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- [00:00]
Lily Chiu
Searching for a romantic summer getaway escape with Rich Girl Summer, the new Audible original from Lily Chiu, the exquisitely talented Philippa Hsu. Returning to narrate her fifth Lily Chu title. This time Philippa is joined by her real life husband, Steven Pasquale. Set in Toronto's wealthy cottage country, AKA the Hamptons of Canada, Rich Girl Summer follows the story of Valerie, a down on her luck event planner posing as a socialite's long lost daughter while piecing together the secrets surrounding a mysterious family and falling deeper and deeper in love with the impossibly hard to read and infuriatingly handsome family assistant, Nico. Caught between pretending to belong and unexpectedly finding where she truly fits in, Valerie learns her summer is about to get far more complicated than she ever planned. She's in over her head and head over heels. Listen to Rich Girl Summer now on audible. Go to audible.com richgirlsomer from the waters.
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Brett
Of Lake Erie, 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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Lily Chiu
To a nondescript office building in Richmond, Virginia, home to a 700 million dollar fund for children with special needs.
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Brett
If there was a cliche list of how to blow money that you just stole very quickly, this guy did all of them.
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Lily Chiu
To the ski slopes of Salt Lake City, where a former Olympic snowboarder landed on the FBI's most wanted list.
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Brett
Ryan James wedding is one of those interesting Norcos who have had two very successful careers, one legal and one illegal.
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Lily Chiu
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 Sarah James McLaughlin. Join me for a new season of the opportunist on May 19th. Follow now wherever you get your podcasts.
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Brett
Foreign I'm Brett.
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Alice
And I'm Alice.
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Brett
And we are the Prosecutors. Today on the Prosecutors, we review some alternative suspects in the West Memphis three. Sam. Hello everybody, and welcome to this episode of the Prosecutors. I'm Brett and I'm joined as always by my trooper of a co host, Alice.
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Alice
Hi, Brett Trooper. Because you know what? We are nearing the end. Can you believe it? Can you believe it?
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Brett
We have trooped through this.
- [03:31]
Alice
We truly have trooped through this. So have y'. All. It's really not us. We talk all day long. You guys, I don't know, some, some people may have dropped off like six months ago. So welcome back if that's who you are. We've missed you. But truly we said when we started this that we were going to take our time and boy have we.
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Brett
We never lied to you. That's what we told you.
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Alice
But with that said, there's a long list of alternative suspects. Obviously this is partly why this case has drawn so much attention, is because many have raised alternative suspects and alternative timelines, et cetera. But with that we have a challenge today, Brett, we're going to do all the alternative suspects in one episode. Are we going to do it?
- [04:10]
Brett
Yeah, we're going to do it. And the thing is you probably could spend an episode on each one of these suspects, but I don't really care to do that. So we're going to go through, we're going to hit the highlights. There's plenty of resources out there for you to look at. And look, I think we're going to give you all the information you need. And obviously none of these people were charged so there's limited information on them. It's not like we have trials for instance, or multiple documentaries on them or anything. But we're going to go through these folks and see what you think. A couple things I wanted to touch on before we get started on that. Number one, we keep getting people who email us and say that we're getting Wicca and Satanism wrong because they're really these like nature religions, all sorts of stuff. As I hoped we had pointed out, but maybe we did not. Yes, there is an organized religion called the Church of Satan. It is not what we're talking about. There's Wicca which Damien was interested in. That's not what we're talking about. Not telling you that the authorities in 1993 were that discerning that they would be differentiating between Satanism, its various parts and Wicca. But what we're talking about is this idea that there are these self styled self Satanist people who worship Satan. Like not Satanism the religion, but worship the devil from Christian theology. People like Richard Ramirez, who I don't know, I think he was just messed up in the head. But at the time he presented himself as a sort of like Hail Satan type. Anyways, this may not even exist. But when you discuss Satanism in this context, it's not the Church of Satan, it's not Wicca. It is this sort of idea that there are people who are worshiping the devil. Like if you've seen Rosemary's Baby for instance, like that kind of Satanism. That's first thing. Second thing we talked about in Jesse Misskeli's Bible confession, he talks about the squeeze injury that was mentioned in his trial. I have Dr. Peretti's testimony that I pulled for you guys. He says, well, these injuries could be from oral sex. They could be from also a squeeze, a very tight squeeze. So it's possible that Jesse Misskelley got that from that line of Peretti's testimony. One thing I want to point out though, if you think that Jesse Misskelley in his Bible confession is just pulling from things he learned in the trial and using it to craft his confession, when he mentioned that one of the boys was beaten by a stick, the police actually asked him was it one of the sticks introduced at trial. And if he's just pulling from that testimony and what he observed, you'd think he would just say, yeah, absolutely, that one. Right. They show him the bunch of sticks, he picks one of them. He doesn't say that. He says he wasn't paying attention. He doesn't know. So I don't know how believable it is that Jesse was really taking in all this information from all these different witnesses and using it to craft his statement. But he could have been. And this information was presented at trial.
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Alice
Thank you for pointing that out. That that may have come from that. Those of you who had followed trials that have been live streamed, there have been several that have been live streamed in the recent year, really? The Murdaugh trial, the Karen Reid trial. So those of you who've sat through all of those weeks and weeks and weeks of testimony, especially when it comes to experts and medical experts, technical experts, know that it's pretty boring and it is not unbelievable that you could be sitting through court. And a lot of it goes over your head. There's a reason actually why US Attorneys get live rough transcripts every day of trial. Because even though we're sitting in trial, there's so much going on. There's a lot that may be missed, even though I'm sitting in trial. So I'm not saying that these things could not have been picked up by Jesse, but there's also a point to note where someone says, ah, that was said at one point during a weeks long trial. That must be where it's gotten. Just in reality, there is a lot presented at trial and it's not presented in a storytelling way. It is presented in a pretty dry manner, which is question, answer, question, answer without a conversation. So he could have picked it up, but something to note on that.
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Brett
Yeah. And look that's just up to you, what you think. I mean, somebody was making some argument on Facebook, and I was like, yeah, you believe what you want to, because that's really where we're kind of at with this case. Like we're giving you the information. If you think he picked it up at trial, maybe he did. I can't tell. You didn't. I think it's a little unlikely, but nevertheless, the information was there. Okay, alternative suspects. Let's get into this, and let's start with a name that you have heard many times, one that you haven't heard, but a name that you've heard many times, that takes up a lot of space in the alternative suspects, and that's L.G. hollingsworth and his friend Richard Simpson. So police were interested in speaking to these two soon after the murders. On May 16, the West Memphis police and police in Kentucky attempted to locate the two men before realizing they were headed back to West Memphis. So shortly after the murders, they had left the area and gone on this trip to Kentucky, I guess, is part of some sort of ministry. And in fact, the vehicle Richard was driving was registered to Tri State Word Ministries. Now, according to Charlie Suggs, who's someone who spoke to police, the two of them were devil worshippers. When their car was searched, police found hand tools, plastic ties, and handcuffs. Not a great start for these two. And as I said, right after the murders, the two men had left Arkansas, but for around six weeks before returning. And as you guys will see in a future episode with Julia Cowley, we talked about this. This is one of the things that investigators look for. If you leave the area shortly after the murder, it is suspicious. A lot of murderers will do that to sort of get away from the scene of the crime. So right after the murders, Simpson was given a polygraph, and he passed it. But the polygraph examiner noted that he appeared to be attempting to countermeasures. So if you know how to do polygraphs, this is another reason I don't really trust them. There are ways to mess with the results. So basically, if you can elevate your heart rate, elevate your breathing, stuff like that, during the control question. So they're like, what is your name? One way supposedly people do this is you can poke yourself. So people will put, like, tacks in their shoes or something, and they'll, like, put their toe on the tack when they're asked what their name is. And that elevates their heart rate, makes their breathing go up, because it's like pain, right? You Elevate during the control questions. And then when you lie, you also are naturally elevated, but this time you're not doing anything artificial. So it looks like a baseline, right? It looks like the baseline and you can do that. And this polygrapher thought that he was attempting to do that. Obviously trying countermeasures is a bad sign. Now, according to Richard Simpson, he claimed that LG had called him on Wednesday, the night of the murders, but that Richard didn't see him that night. This was apparently confirmed by a Hungarian border because this is the West Memphis Three case. So of course there's a Hungarian border. He was living with Richard Simpson. This guy's name was Laszlo Benyo. And according to everybody, LG then spent the rest of the weekend with Richard. Now, Richard was 49 and LG was only 17. And this caused the West Memphis police to speculate that Richard was contributing to LG's delinquency. But they didn't do anything about it. He was never charged. That might be because Simpson also happened to be the city of West Memphis building inspector. I don't know that building inspector is a position of great authority, but nevertheless he's this official in West Memphis. But the police are looking at him, they're looking at LG. On May 10, the police confiscate a knife and sheath from LG. LG said that the last time he'd been in Robin Hood woods was January or February of 1993. He claimed that he didn't know the boys and that he didn't know that they had been killed until his aunt told him. LG pointed the finger at Damien for the murders. On May 11, 1993, he told police that he was with Richard Simpson on Wednesday night from 5:30 to 9:30, the period that is important for the murders. He then went home and talked to Dominique tear at around 10 o' clock about the problems she was having with Damien. Because everybody's alibi involves talking on the phone with each other. The problem though is Richard had already given a statement to the police backed up by Laszlo Benyo, in which he did not see LG that night. So his alibi doesn't hold water.
