YouTube or whatever because it's a fantastic piece of work. But I. You guys, at this point, if you don't know me, well, now you're about to get to know me a little more. I am scared of everything. I got scared playing that song, like, in competition because they, like, dim the entire, you know, stage for the effect. And then we just have our lights on our stands and it's a really kind of creepy song. Talk about music being able to convey things that you don't need words to do. And so I would sit there and like, get goosebumps as we were playing Night on Bald Mountain, despite it not being to the backdrop of any sort of Hitchcock movie or anything like that.
- [05:07]
Brett
And here you are 20 years later.
- [05:09]
Alice
Still remembering how scared I was.
- [05:11]
Brett
Yeah, you should. You should whip out the violin and play it real fast for old times sake.
- [05:15]
Alice
I'll be right back.
- [05:16]
Brett
Well, that's enough of that. As we often say on this show, that's the last fun thing we're going to discuss because for this episode and really probably for the next couple episodes, we're going to be talking about the autopsies in this case. And this is tough stuff. We're going to be reading to you largely from the autopsies. Those of you in the medical field will understand more of this. To give you sort of an idea, we're going to read the autopsies, then we're going to talk about the testimony in the initial trials, which will explain a little bit more about what the autopsies are trying to tell us. Then at some point, we're going to talk about the approach of the defense, particularly at the habeas stage many, many years later. And Their explanations for some of the things in the autopsies that if you believe the West Memphis three are guilty, you think are things they did and if you think maybe they're not, you think might have alternative explanations. So it's going to be, going to be tough, it's going to be clinical, but we are talking about 38 year old boys. So just letting you guys know that is what's coming and we will handle it, you know, with as much delicacy as we can. Having said all that, Alice, do you want to get started?
- [06:30]
Alice
Sure. And as we all know, at the forefront of this case of course are Stevie, Michael and Christopher. These eight year old boys, no person should go through what we're about to convey through their cause of death and the autopsy. And to not forget that for a lot of reasons I think sometimes we have to separate just to be able to get through these autopsies. The victim from what we are reading on the page. But when we bring back to the fact that these eight year old boys went through something truly horrendous before they died, I think it should bring us all to the place of respecting the victims and viewing it from that viewpoint. So we will do our best to do so. And I hope you guys know, and I hope we've conveyed this now by episode 10, that it is all about the victims and all of this marching through the record and the testimony and understanding the satanic panic at the time, all of this is in an effort to get closer to the truth for the sake of these boys. So first let's start with the cause of death because obviously the autopsy is going to talk about lots of things that happened to the boys but may not have necessarily caused their death. Initially, Gitchell told the press that the cause of death was trauma to the boys heads. Now this was a good guess, though not entirely consistent with their autopsy reports. So an early report from the police stated that a hammer or round object was used to beat the boys in the head, whatever was used, and although it appears they were all beaten, it was drowning that killed at least two of them. Now Pam Hobbs would testify that she was not aware of how the boys died until trial. This is not uncommon for many reasons. We saw this also in the Delphi case, for example. Oftentimes when you do have a horrendous homicide and you're building a case to prosecute the person or the people who are responsible, the cause of death may not be necessary for public consumption. Especially because we're talking about young, young children, young Minors here that can. You don't necessarily need that for purposes of an indictment, but of course, at trial, everything comes out. Now, why this is particularly interesting, that Pam Hobbs says that she does not know how the boys died until trial. When does have to come out in evidence is because it contradicts the assertion that Jesse Misskelley and Damien Echols knew how the boys were killed based on local gossip and rumor. And Pam isn't the only one who said she didn't know how the boys died until trial. Melissa Byers would also state that she learned the way the boys were killed during trial. So we have at least two of the mothers saying that these are their own sons and they didn't know how the boys died until trial. Now, why would Jesse and Damien want to say that they knew information about the cause of death based on rumor? Because then they can pawn off things they have said that is not in public knowledge to the fact that it's part of the rumor mill. I heard it at the skate park, so on and so forth. It's not because I was actually there.
- [09:42]
Brett
And look, you just got to kind of make your own decision about what was known and what wasn't. People who think the West Memphis Three are innocent will just state that, well, all the details were public. Well, maybe they were, I don't know. But it's hard to find definitive proof that they were. And there certainly were people who were close to the case who did not know these details. Now, maybe they just didn't want to know and they avoided the rumor. Maybe people didn't talk about it around them. But this is something that comes up quite a bit. I mean, you remember there were those two guys who were in California who were interrogated, and their descriptions of what they heard were slightly different from the actual facts of the case. Much more in tune with that bulletin that went out from the police that wasn't entirely accurate. So I can tell you this. This is one of those unknowables. It's funny, there's so much about this case that if you knew what happened, you'd know what happened. That's just the way it is, right? Like if you knew the West Memphis Three did it, then you would know these details weren't public. You would know they knew these details because they did it. If they're innocent, then you know, those details are floating around the community. But unfortunately, it's hard to use those details to get to their guilt. Though it is suspicious that they knew these things. Okay, so let's get to the autopsies themselves. We'll start with Stevie Branch. So, as we've said multiple times, the ligatures in this case were unusual. Stevie's left hand was bound to his left foot with a white shoelace. His right hand was bound to his right foot with a black shoelace. As we've said before, this is sometimes described as hogtied. It's not really accurate. Hogtied, you would tie the two legs together, two hands together, and then tie those together. But that's not what happens here. It's very much a strange way of doing this and it makes you wonder what the purpose is. Was this to restrain the boys or was it to make them more compact when you're trying to hide the bodies and when exactly they were tied up is important for whatever your theory is. So now I'm going to quote to you from the autopsy about some of the damage done to Stevie. The base of the skull showed a 3 1/2 inch fracture with multiple extension fractures which terminate in the Foreman Magnum, which measured three and a half inches. So three and a half inch fracture and then you have these fractures sort of going off from them. This is a pretty serious head wound that he has suffered something that has fractured his skull. The left posterior cerebral hemisphere showed multifocal subarachnoid hemorrhage. Why is hemorrhage important? Because it tells you that the damage was done when they were still alive. Typically, you bleed when your heart's beating. You know, it's not that there won't be any blood after your heart stops, but it's not going to be any significant amount. And here you have this, which means this damage was done prior to death. There were fracture contusions involving the posterior surface of the left cerebral hemisphere. The right frontal lobe showed focal subarachnoid hemorrhage. So a lot of bleeding on the brain. Now, if you've seen photos, and as I've said, I would not go out to find them, these are particularly gruesome. Stevie, the entire left side of his face is horribly mutilated. It essentially has wounds that go all the way through the cheek into his mouth. The position of the prosecution and the medical examiner is that these were stab wounds caused by a knife. There will be suggestions that possibly these were animal predation. We'll get to that later. He also showed significant pulmonary edema, which is a sign of drowning. So it seems like that the report is correct that Stevie died of multiple injuries with drowning. So essentially he. He was beaten very severely. He possibly was Stabbed a few times, then he was drowned. So it just a terrible death for anyone and horrible to Even imagine an 8 year old going through it. And I'll just say this, I think it's important to remember some of the wounds have been downplayed in following the defense's perspective that this is animal predation. But don't let that fool you. Even if though some of the wounds were caused by animal predation, the murder itself was incredibly violent and incredibly vicious.
- [14:09]
Alice
I mean I know those were a lot of medical terms and we will have experts in testimony really explain to you what it is. But essentially why this is not just animal predation. For the things that you see, Stevie was beat horrendously in the head and he was hemorrhaging throughout his head. That is, I mean you hit someone with that much force in the head to completely incapacitate them and to kill. Right. We've all seen at least movies when you go to hit someone going for the head is like going for the jugular for a reason because that's where your brain is. And to hit so hard as to cause these fractures and then of course the hemorrhaging is devastating. To have that amount of force be applied probably pretty early on because of.
- [14:51]
Brett
The hemorrhaging and it's, you know, it's. Think about all this in the context of the timing. So we had the sun is set, it's getting dark, the mosquitoes are out. You know, we talk about there's no sign of any mosquitoes biting the boys. And you think about those splashes keep coming back to the splashes and are the splashes related? Are they not related? The good argument that they're not related is even if they were beaten severely and were knocked out, which I think wouldn't surprise me if Stevie was unconscious when he went in the water, he's still alive at this point. So you would think if it's not until in the 9 o' clock hour when the body is being disposed of, if he's still alive at that point, why aren't you seeing more mosquito action? I don't know the answer to that. You know, I think, I think it's 50, 50 on the splashes. We'll talk about the splashes more when we get really towards the end of this case. But there are lots of reasons to think they're completely unrelated. They're very intriguing. The timing matters and we've talked about this with various possibilities. Mr. Bojangles or some of the step parents or the West Memphis three Exactly when this happened. But I think what we can say for certain is Stevie was beat severely before he ever went in the water.
- [16:04]
Alice
And one other thing in, you know, if you follow some of the defense cited commentary that this was something that got out of hand or whatnot, I will say it takes a lot of force to fracture a skull and for it again to have happened relatively. At least we know that he was alive because of all the hemorrhaging and the bleeding that was happening. His heart was still pumping. This was not near the end. Right. Because of that, I think that also says something about the attack. If you start out with a blow that can fracture the skull, it's something very different than, oops, I tripped you off your bike. Now I have to cover it up because you've broken your leg or something like that. So something to think about in terms of how severe these wounds are and when they would have inflicted in terms of the timeline of what happens to these boys.
- [16:52]
Brett
So the next part is something that doesn't get discussed much, and I can imagine why that would be true. But nevertheless, it is so strange. And I did not know about it until we started doing this podcast. So I did want to talk about it. So there are no signs of sexual assault? Not really. Sometimes you'll hear about some dilation, but frankly, I think all of that was being in the water. So I don't think there's any real signs of sexual assault, at least rape. But there is an unusual injury on Stevie's penis, and it included a clear band of demarcation that appeared to be the result of some sort of ligature or some sort of force applied. Peretti would describe it in his testimony as looking like a hickey. And there were also scratches on the head of the penis. I'm just going to read to you how this is written in the autopsy report and why I think this is important. We're going to talk about Christopher Byers, and the wounds he suffered are discussed in great depth, and the possibility of animal predation being the cause of them is discussed in great depth. But I'm not certain how an animal other than human could have done this. I'm just going to read this to you. The mid shaft of the penis, to include the glans, was diffusely red purple with overlying very fine superficial scratches. There was a clear band of demarcation at the mid shaft, which showed that the proximal portion was uninvolved. So something happened, and it is hard to even imagine exactly what it is. But this wound which would have been given what we're seeing, this would have been while Stevie was still alive. I don't think this could have been a post mortem injury, but it's one that, like I said, isn't discussed often, but is difficult to explain as anything other than something that the murderer did to Stevie. But why? I don't know.
- [18:59]
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- [19:16]
Alice
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- [19:32]
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Brett
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- [20:36]
Alice
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- [21:41]
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- [22:08]
Brett
But look, it is okay to struggle.