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Alice
I think it's worth just pointing out that we noted before that Vicki Hutchinson spending a lot of time with Jesse, who was 17 at the time, was a little bit strange, like him spending the night there. We have a 17 year old LG Hollingsworth spending up to six weeks out of West Memphis. So like on a trip together with Richard Simpson at 49, I note this not necessarily to point fingers at guilt, but those are interesting scenarios and situations. And what have we said about when people lie to police? They may lie because they're trying to lie about their involvement in a crime, or they may lie because of some other thing that's totally personal, that has nothing to do with the murders to cover up whatever's happening. I'm not saying anything may be happening. I'm just noting that these are interesting scenarios. Like what are they doing for six weeks out of the state together? Why that night? So take it for what it's worth, there seems to be some lying about a potential alibi here. But also there are many factors that could be affecting what they're saying.
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Brett
I just want to point out, my understanding is they were supposed to be gone for six weeks. They weren't actually gone for six weeks because at some point they learned that the West Memphis police wanted to talk to them. And so they turned around and came back. And so. But where they were going to go for six weeks, same question applies, right?
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Alice
So LG would later revise his story. Kind of has to, because it's been debunked. In his new story, he says that he went over to. He went over to Domini teare's house around 1 o' clock where he saw her and Damien, and he said he stayed for around 20 minutes before heading over to his aunt's house. His aunt, remember as Narlene Hollingsworth, was supposed to take him job hunting. Now, LG would eventually land a job at a fast food restaurant and his aunt would also get into a car wreck that same day. Now, because Narlene had been in a car wreck, LG walked to his other aunt's house to see if she could give him a ride. Now, LG says that he saw Domini and Damien arguing. Domini went her own way and Damien told LG that his mother was going to come pick him up. LG said this was on the corner where Jason Baldwin lived. Now, LG got a ride home at about 5:00 then he hung out at Richard's house until 8:30. He explained that Richard appeared to be on drugs that night, which might explain why, even though he says he was there with Richard from 5:30 to 8:30, Richard doesn't remember. So after this, LG said he went to the laundromat where his aunt Dixie Hubbard worked. Narlene Hollingsworth would later tell police that LG had asked her to say that Richard dropped him off there, but Dixie said it wasn't Richard's car and. And Richard himself denied taking him. Narlene would also tell police that LG knew what happened to the boys before anyone else. Fogelman pressed LG on this point, telling him that he was digging a hole for himself. But LG was adamant. Interestingly, in the middle of this discussion, the prosecutor goes off the record for seven minutes. And what happened during this off the record sidebar is unknown. After the three teenagers were arrested, LG told people he would be the next one arrested.
- [16:19]
Brett
And he had reason to be concerned. A tip had come in to the West Memphis police that Damien and Domini had killed the boys and that LG had assisted laundering the muddy clothes for them. This is somewhat consistent with LG arriving at the Laundromat in a car that could not be identified. Now, interestingly, the tip named Dominique as Dominique. This is a misnomer, I guess, based on what Dominique told me, but it's also what Darlene Hollingsworth called her. And you may remember back when we talked about Narlene Hollingsworth in the sighting, in the report, it keeps saying Dominique, and I wondered, did they just write it down wrong? Well, I went back and listened to the tape, and she absolutely calls her Dominique, which I find fascinating. I'm not sure what it means, but it's weird.
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Alice
You know what? I keep thinking about this. I'm like, okay, why would your aunt not know your name or call you something else? But then your own life story actually helps inform this, right? Because your name is Brett. And we always laugh that there are people who leave us one star reviews who've clearly never listened to this podcast because they call Brett Brent, like with an n. And I was like, laughing about it. And Brett's like, well, to be fair, like, my entire family, like extended family, calls me Brent.
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Brett
For whatever reason someone calls me Brent, I just go with it. It just. That end just gets stuck in.
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Alice
And you know them very well. This is not like family you never see, right? You, like, grew up with them in the same town, right? Which is not unlike Narlene and Dominique or Dominique. So I just wonder if you are the perfect situation. I never met someone like that, but here we are.
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Brett
That's possible. I hadn't even thought about that. But that's. That's a good point. I mean, Dominique is a little weird. It's a little strange. I'm not. Not to say anything negative about her name, but it's just a little unusual. Whereas Dominique is a more popular name. And so maybe you just sort of naturally Say that when you're saying her name.
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Alice
That's a great point. That Dominique is a stranger name. Like, doesn't roll off the tongue. Britney's name is not like a common name. Her grandmothers called her the wrong name for the first year of her life.
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Brett
They keep calling her Britney.
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Alice
Yeah, yeah, exactly. Basically, it's kind of like that. They basically call her Britney when it's Brittany, you know, and so. And it took kind of like a year. And they knew they were saying it wrong. They couldn't remember how to say it right. And so they just kept calling her, like, Britney instead of Britney, basically. So again, that Dominique is a common name. I still think it's strange, but only strange in the sense that the tip said Dominique. And we know one other person who consistently calls her Dominique who also claims to have seen her that night.
- [18:51]
Brett
The tip further stated that LG's mother would lie for him. And LG's mother had indeed suggested to Dixie that Richard had dropped LG off at the Laundromat, something Dixie knew wasn't true. She had been there. I've always wondered if this tip came from Narlene. I don't know. You know, remember when Narlene gave her on the record tip? She spends most of her time talking about lg. She mentions seeing Dominique and Damien on the service road, but she glosses over that. The vast majority of it she spends on LG Hollingsworth. Interestingly, on the same day police were interviewing Damien about lg, they were also interviewing LG about Damien. And LG relayed a story to the police about a conversation he had had with Damien. And here's what he said. And this is in his recorded conversation with the police. Damien asked me, could I kill somebody? And I says, I don't think I could kill them unless they did something really bad to me. I said, I'd probably hurt them bad first. And then I says, why you ask? He says, because I'm thinking of killing somebody. Which, by the way, is just exactly what Damian would say. I mean, back to the whole edgelord. Damian, you know, he's saying he's gonna kill somebody. Why are you thinking of killing somebody? He says, they're effing with me. That's what he told me. I says, if there's some man, then you just go and you beat his ass or you get your ass whooped. If it's some little teenager, you tell his parents or you call the police. I say, you don't need to do that, because that's not cool. You know, you'll go to jail for that. Which I just try to imagine this conversation. You got LG, you got Damon and. And Damon. And LGs like, murdering people isn't cool, man. You can go to prison for that. So good advice from lg. And he keeps walking and stuff, of course, because they're walking as Damian was always walking. And he says, just say that you would kill somebody. I says, okay, say I would kill somebody. He says, how would you do it? I says, well, it depends. He says, what do you mean, it depends? I said, it depends on what they did to me to make me kill them. I says, I'd probably put a bullet in their head if not, I'd probably break both of their arms and make them wish they was dead. And I says, well, what's up? Or, you know, would you kill somebody? And he says, yeah. He says, I'm thinking of killing somebody, is what he told me. I said, okay. I says, you don't need to do that. That's gonna F your life up. I says, it will mess you up altogether. He says, well, like that. And we left it at that. And we kept walking for a little way more. And he says, if I was gonna kill somebody, I would tie him up, beat him, and F them. That way they would know that I'm not effing with nobody. You know, I'm a straight up kind of guy. So that's their conversation.
- [21:40]
Alice
So lg went on to say that he saw Damien on May 6, the day after the murders. LG said that Damien was nervous and that he and Domini had a fight. He then said. And I asked him, I said, hey. I says, I don't know why, but something made me ask him. I asked him, hey, you know, we were sitting talking. I asked him what's going on between him and his girlfriend. And he says, nothing. You know, it's a bunch of bullshit. And I said, okay. And then I said, are you still thinking of killing somebody like that? He says, no, I ain't. It's kind of tooken care of. Don't worry about it, you know, it's okay. He said, you know, kind of fast, you know, I didn't catch it at first. I thought about what he said, and then that's when I realized that's what he said, you know, he said, it's tooken care of. So on March 8, 1994, police would interview Timothy Cotton Cotten, would claim that he was locked up in the county jail with Hollingsworth. And Hollingsworth told Him that he and Damian had hung out at COLT meetings together and killed animals. These poor animals. In this town, there are no animals left. No animals left at this point. My goodness. And I'm not making light of that. I'm pointing out that, again, there's a lot of lore out there that the police are just, like, making up all this, like, animal sacrifice. This is coming from a lot of different witnesses, and this is yet another example. So Cotton says that the meetings were initially in Lakeshore, but they eventually moved to the old railroad bridge just out of town. And LG talked about how an older man was the leader of the cult. And according to various reports, this man was known as Lucifer, though police have never found this Lucifer. LG Told Cotten that when news reports mentioned a fourth suspect, it was him and that he had the knife that belonged to Damien and the other killers. So although LG denied ever talking to Cotten about this, he would admit saying that he would be arrested next. If that's not wild enough, the story gets even more wild. LG supposedly told Cotton that John Mark Byers had a contract out on him for a dope debt that he hadn't paid, but that to satisfy the contract, LG decided to take it out on Christopher. He asked Damien to beat up Christopher, and Damian told LG he'd gotten him real good. And the two other boys that were there. Damian said that after the killing, he had someone pick him up in a green and white van. So the investigators who took this statement believed that Cotten was just looking for some sort of deal to dismiss his own charges and that none of this could be substantiated. Now, interestingly, John Mark Byers was involved in the drug trade, and he had worked as an informant for the police. So that's not completely untethered to some type of truth. The fact that this interview occurred in March of 1994 is also a testament, though, to the police and their ongoing investigation of other suspects and in particular, LG So whatever LG Knew, unfortunately, we can't follow up. He took everything he knows to the grave. He was killed in a car wreck on October 26, 2001. He was just 25 years old.
- [24:48]
Brett
And LG is popular. Remember, I asked Domini about LG they were cousins, and. And Domini's position was there's no way LG was involved in this. That he just. He said things he shouldn't say. But kind of like Jesse, he wasn't the smartest guy, and maybe he could be led to this kind of Stuff which I thought was interesting, because remember, Dominique thinks the three who were convicted are innocent. That's an opportunity to say, yeah, it could have been him. Much better suspect than the West Memphis three. But she didn't say that. She just said he went involved. LG Will be brought into some of the more salacious rumors, theories, whatever you want to call it, about Terry Hobbs as well. But other than what we've told you, there's a lot of smoke with lg. If no one had ever been convicted of this crime, I think LG Would be on people's radars. And he is someone that people consider to be a top alternative suspect. Then there's James Martin. Now, James Martin might be someone you've never heard of before, but he is an interesting alternative suspect for what he told the police. He has been described as crazy to the police. And he was a registered sex offender. So sort of one of your usual suspects. But the police spoke to him on May 19, 1993. And if you haven't read this interview, which it starts off unrecorded, but at some point the police are like, we got to record this. So they start recording. Check it out. Go to Callahan and read this interview. We're going to go through a lot of it, but it is wild. Essentially, the police are describing Martin as almost a Hannibal Lecter style figure. And their discussion with him is this weird combination interview of a possible suspect. While also gaining information on who they're supposed to be looking for. So we're going to read you some of this. Okay, Mr. Martin, we've been talking for some time. And you're basically giving us your opinions on what kind of person could have done this type of crime. And we've just turned the tape recorder on so that maybe we can learn something from the conversations with your experiences with some of these sexual offenders. Because once again, Martin is a registered sex offender. And Martin explained that the maximum number of people involved in the crime was two. Because if there were more, someone would talk. He Sundays, if all three of us in this room a week ago, I'll say just killed three boys. One of us is going to be upset. One of us is going to be kind of nervous. One of us is going to be saying something. And it's going. We're going to see it on the news, we're going to see it in the papers. It's going to drive us to say something.
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Alice
So he believed one person could have done it. And Martin said that he believed that this began as some sort of game to Gain the kids trust. He said that some child molesters he knew enjoyed tying kids up, though when he was molesting children, he controlled them without needing to tie them up at all. So this was an organized person who knew what he was doing. And he said that the murder was a mistake, something that went wrong, and he had to kill them to keep them quiet. But that wasn't the original intent. He further said that the boys were not killed where they were found. He said the killer was male, between 20 to 30 years, capable of transporting the boys, and that this killer lived within walking distance of the scene and he knew the area well. So that's pretty remarkable. We're not talking. We're not talking about like a behavioral analysis unit, special agent from the FBI. This is a child molester who's like, saying how he thinks the crime was done. So while this is remarkable, it goes on. He says that the bodies were found in a ravine, I guess, or some form of place where they were covered with water. You had multiple people in search of these three boys and nothing was found. I mean, you're saying that they were beaten. My understanding is that they were beaten very drastically. I mean, almost brutally. Amongst the head and various areas of the body, there's going to be a lot of blood. Somewhere along the line, there is going to be some blood. I mean, you can't. No one's going to sit there and tell me you can take and beat up or bust the heads of three boys, and all of them are going to sit up straight and the blood is just going to run out of their bodies. They were laid down somewhere and somewhere they were going to fall off or they were going to be put in something. Now a guy is just not going to bust these three boys and throw them right there. It's just not possible. He's going to want to move the bodies. If I had to take. And I go by the area, you know, thinking that, you know, my head because, you know, I mean, if you have to think like this man, you have to be a sick individual. And I was myself sick, so I can think like this guy. I would say the last person that season was somewhere around Goodwin. This place could be in the fields in that area. And this is within, say, 200ft of where the bodies were found. You'll find the place where the murders took place. You will find the area. I would say that 90% of it would be in a secluded area.
- [29:46]
Brett
Yeah, and it makes a lot of sense.
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Alice
It makes a lot of sense. He's talking like an. Oh, and like we could be a. He could be a behavioral analysis if he's not the one who did it.
- [29:57]
Brett
I mean, it really seriously. It's like Hannibal Lecter. It's like they're sitting down with Hannibal Lecter and he's like laying it out for him. And, you know, he makes some good points. I mean, we've been assuming, and I think most likely the boys were killed there because why would you move them? It was kind of open. It was a pretty open place to commit a triple homicide. He's saying, no, you would have done it somewhere secluded. You would have done it somewhere very close by in a secluded part of the woods. Or there's this whole theory we're going to talk about when we get to theories that they actually were killed in the sewers and sort of the manhole theory anyways, that they're killed a few hundred feet away and then they're moved. And that all the evidence of the crime, the blood, DNA, hair, fingerprints, like everything you would find is somewhere else. And I guess what he's saying is by moving them, you're making it much more difficult on the police because they don't have the actual murder scene. So they're not finding the evidence they would expect. And the police, initially, because there was no blood, like he's saying, thought this must have happened somewhere else. They eventually dropped that theory and went with, no, that would not have been the case. They would have been murdered here. But nevertheless, I mean, this guy, he's just laying this out for the police, basically putting himself in the position of the murderer, using his quote unquote experience as a child molester and telling them what they can expect. And like I said, you need to read this whole thing. But it keeps going, and we're going to read more of it to you. He says, I mean, if this guy, if he was trying to molest these kids, he wants to be kind of a hidden scene. He don't want people to just walk up and say, what the hell is going on here? He wants that isolated location. When you take three individual boys, let's say that one of them didn't want to participate. So the person, they're trying to coerce them, they're starting to get upset. The child starts to get upset. Well, naturally, to say that if one child gets upset, the other one starts to get upset. Because now the children can feel remorse where the perpetrator can't. He can't feel, you know, he's molesting, you know, he has no feelings. So let's say that two of the boys start to get upset and the guy is trying his best to calm them down. It's like, you know, chill out. Well, he gets to be in a threatening situation. He feels to himself that, well, damn if someone catches me, what I'm doing. God. You know, all molesters have stories. They're going to hang you by your balls, your nuts are going to be cut off, you're going to be shot with a pellet gun. Somebody is going to beat the shit out of you. You're going to go to prison. You will be tormented for the rest of your life. So naturally he's going to take an evasive action. He would probably most likely kill all three individuals. Guys, we are so excited to share with you our latest sponsor, Lola Blankets. These blankets are unlike anything you have ever experienced. If you're like me, I love nothing more than laying on the couch, wrapping up in a blanket. Particularly when you know it's a little cool outside, which I know it's summer right now, but the winter is coming. I promise I nothing I love more than relaxing in a nice warm blanket. And Lola blankets are unlike anything you've ever seen. They are number one, huge. You don't have to worry about your significant other stealing the blanket away from you. When you have a Lola blanket, there is enough for everyone. And these are the softest blankets you will ever experience. They are ultra soft, luxury vegan faux fur and a signature four way stretch that sets it apart from anything you've experienced before. And they are machine washable, double hemmed for durability and they are flawless. You don't have to worry about them shedding even after repeated washes. They have tons of different colors and styles. Anything that fits you and it's going to become one of your go to gifts. It's personal, beautiful and something people actually use every day.