- [22:11]
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Brett
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Alice
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- [24:42]
Alice
And also when we talk about Christopher and the potential for animal predation on the sex organs, this is also interesting here because we have something that has affected the penis here. Except his penis is completely attached here and maybe superficial scratches you can say are due to something else. But the reason Brett said this had to be a Ben before Stevie was dead is because of the bruising. Again, bruising is caused by blood pumping or stopping the flow of blood pumping. You don't have any of that when your blood has stopped pumping or you're dead. So the next is the autopsy of Michael Moore. Michael, much like Stevie, also had his hands bound to his ankles, but instead of white shoelaces, they were done with black shoelaces. Now, a subsequent autopsy of Michael's head showed that he had multifocal extensive subglial contusions and edema. So in other words, also bleeding and swelling of the head. There were also multiple skull fractures just like Stevie suffered as well, which are described as follows, and this is straight from the autopsy report. Situated on the right posterior frontal skull bone was a 1 1/4 semilunar fracture. Situated immediately below this fracture was a similar semilunar circular fracture measuring 2 inches. Below this, on the lateral aspect was a 1 inch fracture. Extending over the temporal scalp were two contiguous fractures. The most superior one measured 11 3/4 inch and the intersecting semilunar inferior one measured 1 inch in length. Situated over the midline of the periatal scalp were three semilunar fractures, one of which became contiguous with the second with an overall dimension of 2 inches. Inferior to this fracture was a similar semilunar fracture measuring 1¾ inch. The fracture involved the right anterior cranial fossae and a 3 inch fracture extended across the right posterior cranial fossa. The brain was edematous and showed Subarachnoid hemorrhage involving the right cerebral hemisphere. There were fractures, contusions involving the right posterior cerebellar hemispheres. Now, that was a lot, because I think what you can take from this is there were a lot of fractures all over his head measuring about the same size. That's very important. Somewhere between one and two inches. Fractures. Obviously, if you hit hard enough to fracture something, there can be spread. So what this may indicate is the same device is causing all of these fractures, leading them to be very similar in size. The other thing you kept hearing me say was the semilunar sphere. In other words, something that was curved. This is why I think people think something like a hammer. Right. A hammer is round, but if you're hitting it, it's usually at an angle. You can see how that may leave, like a half circle, half lunar sort of indention. In other words, it sounds like what Michael went through was a severe repeated beating with an object on his head in an absolutely horrendous fashion. And he was alive during this because of all of the bleeding and the hemorrhaging and the swelling. And that was incredibly hard to read, not just because of the medical terminology, but because each of those fractures was the raising of an object that came back down onto his head repeatedly, repeatedly, repeatedly. And the reason it was probably repeated is that he was either unable to get away, maybe he was bound by that point, or he was in a posture that he was unable to protect his head. Now, this is also similar to what the autopsy found for Stevie, but there was no sign of rape for Michael, But Michael did. And this is devastating. But of course, you would expect this based on the incredible amount of fractures he has on his head. He did have defensive wounds on his hands, so it suggests that he was trying to fight off his attacker, protect his head, any of those things. But of course, was unable to do so. The finding in his autopsy was multiple injuries with drowning as well. So even though he had these horrendous, horrendous fractures all over his head, he was likely alive when put in the water and ultimately died by drowning.
- [29:36]
Brett
So one thing I think you can also see from this is it is often said, or sometimes said, that one of the boys, and sometimes people pick a different boy, that their injuries are more severe than the others. I think you can see from this that even though there are some differences, all of them suffered extensive injuries. And violence, rage, it's not. This doesn't seem like somebody lost their mind, viciously killed one person, and Then had to kill the other two to cover it up. All of these boys suffered seriously during, during their murders. And I'll just tell you, I mean this is already difficult. It is only going to get worse. It just when we get to paretes testimony and he kind of goes into detail about a lot of this and explains it in English. It's even worse when it's in English. I mean, you know, when it's all the medical terms, it's kind of a little bit colder. Christopher Byers. So his right wrist was bound to his right ankle with a black shoelace and the left wrist was bound to the left ankle with a white shoelace. All these shoelaces came from the boy's shoes. It's unclear. No one knows which shoelace belonged to which shoe, which is unfortunate for a lot of different reasons. But you know, I'll just tell you. One of the reasons is because there's a hair found in one of the ligatures which is consistent with Terry Hobbs. We'll talk about what that means later on. But one of the theories about that is it's transfer. If that ligature came from his son's shoe, not a significant as if it came from one of the other ones, but unfortunately we just don't know that. And you can see here, you had one black shoelace and one white shoelace. Now look, you know, wouldn't shock me if boys had two different colored shoelaces in their shoes. But seems like more likely these came from two different shoes. So the right ear was abraded and contused. This is something that the police focused on a lot. These bruises to the boys ears. Once again it's bruised. So that happened before death. And there was this question of how did this happen, why did this happen? And we'll talk about what they believe happened later on. The inferior aspect of the right ear showed multiple linear abrasions measuring a half inch to one and a quarter inches. On the bridge of the nose were multiple abrasions. Situated between the nose and the upper lip was a semilunar abrasion measuring about an eighth of an inch. A quarter inch abrasion was present at the lateral aspect of the lower lip. So you have sort of the ears and the mouth showing wounds. An 8th inch abrasion was present on the midline of the lips. The mucosal surfaces of the lower lip showed a 5, 16 inch laceration. And you know that it was the difference in a laceration and cut. A laceration is deeper. The frenulum was contused and was surrounded by a 1 1/2 inch contusion. If I'm remembering this correctly, the frenulum is that piece of skin but like you can feel it where your tongue, like your tongue connects to your, to the bottom where it connects.
- [32:44]
Alice
Yeah, I know this from having children with lip and tongue ties, right?
- [32:47]
Brett
Oh, there you go.
- [32:48]
Alice
Like if you, if you flip your tongue up that skin right there is the frenulum.
- [32:53]
Brett
And so this is weird, right? Why are there injuries to the inside of Christopher Byers mouth and injuries that seem to have been caused while he was still alive? Left ear was contused and situated behind it were five linear abrasions measuring respectively 1/2 inch, 7/16 inch, a half inch, 7/16 inch and 3/4 of an inch. A 1/8 inch abrasion was present on the helix of the left ear. In front of the left ear were five haphazardly oriented abrasions measuring 5, 16 of an inch to 1 1/4 inches. You know, I hate to even speculate about this, but I'll just go ahead and tell you what the police thought when they saw this. Injuries to the ears, injuries to the inside of the mouse was forced oral sex. That's what the police and I think the medical examiner both believed explained this. So moving to the head, the base of the skull showed multiple fractures. In the left posterior cranial fossa was a fracture measuring three and a half inches in length. Extending from this fracture were multiple radiating fractures which involved the entire posterior left cranial fossae. Situated on the left posterior medial cranial fossa was a quarter inch ovoid punched out fracture. So do you guys remember we talked about JonBenet Ramsey and one of the striking things about JonBenet Ramsey's death was the hole in her skull. This massive hole in her skull. Whoever did this to Christopher Byers and I think this is another reason a hammer was something they thought might have been used when he was struck. It shattered his skull and punched out a piece of his skull into his brain. Essentially a 1 inch fracture also involved the left medial cranial fossa. The brain showed multifocal subarachnoid hemorrhage involving the left posterior cerebral and cerebellar hemispheres. Associated fracture contusions were present. So obviously whatever else you think happened, all this happened while he was still alive and is really one of the things that led to his death. Okay, so this is the most difficult part of this autopsy. So let's just do it. So it is often said that Christopher Byers was emasculated or castrated. That is not actually accurate. It is stranger than that. So the skin of the penis is missing along with the scrotal sac and the testes. So he was castrated, but in addition to that, essentially his penis was skinned. And one of the things this comes up in the trial if you've watched Paradise Lost, because to do this intentionally would actually have been incredibly difficult. Peretti, who is a medical examiner, will testify that it would be hard for him to do it in a laboratory with a scalpel. And if this were done by the killers, they're doing it on ditch bank, they're doing it in the water with a Rambo style knife. Doesn't seem likely. So as difficult as this stuff is to discuss, this is actually pretty important because how that happened is going to tell you a lot about who did this. If, for instance, you believe this is animal predation, if this was caused by an animal and not by a human being, because of the story that Jesse Misskelley is going to tell, that would be a huge blow to the argument that the West Memphis three are guilty. Which is why the animal predation is going to be so important, is going to be something that we spend some time on. So in addition to this, there was also what is described as a large gaping defect measuring 2 1/2 inches by 1 1/2 inches. The gaping defect was surrounded by multiple and extensive irregular punctate gouging type injuries measuring from 1-8 of an inch and 3/4 of an inch and had a depth of penetration of a quarter of an inch to a half inch. Some of these wounds showed hemorrhage in the underlying soft tissue, others did not. This is important because hemorrhage would indicate the wound was made while still alive. But the fact that some of them don't seem to show hemorrhage makes you wonder if all of them were caused while Christopher was alive. And this is, this is going to be a source of a lot of debate, as I said, about what exactly caused these. I mean, you know, if this was done by a person, then essentially what you have is someone taking a knife and almost torturing Christopher. I mean, these like repeated shallow stab wounds, it's not something you want to think about. If it was an animal, then what you imagine is an animal just feeding on a dead body, which happens and is something that medical examiners are trained to look for. Because obviously it's important to know whether or not injuries were caused by the killer or by nature. So the cause of Death for Christopher was listed, probably not surprisingly, as multiple injuries. There was minimal evidence of drowning for him. So the other boys had a lot of fluid in their lungs. Pulmonary edema. That's what that is, a lot of fluid in your lungs. It's a combination of the water and also blood and froth and all this other stuff that happens during a drowning. Fur had very little of that, so little that the autopsy does not list drowning as a cause of death. Instead, it's said that he may have bled to death. Obviously, also, his injuries to his skull were fatal. So probably he was, if not dead, very close to dead. And I think probably what happened is unlike the other two boys who may have been unconscious, they were still alive, very much alive when they went in the water. I think Christopher was probably pretty close to being dead when he went in the water. And so you have a little bit of that sign of drowning. But really his death was caused by the other injuries he suffered. And other than the things we've already talked about, there are no signs of rape.
- [39:15]
Alice
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Alice
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- [45:06]
Alice
I know that was incredibly hard to hear. One thing to note about how vicious all of these boys were attacked, right it there wasn't. Christophers were very difficult to listen to. And of course because of the damage done to his face, his ears, his frenulum, and then of course his sex organ that does stand out different from the other boys. But what becomes clear for all three is there's not one who is way more beat up than the others. The whole oh, you accidentally killed one and so you have to kill the others who are witnesses to cover up. All three had fractures to the skull. Again, fractures being very difficult to inflict on a head. And another thing to note, while Christopher may have been just barely alive, I think it's worth noting that all three of them, it would have been very difficult based on the injuries they suffered, to have had a lot of time between the time that they suffered these cranial injuries before drowning. In other words, it would be difficult to inflict these head wounds far away, load them in a car, I think, and drive them here while they're still alive and put them in a water and have drowning. Possible. But when you hear how severe their injuries are, I mean, we'll talk to medical experts later and find out. But it sounds like if they were left there, even not in the water, eventually, if they did not get medical help, they would have succumbed to their injuries. I think it may say something about where the killing happened, if transport could have even been possible with the severity of the injuries that they all suffered.