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Brett
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- [40:16]
Alice
So Martin goes on to say that police probably wouldn't find evidence of sexual assault, since a pedophile would know that would leave too much evidence. He suggested oral sex. Maybe. The statement goes on for page after page, and really, it's worth reading. Martin had multiple alibi witnesses, and he was never considered a suspect. They did, however, of course, conduct a polygraph test on him, and the results were mixed. He indicated deception on what bound the boys and who killed them, but not on whether he was involved in the murders. In the Post interview, he explained that he surmised the boys were bound with shoelaces as logic told him the killer would use something already there as to who killed the boys. He said it was the father of Stevie Branch, who is Terry Hobbs. This is fascinating because we know that he is a popular alternative suspect now. In fact, he's kind of the default alternative suspect now. But at that time, no one thought that Terry Hobbs was involved with or that Stevie Branch's dad specifically, you know, was involved. So even though we now hear Terry Hobbs as an alternative suspect, not at the time that Martin was interviewed. I'll say this, though, based on the narrative of what he's giving, a lot of what he's saying sounds very plausible, right? So the fact that he's thinking of these things when he has all these alibi, that he's probably not the one to do it, maybe it's not that surprising. He would also think that it's one of the parents.
- [41:51]
Brett
Why. Why do you pick Terry Hobbs? I mean, this guy. Look, unless either Jesus was his alibi or he is on camera somewhere, I would be looking into this guy intensely.
- [42:06]
Alice
The shoelaces, the shoelaces. Nobody else got the shoelaces right?
- [42:10]
Brett
Like, he's like, he doesn't tell them that. Then he fails the polygraph on how they were bound, and he's like, yeah, shoelaces, duh. Like, it's just wild because. I'm sorry, that's not intuitive that you would just intuit that they tied them with shoelaces.
- [42:25]
Alice
But he does, you know why? Actually, that you wouldn't necessarily intuit. I mean, I'm trying to think back to what I. What shoes I wore back in the 90s. But, like, my kids are about this age and they do not wear shoelaces because it's Too hard for them to tie. We still do, like, slip on shoes and we do Velcro shoes or like the fake laces that are always tied. And this is a guy who spends a lot of time with or likes to spend a lot of time with kids. Right? So I don't think it's like, necessarily, of course it's shoelaces because certainly no one else was like, of corsets, shoelaces. And in fact, a lot of people got it wrong as to what they were bound with.
- [43:02]
Brett
And, wow, this case. I don't know what to tell you about this case, but just the stuff like this guy alone in another case would be endlessly fascinating. You know, he would spend so much time trying to figure out whether or not he was involved in this case. He's just sort of a random person. Unless you've read Callahan, you've probably never heard of him because he doesn't come up much. And we were going through the documents and come to this report, and it's like, what in the world? Who is this guy? But he's got all this information. He has some really interesting ideas. But because he has this alibi, he just sort of falls away as a potential suspect. But he's definitely somebody we wanted to mention. Okay, a couple others. Christopher Morgan and Brian Holland. We're not going to spend a lot of time on them because we discussed Morgan and Holland in detail in an earlier episode. You may recall. These are the two guys who went to California shortly after the murders. One of their sisters lived there. They were interrogated in California. They did know some details of the murders, including how the boys were tied and how they were found. And Morgan did know the Hobbs family. They both failed polygraphs and Morgan sort of confessed, though his confession is very much the typical false confession. Just the way it comes out, what he says, he immediately recants everything like that. So they are intriguing suspects. We did want to mention them. They also have a pretty solid alibi. They were with someone out of town that day. The police, even though they were interested in them both because they left and everything else I said eventually determined that they didn't have anything to do with it. And other than the things I mentioned, there's not a lot of evidence against them. Frankly, the thing that Morgan and Holland are most indicative of is the details that were in the public. Right. Like, I can't point to you a place where specific details were. Like in the newspaper, for instance. But clearly people were talking about some of this stuff. They knew exactly how the boys were Tied. They knew it was wrist, ankle, wrist ankle, which most people didn't know. So they are interesting. You can't discount them. As I said, we talked about them before, so. And we went into pretty good detail about them before, so we're not going to spend a lot of time on them. But we did want to highlight them for you. Once again, if you go to Callahan, you can find all the documents on them. Read the transcripts of the interrogations and everything else. There is another person we wanted to talk about, Richard Cummings. This is someone we also discussed in an earlier episode. You may recall he was a resident of Mayfair Apartments. He was someone who was known to drill holes into the walls and basically was a Peeping Tom. When the police searched his apartment, they did it on a consent search basis. So, number one, they found articles about the boys. They also found he had cut out, like, women from fashion magazines or just like the J.C. penney catalog, that sort of thing. One thing that's interesting, apparently he had a box in his apartment and he would not let the police open it. And the thing about a consent search, it only goes as far as you consent. So if you say you can search the whole place except the bathroom, you can search the whole place, but the bathroom. The police, for whatever reason, did not get a search warrant. I think they should have. I actually think Richard Cummings is a very good suspect because of the location where he lived, the things he was doing. Two things about Richard Cummings, if you Google him and if you sort of fall down this rabbit hole, you will immediately be misled. You will see a photograph of a man in an orange jumpsuit. That person is named Richard Cummings. The that person is a sex offender. They're supposed to be a registered sex offender, but they're currently not registered. They were later convicted of forcible rape. They are a fantastic suspect. It's the wrong Richard Cummings. And that Richard Cummings was actually, I think, in prison in Alabama at the time, never lived in West Memphis. So I understand how he ended up being. Because if you type Richard Cummings into the National Sex Offender Registry, you'll find this guy and you'll fall down the rabbit hole. It's not him. And that was so disappointing because when I was doing that and seeing all that, I was like, this guy's perfect.
- [47:18]
Alice
It's the guy.
- [47:19]
Brett
Yeah.
- [47:20]
Alice
And then we saw the, like, birthday, right?
- [47:23]
Brett
Exactly. It was the birth date because the birthday's wrong. And it turns out the real Richard Cummings eventually moved back to New York, where he was from. Apparently lived sort of a Very quiet life and died a few years ago. So to the extent there's any reason to think Richard Cummings was involved in this, the opportunity to prove that has probably been lost. And if he was, I'm going to go on a limb and say if they had opened that box, they might have found something. They could have tied him to the case. But it's all speculation though. If I were the police and I did that DNA testing and I found any unknown DNA, I might consider seeing if I could test it against Richard Cummings. But I don't want to speak hell of the dead. But I did want to point out that if you search, if you go down the search rabbit hole, this is all wrong. Other thing that's wrong is it says that he lived with L.G. hollingsworth. You'll see that in some sources on West Memphis 3, that's because they're confusing Richard Cummings with Richard Simpson. So a lot of misinformation about Richard Cummings, but I do still think he's a suspect who's worth thinking about. Okay, that brings us to everyone's favorite alternative suspect, Mr. Bojangles. So Mr. Bojangles, as you may recall, was a black man who walked into the Bojangles restaurant fast food chicken place in West Memphis on the night of May 5th. He was, depending on who you asked, and we're going to go through this bloody and muddy. He went into the women's bathroom, essentially he got blood, mud and various other bodily fluids all over the place, collapsed and eventually left the restaurant. Police would collect blood samples from the bathroom and then they would promptly lose them. So let's talk about Mr. Bojangles in more detail. So at 8:40pm on the night of May 5th, the police received a call from the Bojangles restaurant. It's on 1511 N. Missouri St. If you've looked at a map of the West Memphis area and you remember this whole ten mile bayou diversion canal, if basically you go straight down the diversion canal from the scene of the crime, eventually you'll run into the Bojangles restaurant. So they get this call and the dispatch log reads, bojangles blackmail towards Delta bleeding cap, blue shirt and black pants, cast right arm. So this is sort of description of him. So this comes in at 8:40. At 8:42, Officer Regina Meek, who is all over this case, is dispatched. She arrives at 8:50 and she speaks to the manager, Marty King. Now she does not go into the restaurant. If you follow this case, it's like she was the only person on duty. I don't know what was going on, but she's the one who responds when they get the call from the families. She's later going to respond to an egging incident. She's going to the Bojangles. She goes to the drive thru. She talks to the manager. She does not go inside. She leaves Bojangles at around nine. Now, it is not the case that she just leaves. She actually does spend several minutes attempting to look for the man. She heads south, which is the direction he is headed when he left the restaurant. But at 9:01, Meek does receive a call for service at a house that's being egged 1004 Roy Pugh. And she arrives there at 9:04. Now she's not going to find much there because apparently that house is abandoned. But I guess the kids picked a good one to egg. She does not return to Bojangles.
- [50:54]
Alice
So the next morning, another police officer, Billy Covington, he eats at Bojangles while he's off duty. And when he's there, he speaks to Marty king about the Mr. Bojangles. And now Covington realizes he could be connected to the murders and advised other officers to go and ask about it. Officers Brin Ridge and Mike Allen went to the Bojangles, took a statement from Marty King and took blood scrapings from the wall. They did not take a toilet roll that was said to be soaked with blood down to the cardboard center. So that's a lot of blood. Now these blood scrapings, of course, as Brett already noted, have been lost. They were never sent for testing. We don't know where they are. Now some of you real quick be like, how do you lose blood? It's somewhere probably mistagged. So it's probably not in a trash can. It might be. It might be in a trash can. But this does happen because every case has a lot of evidence. And if it's not properly tagged, like there's literally a tag that says what case number it is and you know what it is. It could be in the wrong drawer. And so maybe one day someone will open a drawer and realize what they have there and that would be amazing. But right now it's lost. And that has never been tested. So there's no profile that's been made.