- [46:40]
Brett
And look, I think also the other thing you're saying is why the police, and I think even most people who don't think the West Memphis three are guilty just have a hard time believing one person did all this. As we said before, and I'll continue to say again and again, one person can murder more than one person, especially if it's a child. They can control those people. But you think about the severity of this, the way the boys were bound, you know, the fact that Michael Moore has defensive wounds. Could one person have inflicted all of this damage on each of the boys and kept them all together? You know, would one of them have gotten away? You see, Michael Moore is found a little bit further away, which has led I think pretty much everybody to think whoever did it, at some point, Michael did escape and get a little bit away, but then was caught. But you can see why the group thing, which is unusual as that is, it's just not that common to have more than one person commit a murder. Happens. You know, it's not that common to find three 8 year olds murdered either. So we already have sort of uncommon things happening here. The statistics would tell you though, this is most likely one person who did it. Just if you had no facts, you just said, hey, there were murder of three boys, the statistics would say one person did it. That's just the way it is. But you start looking at the facts and you're like, is that even possible? Could one person have even done this? Yes, I think is the answer. And like I said, the most frustrating thing about this case is it is hard to ever give a definitive answer about anything. So I don't think you can definitively say that one person couldn't have done this. Does it feel like it was more than one person? Absolutely, yeah.
- [48:27]
Alice
So. So those are the autopsies. Let's get into the testimony because of course this had to all be explained to a jury to make sense of what the medical terminology means.
- [48:36]
Brett
I do want to say one thing before we get into this, and I'm interested to hear from medical professionals out there, because during this show I've read a lot of autopsies, and most of them, you know, you read this and you're like, wow, this is a pretty detailed, but it's actually not very detailed. And if you look at the autopsies, they're pretty short, particularly given what all happened. They seem to be more generalizations. And a lot of times they don't list all of the wounds. They're not. It's just not that long, frankly. And I don't know if that's unusual or if this really is just not a very detailed autopsy report. I kept wishing it was more detailed, strange as that sounds, just because it would be nice to have a comprehensive description of what we're seeing that particularly becomes important later on when the findings of the medical examiner challenged. And I would just be curious if you're out there, if you're a medical examiner, if you're someone who works in this area, take a look at these autopsies. Let me know if you think they don't seem as lengthy or detailed as maybe you would expect in this kind of case.
- [49:41]
Alice
Yeah, that's a really good point because basically we have all the autopsy right there. And one other thing I'll note about whether multiple people could have done it. Not people point to the binding as well. If you combine them, then, you know, perhaps you can control them, know what they're being bound with. You know, whoever did this didn't bring their own bondage materials. This was a. In some ways you can imagine this was an on the fly way of either containing them or to make sure that they didn't float up. You know, if they're more compact, easier to make sure that they're sucked into the mud that we talked about last time to be able to get away. They're using the shoelaces from the shoes. Where were the shoelaces in the shoes? Now, if you have shoes with shoelaces, you know how it goes. Even if you have a very short, you know, tongue of the sneaker, it still crisscrosses at least a couple times. And if it's an actual sneaker, you know, it crisscrosses multiple times. The majority of the shoelace is going to be within the shoe crisscrossed. And yes, of course, you can pull one side and yank out the entire shoelace. It is possible, but it is a more time consuming bondage material than say, if you just brought your own rope or you brought your own twine or what have you. Zip ties. You know, there's a reason that, you know, there are jokes about buying zip ties because that's very easy to manipulate and use shoelaces. There's at least the taking it out of the shoe and then tying. At least two ties per boy. Six ties total. Six shoes that have to be dark shoelaced. So something to think about as well in terms of timing and what the purpose of tying them is.
- [51:18]
Brett
And yeah, I mean, the tying. Did it happen before the beating or after? I've always thought it happened after. That's always been my opinion. Just because it feels like something to me, this feels like a frenzied attack, vicious, horrific attack. Then they're all dead. Then the person thinks, I've got to cover this up and looks at the shoes and realizes they can. They can tie the boys up a little bit to make them easier to conceal. Otherwise, I mean, here are the things you got to imagine happening. If it's one person, let's just say it's one person, you know, viciously beating one boy. You know, let's assume there's no animal predation. Just assume it's all the person. Viciously beating, stabbing, you know, forced oral sex, all these things. And the other two are just there. Then move on to the next one. Then move on to the next one. Now, look, flight or fight is actually only two of the Fs freeze is the other one, right? And people freeze in situations like this. And remember, the boys are nude. If they were nude before they were beaten, then maybe that adds to it. They're not wearing any clothes. And as silly as it may think in your mind, some. This is horrible. Why would they be worried about that? I mean, this stuff is primal, right? Like, there's a lot of primal stuff going on here, here. But it is a little difficult to believe, though not impossible, that one person alone did all this.
- [52:41]
Alice
Right. Okay, so to the testimony at trial. So Frank Peretti was the associate medical examiner for the state of Arkansas. He's presented in the documentaries as kind of a bit of a rube, Just like, honestly, everyone else in the case, they portray basically everyone in Arkansas as being a rube. But he did receive his medical degree and then he studied anatomical pathology at Brown University. So hardly a rube. Before beginning his career at the Baltimore Medical Examiner's office, Peretti testified that Michael Moore was bound with black Shoelaces in a hog tied fashion, right arm to right ankle. The injuries to Moore's head were consistent with being struck by an object with a broad surface area, like a log, 4 inches or so in diameter. Other wounds were made by an object the size of a broom handle. Now, Michael had multiple fractures all over his skull and he had defensive wounds on his hands. He also had injuries to his ears and mouth. In Peretti's experience, this was consistent with either being forced to perform oral sex or putting a hand over someone's mouth to keep them quiet. The cause of death was multiple injuries with drowning.
- [53:57]
Brett
And one thing that's already interesting here, so it appears, at least based on Peretti's testimony, and whether Peretti can be believed is debatable, that Michael was struck with two different objects. One's a log, you know, four inches or so in diameter. The other is something the size of a broom handle. Those are not close together. That's a pretty significant size difference. So you would think that he'd get this right. This would be pretty obvious. Another thing that makes you think there is more than one person there, if there are two different weapons being used and not like, you know, somebody could have a gun, a knife and a hammer, right? They get one person to have all those things. It's a little weird if you think they've got, you know, a log in one hand and a broom handle on the other. So that's another thing that leads you to think, feels like maybe there's more than one person involved. Peretti went on to testify about Stevie Branch and all the extensive injuries all down his body. He had a black eye. He had multiple lacerations and cut on his mouth and his gums. And those had extensive bleeding. And he had several bell shaped pattern abrasions on his head and face. And Peretti speculated these wounds had the appearance of a belt buckle. This is something that's become pretty, pretty controversial. So if you look at this and of all the, of all the photographs, this one is probably the one that is the least offensive. You know, if you look at it, you're not gonna. They're a lot worse. But some people say it's a bite mark. It's right over his eye. You know how I feel about bite mark analysis in general. I don't think it's a bite mark belt. Makes sense. It has like, what looks like a cross shaped bruise in the middle of it. So you could imagine that's the, what do we call that, the tongue of the belt, little metal part in the Middle that goes through the belt when you loop it through. There's also people who think it's the butt of a knife. If a knife was used in this crime, you could imagine also using that knife to strike one of the victims. And that that could have left this injury. So that's something we'll talk about more as well. So his entire left ear was bruised. The entire left side of his face had abrasions and scrapes, as well as gouge wounds that terminated in the oral cavity. Like I said, if he was stabbed in the face, it went all the way through his cheek into the oral cavity. Or this could have been predation. And if these wounds were made by a weapon, it was a different one than was used on Michael Moore. Stevie also had similar injuries to his head, and those could have been caused by a log. Now, both Michael and Stevie had what appeared to be possible injuries to the anal cavity, though more likely these were caused by the conditions in which the bodies were hidden. So, you know, anal dilation is something you look for. We talked about this our very first case when we talked about Elisa Lam. We were in the water for a long period of time. You're going to see this kind of stuff. And as we said earlier, Stevie had injuries to his penis, and he died from multiple injuries and drowning.
- [57:01]
Alice
So next he testifies about Christopher Byers. He says that Christopher was bound with one black shoelace and one white shoelace, and his right ear was contused and abraded, and he had abrasions on his face and lips. And he also testified that there were bite marks on the sides of the cheeks inside the mouth. Now, again, back to the bite marks, especially with the conditions of the bodies. He did have black eyes, and the base of his skull was fractured like an eggshell. So, like, shattered. So much so that, as we said from the autopsy, a piece of the skull punched out into the brain. So there was just a hole because the skull had fallen into. You know, your brain is actually in fluid inside your skull. And so there's actually space between your skull and your brain where if you are hit so hard and the. A piece of your skull can actually break off and essentially float inside of your head. He also had multiple cutting wounds on the anal orifice, along with abrasions and lacerations, as we said previously. And this is, you know, said a lot in terms of the fact that Christopher seemed to have been castrated or was castrated. He had the skin overlaying, the shaft of the penis carved off, and the scrotal sac and testes were missing. Around the areas are gouging type wounds. And if you watch his testimony, I mean, he demonstrates what that gouging looks like. He, like, stabs his hand in repeated motions to show what those cuts may have been. There was bruising on the inside of Christopher's thighs, which is consistent with injuries that you normally see in female rape victims. Because, of course, graphically, to get to the sex organs, if you hold someone's legs open in any sort of forceful way, it can leave bruising. And that's kind of an unnatural place for you to normally get bruising, unlike your knees, elbows, places that you normally fall. Now, there were wounds and bruising on the backs of Christopher's legs that could have come from being struck by a piece of wood. Imagine trying to take someone's legs out. That's kind of what he testified to behind his legs. That could have been consistent with being hit, hit in the back of the legs. Now, unlike the other boys, Christopher did not drown. He died from blood loss and his horrendous beatings. Now, Peretti said the injuries to the three boys were fairly consistent across all of them, despite Byers seeming getting the brunt of it all with wounds to the mouth and ears consistent with forced oral sex or some sort of grabbing around the head. And all were beaten severely.
- [59:50]
Brett
And look, you know, the bruising to the inside of the thighs is really interesting because, you know, obviously a turtle didn't do that. That is not animal predation. And the fact that he has that bruising and then he also has the wounds, the genital area, it lends itself to something happened to him while he was still alive and it was done by somebody, not something. Like I said, we're going to talk about that a lot more later, especially with the bruising.
- [60:24]
Alice
And he is the one who did not drown. So he was dead by the time or close to dead, at least when he went into the water. If it were predation, it wouldn't have caused that bruising because his blood wasn't pumping anymore. So that's particularly interesting because he's the only one in the autopsy report where drowning is not the cause of death or one of the causes of death.