- [52:05]
Brett
And let me just say, of all the mistakes the West Memphis police made in this case, and they made plenty, this one is just unforgivable. I mean, you had, you had three boys brutally murdered in a muddy area and you got a guy a mile and a half away covered in blood and mud. How this doesn't become. Like, there shouldn't be an opportunity to lose the blood. You should be like, look, I'm not going back to the police station. I'm going to Little Rock to the forensics. I am delivering. I am hand delivering this blood. This is it. Right? Like the fact.
- [52:42]
Alice
Not to mention grabbing the toilet paper roll that's soaked in blood. Like, you know what has a little bit more blood than scrapings? The toilet paper roll soaked. If it actually exists.
- [52:52]
Brett
I just, I mean, look, I don't think it's Bojangles. Just go ahead and put my cards on the table. Even though we got a lot more to talk about. I don't think it's him. But how could you know that the next day, the next day this should be like, wow, we've got it. Like, this should be the red herring suspect that took up a bunch of time and then you eventually realized he didn't do it. Right? But there are some officers who always, till the end of time, will believe he did it. That would be what should have happened here. Like, I can't. I cannot wrap my head around how this was handled in such a just lackadaisical way. If this other officer who just happened to be eating there hadn't been like, wait a second, you're saying last night some bloody muddy guy wandered in here and there were those three kids killed like, they never would even shown up. Regina Meeks, apparently, who was involved in this investigation, who's showing up at the buyer's house, who's showing up? Who's like, going into the woods and getting attacked by mosquitoes? She knows. And yet the next day she's not like, oh, my God, I was at Bojangles. Like, I don't want to overstate this, but I just don't understand how this. I understand how evidence is lost. Right? Like, I get that that happens, and that's unfortunate when it happens, but this particular evidence about this particular guy, I just don't. I don't understand.
- [54:09]
Alice
And that's a good point. I understand when something's lost because you've collected it and you don't know it's significant. And so years later there's a new lead and you realize, wait a second, I have fingernail scrapings from that. I didn't realize that they clawed at their perpetrator. We have those. Oh, no, it's been lost. I understand that situation. You know, the blood is going to be relevant here. It's not like we're just going to take some blood scrapings and it might be relevant later. It's absolutely relevant. The only reason you're there is to see if that blood matches something that is at the scene. So this is a massive, massive screw up. And until or unless that's ever found, you can understand why Mr. Bojangles cannot be ruled out. Like definitively it's out there. It would be great to have him ruled out because I do think it's a bit of a sideshow. So the Bojangles restaurant was located at 1551 North Missouri street, which is one and a half miles from the discovery site by the road, but actually only three quarters of a mile west and then north. So technically northwest via the bayou diversion ditch. If Mr. Bojangles had walked there from the crime scene via the road, it would probably have taken a similar amount of time to walking via the bayou, despite being three quarters of a mile longer. However, no one reports seeing Mr. Bojangles walking between the two areas. So the bayou area is very muddy and hard to walk in. And it's hard to imagine anyone would have gone this direction. On the north side of the bayou, which is where the discovery site was, there are several drainage ditches which he could have had to go into to cross. There's also a bridge that he would have to walk under, meaning going into the bayou itself. So the south side is easier to walk on. But that would mean Mr. Bojangles would have had to cross the pipe bridge back towards the neighborhood and then walk on the south side where there are a lot of people who could potentially see him.
- [56:02]
Brett
And so basically when you're thinking about this, one thing I will note, occasionally people see the perpetrator. Think of Richard Allen and Delphi. People saw him walking back to his car. But there are certainly cases where we know people walked a great distance and just no one reported them. If he's walking along the service road or even along the interstate, even if, remember, it would have been dark by that point. So the call comes in at 8:40. So it would have. It would have at least been very dusky even if it wasn't full dark. He's walking, people are driving down the interstate, they're not paying attention. Maybe people did see him and they just never called it in. The walking south of the bayou thing seems really just putting yourself out there because basically you got to cross that pipe bridge basically back into the neighborhood and then start the walk. It seems unlikely, but I do think you have to imagine that if he did this, he essentially murdered these boys, was very calm and Collected, kept himself together essentially to hide them and then kind of lost his mind. Like he kept it together until he had finished the COVID up and then kind of broke down. Because otherwise why would he be sitting in a public bathroom? Just think he took all of that effort to cover it up and now he's just exposing himself to the world in that bathroom. So maybe he would do something as foolish. His walk on the south side of the bayou, it's hard to say. Just kind of read his mind. So when he left the restaurant, he walked south, which again is back towards the neighborhood where the boys lived, which doesn't seem like it makes that much sense. His behavior is not really consistent with the crime scene. There's very little evidence left at the scene. There's almost no blood. Arguably there is no blood except what could be seen with luminol. The bodies and clothes were concealed, as were the bikes. So whoever this is did a lot of effort to conceal it. And then you have Mr. Bojangles, who's involved in the murder, he does all this effort to conceal the evidence, and then he's walking around bloody and bleeding and everything else. He's got the boy's blood on them. He's going to a public restaurant, he's going towards the neighborhood. It doesn't make a lot of sense. Moreover, when Marty King told him he was going to call the police, he didn't immediately leave. He didn't just like jump up and run out. He just kind of hung out there. And he's described as being disoriented, he's described as being confused. He's going into the women's bathroom, he's drawing attention to himself. None of this is consistent with the crime scene. It's much more consistent with someone who either himself had just been the victim of a crime possibly, or, you know, you're thinking about drugs or thinking about transient thinking about something or mental episode. Exactly right. So the timing of this, we don't know exactly when Mr. Bojangles arrived at the restaurant. King didn't see him come in. So he goes to the restaurant, he goes into the bathroom. We know he arrived before 8:40 because that's when the call to police was made. He was discovered by a woman and her daughter who had come into the restaurant to eat and went to the bathroom. See him there they go talk to King. King also, as I said, told him he gave him a little time to get himself together before he called the police. And that could have been, according to his testimony, as much as 15 to 20 minutes. So you can see how this is pushing the timeline back from when he arrived there. Call goes out at 8:40, there's some period of time when he's not noticed. There's some period of time between when King learns of it and goes talk to him. Then there's some period of time between when he calls the police. So probably the latest time he could have arrived, if all this is overstated, is around 8:35 maybe. He goes in, the lady and her daughter immediately see him and Marty King, despite what he says, immediately calls the police and reports him there. But it's probably the case that he was in Bojangles much earlier and this gives him less time to complete the murders and complete the COVID up. Because recall however he got there, he's having to walk maybe a mile and a half if it's on the roads, maybe three quarters of a mile through a very difficult terrain which is probably going to take him as long as it would on the roads. I mean he's going through mud, he's crossing over ditches, all this other stuff, a much more difficult walk. So that means the murders had to happen maybe not incredibly early but on the earlier side of the timeline that we've been describing.
- [60:25]
Alice
So the description of Mr. Bojangles evolved between the call to the police and, and the time of the trials. The police log says Bojangles blackmail towards Delta bleeding WWE cap, blue shirt, black pants, cast right arm. So obviously this is like a shorthand brief description and it doesn't mention that he's muddy or dirty, just that he's bleeding. Marty King's description the next day describes Mr. Bojangles as follows. Blackmail was found in the ladies room bleeding from the arm. The manager stated that the Black man was 5 11, thin, dirty. So King said at Eccles and Baldwin's trials that he did tell these detectives who were of course Bren Ridge and Mike Allen, that he was muddy, but the notes only say that he's dirty.
- [61:13]
Brett
The other thing I'll point out is this cast on his arm which is mentioned in that first report but then sort of falls away. Then you have bleeding from the arm. Two things about that. The first would be if he has a cast on his arm, his arm's even less likely to have committed this crime. Right? I mean he got three boys, it's gonna be hard enough as it is. If one of his arms isn't working, that's gonna be tough. But note the subsequent descriptions describe him as bleeding from the arm. Often wonder if he didn't Have a cast. I kind of wonder if he actually was shooting up. If he was shooting up. And what was described as a cast was really like a sling or maybe even he had wrapped something around his arm so that he could get the vein. Then he injects himself, it bleeds. That's where the blood from the arm goes. That's why he's disoriented. And that really all we have here is someone who is high on some sort of drug and that's why all this is happening. Obviously this is all speculation. It's hard to say. This is all we have. And I know people are fascinated by this guy unfortunately because of the steps taken by the police now, I don't know, 30 something years ago. Unless you get some sort of DNA hit, we're never going to know any more about Mr. Bojangles.
- [62:26]
Alice
Yeah, the description of being like thin and dirty I can see later on morphs to muddy. But it may be if he is in fact maybe transient or a drug user who is not in his right mind, you can see that he may absolutely be dirty and that could even be mistaken as muddy after the fact that. But note that muddy isn't written anywhere in the description of him at least the day of the call or the morning after.
- [62:48]
Brett
So just briefly on John Mark Byers. Obviously people have pointed to him as a possible suspect. He was Chris Byers stepfather. We have talked about him in detail before and all the reasons that we don't think that he's involved here. When we go through theories we'll talk a little bit more about that as well. I will just say this. The reason that people thought he was involved was almost entirely because of Paradise Lost and the Devil's Not. He was a popular suspect for a brief period of time when people were doing bite mark analysis and everything else. He was a stepfather. He was the disciplinarian for Chris. You know, his wife would end up dying under somewhat mysterious circumstances though it seems pretty clear she had some sort of drug overdose. He eventually would become a big defender of the West Memphis Three. And really at this point almost no one thinks he was involved almost entirely because he's a supporter of the West Memphis Three. But if you actually look at the evidence you'll see the timeline just really doesn't line up for him. As I said, we discussed him previously so we're not going to go into a lot of detail about him now. But did want to just note he was someone who at one time was a popular alternative suspect. But he has fallen away Largely in favor of the other stepfather involved in this case, Terry Hobbs. And I will just say one thing about Michael Moore's father. If you don't know anything about this case, you may wonder why we never mentioned him and he's never discussed. He was a long haul trucker. He was gone. He wasn't in West Memphis that day. In fact, he didn't get back until the next day. Impossible for him to have been involved in this. He absolutely is not involved. So we don't even have to worry about him. Materi Hobbs, who was the stepfather of Stevie, is someone who, after the John Mark Byers thing fell away, people started to look at Terry Hobbs. In 2009, Terry did something that was probably pretty foolish. He sued Natalie Maines of Dixie Chicks fame. She was involved in this case. She was one of the celebrities who was really passionate about the West Memphis Three. She had started to buy in to this argument that he was involved and had made public statements about it. So he sued her and in an effort to collect on sort of a defamation claim. And this led to a number of depositions and affidavits in addition to prior interviews that had been done for a Dimension Films movie that was supposed to be made but never was. There was eventually a movie made about this case called the Devil's Knot, which is based on the book which points the finger at Terry Hobbs as well. One of the declarations in this lawsuit is from the sister in law, Terry Hobbs, Sheila Muse Hicks, and she detailed his alleged abuse of Stevie. She would often see Stevie with welts on his body, and Stevie would explain that Terry would beat him with a belt, often according to the affidavit, quote, he said that his dad made him play dead cockroach. He said whenever he got in trouble, quote, Terry makes me lay down on my back on the floor and raise my arms and legs in the air. And when I have to put them down because I get tired and Terry whoops me. Sheila and Pam's suspicion of Terry, because Pam Hobbs would eventually become suspicious of Terry as well, was bolstered by a pocket knife. According to them, Hobbs had in his possession a pocket knife that Stevie's grandfather had given to the boy. And Pam would say that he always carried it with him. The knife was found in 2003, a decade after the murders. Terry Hobbs would say that he had found Stevie with the knife and he didn't think it was safe, so he had taken it away from him. The theory of Pam Hobbs and her sister is that in fact Terry took it after he murdered Stevie. Now, of course, there are reasons that the Hobbs family dislike Terry. First, there are allegations that Terry was physically abusive of his wife, Pam in 1994 after Hobbs reportedly assaulted her, Jackie Jr. So Jackie Hicks Jr. So her brother came to Hobbs residence after he was informed of the encounter. Now, it's a little unclear exactly what happened next, but apparently Jackie attacked Terry. The problem with this was Terry was armed. Terry shot Jackie and what he would describe and what the authorities would accept as self defense. And although Jackie would survive his wounds at the time, complications would eventually kill him years down the line. So I think it is an oversimplification to say that the Hicks family does not like Terry Hobbs and they have many reasons to be suspicious of him.
- [67:30]
Alice
So the chief evidence against Hobbs is a hair that's found in the ligature binding of Michael Moore. The hair has not been definitively matched to Terry Hobbs, so it can't exclude him, but it also can't exclude 1 1/2% of the population, which is how DNA matching works. So in other words, it can't exclude 4 1/2 million Americans or 450 people in a 30,000 population of West Memphis. It doesn't exclude Hobbes, but it also doesn't exclude quite a lot of people. Now, there's also a hare in the woods that can't exclude Terry Hobbs's friend, David Jacoby. But again, this is the exclusion sort of thing. It also can't exclude 7% of the population, which is 21 million Americans or 2,100 people who lived in West Memphis. So when you hear these things where there was a hair that matched David Jacoby and Terry Hobbs in the ligatures found on the boys, that's not exactly true. It's that they can't be excluded, but neither can thousands of other people who lived right there in West Africa, Memphis.
- [68:33]
Brett
And I'll say this about this, we have seen this so much in this case, and it's something that I've never really seen before. So many DNA tests that are not definitive. So here we have 1.5% of the population. Recall when we were talking about Chris Byers and John Mark Byers. They're not related, but they have the same DNA marker that's only shared by like 3% of the population. So only about twice as likely in that circumstance. But it seems like it's just a coincidence they're not related. Unless you buy into the notion that John Mark is really Chris's father. They're not related and yet they have this genetic marker that only 3% of the population has. Here you have 1.5% of the population. Now, obviously the fact that Terry Hobbs is the stepfather of Stevie Branch makes it a little bit more significant. Like, even if 1.5% of the population can't be ruled out, the fact that he is related to one of the victims certainly makes that 1.5% more powerful than if it were just some other random person in west Memphis who had never met the boys.
- [69:43]
Alice
Right. So let's say it is Terry Hobbs's hair. You can imagine that it is entirely explicable as secondary transfer if it is in fact his hair, because Terry lived with Stevie. Now, we don't know which laces were used to bind each child. In fact, we know that the bindings on Michael Moore were one lace cut in half and one lace that was still in its shoe. So it wasn't necessarily Michael's own laces that were used to bind his body. And even if it was, Michael had been at the Hobbs's house playing with Stevie that very day. So if it was Stevie's lace, it's entirely reasonable to believe that the hair was there through transfer because they live in the same house. So the description of the hair as being in the knot has been consistently repeated by the defense. But actually, if you look at the documentation, it refers to it as hair from M. More ligature. The same document also refers to other hairs which did not match Hobbes in the same way. Hair from C Buyers ligature and hair from ligature from S. Branch. So the autopsy and evidentiary reports from 1993 don't mention this hair. There does not appear to be any evidential basis for claiming the hair was in the knot, just that it was from the ligatures. So there are a number of hairs at the crime scene as you can tell just from a couple of those notes, none of which have been linked to Hobbes. Including 26 hairs on Chris Byers body, of which 10 were tested.
- [71:23]
Brett
Guys, I don't know about you, but it is a busy time in our household. School is starting again. We got two kids going one place, one kid going another. Everything is so busy. Everybody is so busy. And the last thing I want to do is figure out what in the world are we going to eat tonight and what are the kids going to want to eat. And that's why I love cookunity. Cookunity was made for adventurous eaters with countless global cuisines. From 160 award winning chefs, you can explore an ever expanding menu of small batch meals, all tailored to your lifestyle, dietary needs and cravings. Get ready to eat meals delivered directly to your door by going to cookunity.com prosecutors free or entering Code Prosecutors Free before checkout for free Premium Meals for Life and you will see the CookUnity has a roster of all star chefs that includes Food Network alums, James Beard Award winners and acclaimed restaurateurs. And the best thing for me is you get a balance of bold flavors and nutrition and handcrafted meals which are freshly prepared, delivered to your door and never frozen.
- [72:35]
Alice
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- [73:36]
Brett
As y' all know, we got kids all over the place and we want them to be healthy and happy and we want them to get all the vitamins and nutrients they want. And that's where Chaya comes in. I have to tell you, typical children's vitamins, they're basically candy in disguise. They are filled with two teaspoons of sugar, unhealthy chemicals and other gummy junk growing kids should never eat. And that's why Hiya was created. It is the pediatrician approved, super powered chewable vitamin. It's formulated with the help of nutritional experts and pressed with a blend of 12 organic fruits and vegetables, then supercharged with 15 essential vitamins and minerals including vitamin D, B12, C, zinc, folate and many others to help support immunity, energy, brain function, mood, concentration, teeth, bones and more.
- [74:27]
Alice
You guys know I have four kids and getting them to have all the essential vitamins they have in a day can be really exhausting. Which is why I'm so glad that they actually love hyavitamins so much that they Remind me that they have to take it every day. And they come in these glass bottles with stickers to personalize it. So all my kids have personalized it with their names with stickers that match just for them. Every night, including tonight. They said, mom, don't forget we get our hyavitamins and and I also recommend checking out their new kids probiotic and nighttime essentials. We've worked out a special deal with HIA for their best selling children's vitamin. Receive 50% off. Your first order to claim this deal you must go to HIAhealth.com prosecute this deal is not available on their regular website. Go to h I-Y-A H-E-A-L-Com prosecute and get your kids the full body nourishment they need to grow into healthy adults. Homes.com knows when it comes to home shopping, it's never just about the house or condo. It's about the home. And what makes a home is more than just the house or property. It's the location and neighborhood. If you have kids, it's also schools, nearby, parks and transportation options. That's why homes.com goes above and beyond to bring home shoppers the in depth information they need to find the right home.