- [60:45]
Brett
Now, obviously, all of this depends on whether or not you believe Peretti. And we talked about Peretti. He has pretty good credentials, but he wasn't board certified. And as a matter of fact, when he took his board certification test, he didn't pass it. Now, you have multiple opportunities to take it. He didn't take it Again, and I believe in the post conviction proceedings he cited like family reasons for that. It doesn't go into detail, but what I imagine is that studying for those is a very difficult and time consuming thing. And if you don't need them and you already failed once, maybe you feel like it's not worth going through it again. But nevertheless, that is something that is cited to as a reason to doubt Peretti. And something else he does in one of these trials also makes you doubt him. Before we get to that, I will note there is no semen detected anywhere on the boys. There's no anal trauma one might expect if they had been raped. And there's no evidence of strangulation, either manually or with an item. That's important because in one of Jesse Misskeli's confessions, as we will discuss in detail, he says at one point that the boys were choked or one of the boys was choked with a stick. That didn't happen. So not to go ahead and spoil it for you, but that part of his confession isn't true. Now, during Damien's trial, something astonishing happens. So we've talked about time of death before, especially junk science. You know, it's in my view, you know, you write all the angry emails you want. I'm not saying there aren't things you can look at to give you some general idea. If someone you know died a day ago, a week ago, a month ago, a year ago, something like that. And if you have certain things, like the last time their phone turned on and another thing maybe about their body, I think you can come up with a time of death. But when, for instance, you have some boys who were submerged in water for half a day and then were laid on the ditch bank for several hours before the coroner arrived, I think trying to find a time of death is sort of absurd. And apparently Peretti thought the same thing because at least in Jesse's trial where he testified that he could not give a time of death, but in the later trial with Damien and Jason, all of a sudden, not only does he give one, but it's actually pretty specific and very strange. He gives it as between 1 and 5am, which is impossible. There's no way. There's no way that these boys were killed between 1 and 5am I mean, this is like if you believe that you're off in some strange conspiracy land, I don't even know where you're at. But he gives this time of death and it's sort of a shock to everyone, especially Dan Stidham, who's like, wait a second. I can tell you for certain that Jesse Misskelley wasn't anywhere near the swamp between 1 and 5am and they actually use this as a basis for an appeal, which fails though. Pretty significant change. I don't know why he did this. And Pareti's sort of behavior throughout was strange. You know, like there were times where he wouldn't share information with the police, the prosecutors, or he was keeping it very close to the chest. And it's almost like because it was three boys, he really wanted to make sure that it wasn't leaked or disseminated improperly. And I don't know, it's just very strange. But this in particular was just a weird event. And it was one of those things that when it happens, it makes you kind of question everything else you hear from him. Because if he can so radically shift from can't give you a time of death to I'm going to give you a time of death which is entirely inconsistent with everything we know about the crime. I don't know. That automatically makes me wonder about him and about what he is telling us. Okay, so this has been a difficult episode. We're going to do one more thing. We're going to leave you on that and we'll come back to some of the more interesting things later that are a little less gruesome. So like I said, we're doing this autopsy thing today. We're going to do a longer episode, at least one episode on the animal predation theory. And we're also going to have an expert who's going to come in and tell us what they think about all this stuff because we don't know we're talking about. But before we sign off for today, I do want to talk about one thing that isn't discussed often, which is strange to me, not that it's never discussed, but it's usually only discussed in sort of fringe theories. Like people who have weird theories about the case will bring this up, but otherwise you don't hear much. And that's Stevie's stomach contents. So Stevie had green matter in his stomach indicating that he had eaten something within a few hours before his death. Now, remember, he probably, unless you think Pareti's right, and I guess the boys were kidnapped, taken somewhere, maybe fed, then murdered, then brought back to the location. Let's assume that that didn't happen. If that didn't happen, then we got the murders happening. I think no earlier than seven. I think we said between seven and nine was our generous timeline. Maybe A little bit earlier. Certainly not any later than that. The last time they would have eaten, certainly anything green would have been probably at lunch, at school. And this, the stomach contents, if it were from lunch, shouldn't be where it is. So what exactly does this mean? Well, there's something interesting that happened that day. Stevie's mom had left green beans out for him to eat. Now I want you to recall something we talked about all the way back when we were talking about the timeline. Pam had told Stephie that if he wasn't home by 4:30, he'd be grounded. And we said it is so strange that it's 7 o' clock, 7:30 whenever it was and he hasn't come home. And it's like, what in the world? Why did he never come home? Well, it's possible maybe he did come home. Maybe he came home and had something to eat. Maybe he ate some of those green beans. So that would mean. And now we're firmly in the air of speculation, but let's just think this through for a second. Could Stevie have gone home when he was supposed to go home, had some green beans and seen his stepfather, Terry Hobbs, and said, can I go back out and ride bikes, my friends? And Terry said, yes. Is that a possibility of something that could have happened? Now one thing, according to David Jacoby, Hobbs told him when he went over to his house that Stevie was out riding his bikes with friends and that he needed to be back before dark. That is different from what Pam said. Pam said, be home by 4:30. Did Terry Hobbs actually see Stevie that night? And if so, why did he never say so? So here's exactly how Jacoby described it. I'm going to read it to you so you hear what he says. And this once again, the problem with this, nobody talked to either of these jokers for 15 years, right? So give that. So Jacoby says, okay, I want to say on that day, Terry had come by my house, maybe like 5:30, 6:00 clock, and he'd been over several times. We play guitar together and he'd come over and I believe he had his little daughter with him. Now that is accurate because he did have his daughter with him. And he says he had his daughter with him when he went over to Jacoby's. He will tell you he was looking for Stevie. Jacoby says he wasn't worried about Stevie. He came over to play guitar. He says, we played the guitar for a while and he got up and he said he had to go see if Stevie was home. And the Conversation came up, I believe I said, where is Stevie? And he said he was out riding his bike that his grandpa had bought him, which Stevie did have a new bike that his grandfather had bought him. It's been so long ago, you know, it may not be in the right order, but I know he did come over around 5:30 or 6:00 clock and we played the guitar for a while and then he said he had to go. And Stevie was supposed to come by before dark. I think it was about. Yeah, it was about this time of year. It got dark around 8 o' clock or so and he said he told him to get back before dark. Now Jacoby would say that they played guitar for at least an hour. So that would put Terry Hobbs at Jacoby's till at least 6:30 and maybe much later. So this is sort of multifaceted here because number one, it could give Terry Hobbs the alibi he's been looking for because maybe he was with Jacoby when the murders would have happened. But the other possibility is if you think Terry Hobbs was involved, that this is the genesis of it, that he actually had spoken to Stevie, that he knew where Stevie was going because he talked to him about it and that after he left Jacoby's, Stevie didn't come home so he went to find him. And the rest happens. Right. Like if that's your theory for Terry Hobbs, the rest happens. But I'll give you another possibility. What if Terry Hobbs just feels really bad about this? Remember Dana Moore and Dawn Moore? Dawn blamed herself, that is Dana's daughter blamed herself for years because she was the one who told Michael that he could play. And you've got Terry Hobbs. What if he told Stevie that he could play and has never wanted to admit it? This would fix a lot of things for the timelines. It would make everything make more sense. It's something I'm really curious about, but I don't think you can just hand wave away this green matter in Stevie's stomach. Is it possible it has some other explanation? Absolutely it is. But it's quite a coincidence that he has this in his stomach and they're green beans sitting on the table and he was supposed to be home by 4:30 and he wasn't home until much later. In fact, it was getting dark when the murders happened.