- [75:50]
Brett
And when I say in depth depth, I'm talking deep. Each listing features comprehensive information about the neighborhood, complete with a video guide. They also have details about local schools with test scores, state rankings and student to teacher ratio. They even have an agent directory with the sales history of each agent. So when it comes to finding a home, not just a house, this is everything you need to know, all in1place.homes.com We've done your homework and you may be wondering, I mean, we're talking about alternative suspects, but as far as West Memphis 3, to the extent these have been tested against the West Memphis three, they've either been excluded or like, there's just not enough data. So as we said before, everything that's been tested and you've got like a DNA sequence from and it's compared to the West Memphis three they're excluded from. With a few exceptions that we've discussed. I mean, we talked about the blood on that necklace, we talked about the blood on Jesse Misskelley's shirt, which once again, these are all examples of this just coincidence that Michael Moore and Jesse Misskelley have the same DNA markers in their blood. Right? So when they looked at that blood, they couldn't tell whether this has ever been tested or suggested it should be tested with modern Techniques or can be tested? I don't know. As we said, there's some testing discussions going on right now. We'll just have to see what comes out of those. So this is sort of the evidence against Terry. The general notion that he was abusive. You also have this whole not thing. We talked earlier about Jamie Clark Ballard and her sighting. She claimed she saw Terry Hobbs yelling at the boys. Telling them they needed to go home. This contradicts every other sighting of the boys. And because Terry Hobbs lived on the other part of the neighborhood. Really doesn't make any sense at all. But nevertheless, that's what she said. Many, many years later, Decades. But when you think about Terry Hobbs. The thing that's most important is the timeline. Now, the timeline, in some ways is a very problematic part of Hobbes account of the day. He consistently states things happened at times when they didn't happen. Times that are different from when the evidence suggests they did. And this initially may seem to you like, oh, well, there you go, he's lying. The fact of the matter is this includes innocuous things that he'd have no reason to lie about. Such as the time when he arrived home from work. Pam places that at a little bit after 4 to 4:30. He himself places it around 3 or 3:30. But the fact of the matter is, had he gotten home in those times. He probably would have seen Stevie. And had he got home just a little bit later. He probably would have seen Chris Byers, who was also there. The only way he would have missed both of them. Is if Pam's right. And he actually gets there a little bit after four. You may wonder, well, how is he getting all these times wrong? I mean, it was only a couple days after when he was interviewed about police, which would make sense. And you know, if you had a police department who, when they found blood from someone the day after a triple homicide. Had taken it seriously enough to immediately test it. They probably also would have done something as simple as, I don't know, taking the stepfather in to just get a statement from him. Not even interrogate him. Not polygraph him, just get a statement from him. But that didn't happen. Didn't happen in 1993. Didn't happen in the entire decade of the 90s. An entire millennium passes. We don't have a statement from Terry Hobb until Terry Hopps, until 2000. In fact, 2006, he doesn't talk to police for 13 years. Which is probably why his times are all over the place. Nevertheless, in 2006, he says that he called police between 5 and 5:30, that that's when he reported Stevie missing. It was actually much later he says that he first met John Mark Byers outside of the Moore's house between 6 and 6:30, with Dana Moore also present. Once again, this would have happened much later. Now, some of this comes from this Dimension film interview we talked about earlier. And in fact, if this is when this happened, you would think it would be important to Terry because it gives him an alibi and that he would stick to it. But when the interviewer is asking him questions about it and actually pushes it back even earlier, he just goes with it. So I'll tell you exactly what he said. He says, I took her to work, I go back to my house. You know, me and Amanda ride through the neighborhood to see if we could see him. Then Dana comes over to our house and says, you seen Michael? I say, no, he was supposed to be at your house. She went back to her house and kind of patrolled the neighborhood. That's where I met Mark Byers. Then I went to her house. He came across the street asking if we'd seen Christopher. And we said no. And this all pretty clearly happened. We're going to talk more about this in a second. But John Mark Byers will say the first time he ever met Terry was when Terry went over to Dana Moore's house. And they all sort of like are talking about this and realizing that all three boys are missing. The interviewer says, Is it 4 o'? Clock? About 4, about 5, 5, 30, 5, 15. And Terry Hobbs says something in there. So he has really no idea as far as times go when this happened, though the reality is this is a really important thing for him. If we could nail down when these discussions happened, it might give him an alibi.
- [81:18]
Alice
So because nothing is simple in this case, this timing does conflict with David Jacoby's statement. So in 2009, in a declaration, David Jacoby said, I got home from work at approximately 4:30pm on that day, sometime between 5pm and 5:30pm on May 5, 1993. It could have been as late as 6pm but I believe it was between 5 and 5:30pm Terry Hobbs came over to my house. It also conflicts with the fact that Terry wouldn't have come over to Dana's house and met Mark Byers until much later in the evening. Because Terry's times are obviously wrong. And given the fact that his first interview was so many years after the murder, it's not surprising that he gets these times Wrong. But what does this tell us about the timeline for Terry Hobbs? So Terry got home around 4:30. At 4:45 he and Pam drive by Michael Moore's house. So Terry has said that he spoke to Don Moore at this point. But let's put a pin in this for now. Terry takes Pam to work and then according to David Jacoby, he and Amanda go over to David Jacoby's house. Given that Pam had to be work at 5, we can imagine that he's at David Jacoby's house around 5:15, which is consistent with David's statement. He then stays around an hour or so and at that point Terry says he's looking for Stevie. So assume he leaves Amanda at David's at 6:15, he then goes over to John Mark Byers house when Regina Meeks is leaving sometime shortly after 8, say 8:30 to be safe. So that gives Terry between 6:15 and 8:30 to go out, find the boys, kill them, cover up, get back home, clean up and then go over to John Mark Byers house. That's a pretty good chunk of time, more than most of the accused would have. So this works best if we ignore the Christopher Wall sighting of the boys at 7 o' clock and assume a number of 6:30 sightings are their last sightings. And Terry has the information that the boys are out riding bikes. So that does seem pretty significant, right? Well, it does. And many people believe this is strong evidence that Terry's one of the only people with the opportunity to commit this crime. But it's not that simple. First, to the extent it matters, Terry almost certainly didn't speak to Don Moore when he and Pam drove by. So in Pam's description of the drive by, she doesn't mention anyone being home or seeing anyone. And this is supported by Dawn Moore's recent statements. According to Dawn's interview with Bob Ruff, Dana Moore wasn't home after school. Dana and Michael dropped their stuff off and Michael went out over to Stevie's. Dana left and went to Kim Williams house. And at that point no one was at the Moore home and they probably weren't there at 4:45 either.
- [84:10]
Brett
So remember, while Don is with Kim Williams, Michael and Stevie show up and they ask if they can go to Robin Hood Woods. So just recall, just as you're putting this through your mind, they get home after school, nobody's home, drop their stuff off, then she goes off to her friend's house. Michael is going to go over to Stevie's house, which is all the way across the neighborhood. He is then going to talk to Stevie's mom. He's gonna beg her to let Stevie go with him. She's going to agree. At that point, they go out and they're playing. Well, at some point, you know, Stevie knows where his sister is. So he goes over to Kim Williams house and he asks Don if they can go to Robin Hood Woods. And they say, look, there are bike trails in the woods and we have a clubhouse over there. This clubhouse thing comes up a lot. And she says they can go. So immediately after she says this, Kim's like, you really gonna let them go over there? And Kim starts telling her all those stories about how, like, there's devil worshippers over there and people do drugs over there and all this other stuff, right? So they then go after them. They're gonna try and catch up with them and say, hey, never mind, you can't go. This is when they sort of go over to the woods and they see those other teenagers. One of them asks her if she wants a shot. She kind of freaks out, right? At this point, she doesn't go home. She goes back to Kim's house and she stays there for a while. And it's only after that that she goes back home. And when she goes back home at that point, Dana is either there or she arrives shortly after and she tells her that Michael had gone into Robin Hood. Now, she says her mom wasn't that concerned about it at the time. She's not entirely sure of the time when she went back and first told Dana about this, but she said it was later in the evening. So it is highly unlikely that Michael made it to Stevie's house. And like I said, it's on the other side of the neighborhood. Picks up Stevie, goes to Kim's house, speaks to dawn, they go into the woods, get chased by Don. Don goes back to Kim's house, hangs out a while, and then goes back to the morehouse. All before 4:45, which is when Terry Hobbs would have gone over. So Terry has said he talked to Don, but I don't think he did. I think this is just another thing that he is remembering. And in fact, the interaction between the Moors and Terry was much later in the day. It was in the 7 o' clock hour. So here's how Dana describes this interaction at trial. What time was it when you reported this to the police? Eight, ten. Okay, had you been looking before that? Yes, sir. Okay, tell me where all you had looked all around and just in that general area and then over there in by Pam Hobbs house. Now in her testimony, she doesn't mention seeing Terry and she's not asked whether or not she saw him. But John Mark Byers will confirm that she did. In his May 19 statement, he recounts the conversation they had with officers on May 5th. And here's what he says. The police officer, if I'm not mistaken, asked Dana, you know, how long have you been looking for a little boy? And she told her, you know, well, for the last hour and a half. And she said, the branch, Stevie Branch, which is, you know, Mr. Hobbs. She said Terry, which is Stevie's daddy, had been looking for him since about 5 o', clock, 4:30, 5 o'. Clock. Now this of course is true. Terry had been looking for Stevie since he and Pam had gone by Dana's house earlier. But Dana couldn't know that. The only way she would have known that if she had spoken to Terry. And Don confirms that's exactly what happened. So Don tells Bob Ruff that they were coming from the Branch house when they went to John Mark Byers house and then Terry came shortly thereafter to John Mark Byers. Terry would say the whole reason he went to John Mark Byers is that he'd spoken to Dana and knew she was going over there and he said he would follow. Now of course, when he tells this story, his time is woefully off as usual. And Dana will confirm in this interview that she saw Terry at his house. Now her memory isn't perfect on this point and she can't remember exactly the time that this would have happened because no one's memory is perfect 30 something years later. But given everything else, we can surmise that this happened in the 7 o' clock hour. And one thing that she says is that they didn't really start looking for Stevie until much later in the day as it wasn't unusual for Michael to be out and about.
- [88:53]
Alice
So what does all of this mean? Regina Meeks was at Terry's house between 8:08 and 8:29pm Dana arrived while Regina Meeks was there. Terry arrived as she was leaving. So if Dana went by Terry's house before going to John Mark Byers house and spoke with him for some period of time, then that means Terry is at least partially accounted for in the 7 o' clock hour. We don't know how long Dana was there when she arrived or when she left, but we do know that Terry was there and when she saw him, presumably Terry wasn't covered in blood or displaying any signs of having just killed the boys. So this Narrows the time when Terry could have committed the crime considerably. Now, it still allows a gap, but a much shorter one. Remember, if the boys went into the woods at 6:30, then presumably some period of time passed between when they did that and. And when Terry would have found them. So say Terry finds them at 6:45. He probably needs to be back at his house by 7:30 to be presentable when Dana Moore shows up. That's not a lot of time. And recall the Hobbs house was on the other side of the neighborhood at 1601 South Macaulay. So that's a mile to the pipe bridge. Walking is out of the question. It would have taken too long. And someone would have seen Terry, especially right after the murders, covered in blood, mud, all the things. So that leaves only the option of Terry driving to the crime scene, which means that Terry would have had to park somewhere. And no one reports seeing a vehicle parked anywhere near Robin Hood Hills. It also means that he not only had to clean himself off, but he also had to make sure the inside of his car was clean of any mud or blood that he would have tracked in from the crime scene. And at some point in all this, he has to go pick up Amanda from the Jacoby so he could take her to pick up Pam at Catfish Cabin. So is it impossible for Terry to have done this? No, it's not. But it would have been exceedingly difficult.
- [90:53]
Brett
And I think if the police had Talked to Terry 1993, probably we wouldn't even. We wouldn't be here. He would have said, Dana came by my house at 7:15 or 7:30. And I said, I'll be right over there. And then I like followed her to her house. And that's when I met John. Mark Byers and police officer came over and everything else. That's what he would have said. But we don't have that. And I think people have unfairly used Terry Hobbs times which are all wrong against him. And people will say that. And people will just say, well, he said he saw Dana at 5:15. So therefore he had plenty of time. It's like, well, of course he didn't see her at 5:15. Like just because he says that. And you see this a lot where people want to. They want to take his gospel, something someone said when it's helpful and ignore everything else that didn't happen. Like, we can recreate the timeline. It's not perfect, but using all these different things that had to have happened, we can put together a general timeline of when Terry Hobbs was interacting with people and the fact of the matter is he was at his house when Dana Moore shows up there. So he had to have. If he did it, he's. He's got to be clean. Changed everything else by the time that happens, and it's just not a lot of time. So obviously, Terry Hobbs is a critical suspect and a lot of people think he's involved. And so next week, what we're going to do is we're going to talk to Terry Hobbs. We're going to talk to Terry Hobbs, and we're not going to do it alone. Julia Cowley of the Consult is going to join us, and she is going to help us to interview Terry in a way he's never been interviewed before and talk about his day to the best we can. It's like I said, It's 30 something years later and see if we can learn anything from him. And then after we do that, we'll have a bonus episode for all of you. You get two episodes next week where we talk to Julia both about the interview with Terry Hobbs, as well as her general thoughts about this case, about the profile of the person who would have done this and whether or not any of the people we have discussed fit that profile or not. Yeah, so there you go. Those are some alternative suspects. Look, if you got other people you think are involved, please feel free to let us know. You know, there are sort of alternative theories about Terry where everybody and their mother's involved in this. It's Terry and David Jacoby and L.G. hollingsworth and Buddy Lucas, and it's just all of them doing this together. And probably not guys, that's probably not what happened. Once again, as our pedophile expert told us, if you have more than a couple people, somebody's going to talk. And I think it is highly unlikely that all these people were there. I think David Jacoby has in particular been just sort of roped into this case and pulled into it. And people will say, as Alice was saying earlier, that his hair was found there, when in fact his hair, his quote, unquote hair, is even less connected than Terry Hobbs. It's up there in percentages that would have allowed a lot of people. And at one point, he's also involved in the search. So I think David Jacoby, as somebody who's been unfairly maligned, I think his role in this was he did see Terry that day, and he and his wife kept Amanda for some brief period of time while Terry was out looking for Stevie. All right, well, if you have thoughts, shoot us an email prosecutors podmail.com rosecutors pod for all your social media. Join us on the gallery to discuss this. If you want to hear us record these episodes, you can join Patreon for as little as $3 a month. Remember, don't do it through the Apple store because they will charge you an additional $50 and nobody wants that. If you don't really have any interest in seeing us record these, but you hate the ads, you also get all the episodes early and ad free on Patreon once again for as little as $3 a month. So I hope you'll take advantage of that. All right, Alice, was there anything else you want to mention before we sign off for today?
- [94:45]
Alice
Link on episode 25? Anything else you want to say? I think we've said a lot and there is still more to say, but we are closing in. I thought this was a really good exercise because again, 30 plus years later, there's just so much information that is just accepted as fact. And when you break down the timelines, it's really helpful to see what is actually fact and where things, things like muddy and bloody come from. For Mr. Bojangles sounds like he was certainly bloody muddy, a little bit more questionable. So no. Thank you guys for following through this with us. We are nearing the end and it's going to be. It's been a wild ride and it's only going to continue.
- [95:21]
Brett
And I will note this is only episode 21, so 25.
- [95:25]
Alice
I know, but it's going to be 25.
- [95:27]
Brett
It looks like. It looks like. I'm thinking 24. I think 24 episodes is how long wrong we're gonna do. We've already changed the number. Used to be one of question mark. Now it's one of 24. We'll see. Might get 25. Who knows. But I think 24 is a good number. I would take 24 or 25. Either one of those works. So. Okay.
- [95:43]
Alice
Like even numbers.
- [95:44]
Brett
Even numbers are great. All right, well, you know, if you hate this case, we'll be doing a new one soon. So congratulations to you. Otherwise, we will see you next week for our interview with Terry Hobbs and our discussion with Julia. But un. Until then, I'm Brett.
- [95:59]
Alice
And I'm Alice and we are the prosecut. I said we just start recording. I'll just go up there and threaten him later.
- [96:29]
Brett
Okay, sounds like a plan. All right.
- [96:33]
Alice
This is parenting in real life. We got the spit up stain. I have watermelon on my sleeve. More stains. My child's running rampant.
- [96:42]
Brett
The keyboard is so small. It's like.
- [96:44]
Alice
I feel like is it. But it's weird because the thing is so big, you know, like the. Whatever it's called. Like, there's so much room to put your hands.
- [96:53]
Brett
The computer weighs like you guys.
- [96:55]
Alice
Okay, since you bring up ocean talk, this is the other child. Sam, shout out to the parents who have listened to Steve's Lava Chicken 1 million times in a row. I don't know what that means, but we've listened to it so many times. And my. Even Bretney, who doesn't know what Minecraft is, runs around the house saying chicken Jackie. So shout out to you parents because, Sam.
- [99:00]
Brett
Just when you thought summer couldn't get any hotter, Pluto TV is turning up the heat with thousands of free movies presenting Summer of cinema. Stream your favorite blockbuster films like Gladiator.
- [99:12]
Alice
I will have my vineyards.
- [99:13]
Brett
Good burger.
- [99:14]
Alice
This is what I do.
- [99:15]
Brett
Fast food. Beverly Hills Cop, the Girl with a Dragon Tattoo, and Julie and Julia.
- [99:21]
Alice
Bon appetit.
- [99:22]
Brett
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