- [70:27]
Alice
Yeah, this is the first time that I've heard something that would explain the 4:30. Right. Why he'd still be out and not not be looked at in 4:30. They I don't believe based on the timeline they were in any danger quite yet. And so at the very least, danger maybe of being grounded if not being home. But that's a three hour difference there that is unaccounted for. And that's a great point of. You know, we always say that oftentimes when we have witnesses who lie, it may be for completely self interested reasons that have nothing to do with the case, just to distance themselves or feelings of guilt or whatnot. But yeah, I don't know. The screen contents is very, very interesting.
- [71:05]
Brett
It's also possible Stevie went home, had some green beans, never saw anybody and was like, well, I came home by 4:30 and then left.
- [71:11]
Alice
That's fair too.
- [71:12]
Brett
I mean that's also a possibility. But it feels possible.
- [71:15]
Alice
Maybe he ate the green beans to prove he'd been home. Like a stamp, like, no, I promise I was home. Look, I normally wouldn't just come home and eat green beans, but I did it so you'd know I was home.
- [71:25]
Brett
And then, you know, the green beans. He's now disappeared. Pam, you know they're calling the police. Pam's first thought when they call the police is he's dead. They get home, they clean up the leftover food and never think about it, right? Like you wouldn't, in that state of mind, you wouldn't even necessarily notice whether anybody had come home and had some green beans or not. That might not even be something that crosses your mind. But like I said, not something that gets discussed very often, but I actually think might be really important for the timeline and everything that happened. Okay, well this has been a tough episode. The next couple are gonna be tough too, so just prepare yourself. But all this is so important, right? I mean, this is all we have. There is so little evidence in this case, so little physical evidence in this case. All we have are the bodies and the injuries that are done to the bodies and what the bodies can tell us. So that's why we spent a whole episode on this and we're going to spend more time on it. Even though it's something I wish we didn't have to talk about at all. And I know you feel the same way. Well, I don't really feel like answering a question tonight, so we're gonna do that. This has been a downer of an episode, but if you have thoughts, if you're someone who is trained in this area and you have thoughts on the autopsies or anything we discussed, shoot us an email. Prosecutorspodmail.com Prosecutors pod for all your social media. You can follow us on Twitter. Join us on the gallery to discuss this case and other cases. We're on Instagram, we're on TikTok. We're all over the place. If you would like to watch us record these episodes, you can do that by joining Patreon for as little as $3 a month. If you're not somebody who wants to watch them recorded, but you'd like to get them early and ad free, that is also a benefit of Patreon. And you get everything From Patreon for 3 bucks. You can join a higher tier if you want to. It's a terrible decision. It's not worth anything. So, you know, consider your pocketbook. All right, Alice, is there anything else you want to talk about before we sign off?
- [73:19]
Alice
No. Thanks for sticking with us on these. And, you know, for four, these boys, loved ones, I'm sorry that you had to learn about these horrendous injuries at trial. What a way to, to know how your loved ones died. But again, the fact that they, at least two of the mothers found out at trial how their boys died, I think says a lot about what was actually out in the room of Mill and what was actually publicly known at the time. And so that's something to keep in mind as we continue to go through all of this.
- [73:48]
Brett
All right, guys, we'll be back next week for more on this case. But until then, I'm Brett.
- [73:56]
Alice
And I'm Alice.
- [73:57]
Brett
And we are the prosecutors.
- [74:20]
Alice
I do like it whenever, you know, on the Apple podcast, they list as a co host whenever you have a guest. And whenever it said like, nancy Grace is the co host, I was like, all right, screenshot.
- [74:31]
Brett
This works.
- [74:32]
Alice
It works.
- [74:34]
Prosecutors Ad
Okay, you ready?
- [74:35]
Alice
I don't, I, I don't know why I can't find the highlighting. It didn't get removed, did it?
- [74:39]
Brett
No, I'm looking at it right now.
- [74:41]
Alice
I don't know. I don't. I now scrolled past it like on.
- [74:44]
Brett
My page 30 something.
- [74:45]
Alice
Sorry. There it is, There it is. Just got. All these terms are real. Really going to test my emotions and my pronunciation.
- [74:54]
Brett
Yeah, we're going to be saying a lot of things that mean something up to somebody.
- [75:22]
Alice
Sam.
- [75:53]
Brett
But until then, I'm Brett.
- [75:57]
Alice
And I'm Alice.
- [75:58]
Brett
And this is the prosecutors. Is that what I'm supposed to say? I say, we are the prosecutors. Right. Don't say, this is the prosecutors or we're the prosecutors. I can't even remember. I've done this 300 something times.
- [76:08]
Alice
And we are. And we are.
- [76:10]
Brett
And we are the prosecutors. Because you say. And this is because we say it's.
- [76:14]
Alice
The prosecutor's legal brace.
- [76:15]
Brett
Okay?
- [76:16]
Alice
Which. Okay, that's like a book. Whereas we are people.
- [76:18]
Brett
And we're people.
- [76:19]
Prosecutors Ad
There you go.
- [76:20]
Alice
This is what happens when we have to read these horrendous autopsies.
- [76:24]
Brett
We lose.
- [76:24]
Alice
We lose our minds.
- [76:54]
Narrator
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