West Memphis 3 /// A Harvest of Innocence /// Part 2

Summary

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True Crime Garage: West Memphis 3 /// A Harvest of Innocence /// Part 2

Date: May 7, 2024
Hosts: Nic & The Captain
Special Guest: Judge Daniel Stidham (former defense attorney for Jessie Misskelley)

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Episode Overview

In this gripping second part on the West Memphis Three case, hosts Nic and the Captain are joined by Judge Daniel Stidham, who was Jessie Misskelley's attorney during the original trial. Together, they dissect new and old developments in the infamous 1993 murders of three young boys in West Memphis, Arkansas. The discussion delves into investigative failures, the effects of Satanic Panic, coercive confessions, alternative suspects, and the ongoing quest for truth. Judge Stidham provides never-before-heard insights from his book and personal experience, reflecting on justice, mistakes, and hopes for new DNA testing.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Two Jason Baldwins and the Coerced Confession

• The episode opens with a deep dive into Jessie Misskelley's confession:
  • Stidham: "He knew exactly what he was saying, and the reason he said it was because that's what the cops wanted him to say. And Jason and Damien were inseparable...But it doesn't forgive those attorneys for not putting on an alibi defense. They had an alibi." (02:14)
• Misskelley's confession is regarded as heavily coerced, with Stidham explaining psychological vulnerability—Misskelley is prone to agreeing with authority to cover his intellectual disability ("cheating to lose" - 05:21).

2. The Impact of Satanic Panic

• Stidham contextualizes the "Satanic Panic" in 1990s Arkansas:
  • "Back then it was devil worshipping and this was a satanic ritual. And that was their theory. And they stuck with it." (03:49)
• Damien Echols became the "standout" and "perfect patsy" due to his Gothic appearance in a deeply religious and suspicious community (21:43).

3. Shoddy Defense and Evidence Suppression

• Stidham shares frustration with the quality of Misskelley's defense—poor psychological experts, limited funds ($15,000 for Park Dietz), and crucial polygraph and innocence evidence blocked from the trial (06:00–07:10).
• "It's like they were scared to have their own trial." (02:50)

4. Paradise Lost and Mark Byers

• Mark Byers, a victim's parent often sensationalized in media, is discussed with dark humor; Stidham initially suspected him but later fully cleared him after a thorough review of his timeline (09:23–12:23):
  • "He was an easy...he didn’t do himself any favors. Like he looked guilty on camera. But...we could not find more than a three to five minute gap anywhere in that timeline that he was alone." (12:23)

5. Law Enforcement, Corruption, and Bungled Investigation

• West Memphis PD's refusal to involve better-resourced agencies like the Arkansas State Police is linked to concurrent federal corruption investigations into local law enforcement (14:31–16:09):
  • "Some of the money doesn't get reported to the evidence locker, and some of it was found in a shoebox under an officer’s bed..." (15:11)
• Both FBI experts Ken Lanning and John Douglas attempted to debunk the satanic ritual angle but were ignored by the prosecution and police (17:17–20:23).

6. DNA, New Evidence, and Hope for Exoneration

• The discussion moves to ongoing appeals for DNA testing, with the state repeatedly making dubious claims of evidence floods or fires, before "magically" finding it in storage (24:20–25:20).
  • Stidham: "Here we still have the state of Arkansas fighting us tooth and nail...because it's going to make them look like what they are. People who put the wrong people in prison and don’t want to admit it." (24:20)

7. Confessions, Plea Deals, and Prisoner Mentality

• The hosts and Stidham agree that real accomplices facing life or death would “roll over” on each other, which never happened here (33:09).
• Both Misskelley and Baldwin refused significant plea deals rather than falsely testify against Damien, suggesting their innocence:
  • "They offered me five years to testify against Damien. And I didn’t take it." (36:12)

8. Media Leaks and Jury Pool Tainting

• The confession transcript's leak to the press is seen as having irreparably tainted public opinion and the jury pool. Stidham is "confident" it was sold to the media by law enforcement but couldn't prove it (37:34–40:02):
  • "Otherwise it wouldn't have been copyrighted. It's very rare for a true crime story to be copyrighted." (39:34)

9. Victims' Families — Grief and Division

• Most families evolved in their views over the years, some becoming convinced of the WM3's innocence, others remaining unconvinced (42:49–43:41).
• The emotional trauma of the families is acknowledged and explored with empathy.

10. Alternative Theories — Serial Killer or Local Suspect?

• Stidham leans towards a transient serial killer operating out of the adjacent truck stop:
  • "The best job to have if you're a serial killer is a truck driver." (50:37)
  • He has a specific suspect (an over-the-road truck driver in the area, known to have confessed to another murder) but won’t reveal details to avoid impeding his ongoing investigation (51:10).
• On the "Bojangles" suspect: Dismisses this as a major red herring largely due to law enforcement's failure to preserve evidence (52:06–53:33).

11. Crime Scene Review — Mishandled From the Start

• The boys’ bodies, likely killed elsewhere, were found dumped in a ditch:
  • "There would have been a tremendous amount of blood. Different location or in the back of empty 18 wheeler..." (50:37–51:11)
• Police did not drain the water before retrieving evidence and trampled the site, further "out of their lead" (55:20–56:27).

12. Elusive Fourth Boy and Memories

• Rumors of a fourth child with the three victims are attributed mostly to confusion, unreliable witnesses, and the fantastical claims of Aaron Hutchinson, whom even the prosecution avoided using as a witness (59:48–61:14).

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Judge Stidham on the original trial:
  • "They didn’t put on any defense. It’s like they were scared to have their own trial." (02:50)
• On the confession’s validity:
  • "Jesse will agree with anything you say just because he's trying to hide his intellectual disability." (05:21)
  • "He couldn’t lie in court, because mentally handicapped people think that that's a mortal sin." (34:55)
• On the Satanic Panic:
  • "Damien was the prime suspect because he was the standout...he wore a black trench coat, black pants, and combat boots..." (03:49)
• On alternative suspects:
  • "I can place an over-the-road truck driver in the area...confessed to killing someone and told the police exactly where the body would be found. And it was." (51:42)
• On persistence:
  • "Never ever, ever give up. Perseverance does pay off in the end." (61:53)
• Commentary on police culture and evidence handling:
  • "Why does the evidence room always seem to be in the basement of the building? The location that would be most affected should there be a flood?" (31:26)
• On Arkansas authorities’ refusal to admit mistakes:
  • "They just will not accept the fact that these kids didn't do it because it’s going to make them look like what they are." (24:20)

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Important Timestamps

• 02:14 – Stidham describes defense failures and coerced confession
• 03:49–05:21 – Satanic Panic and the "perfect patsy"
• 06:00–07:10 – Drastic differences in legal resources and blocked evidence
• 09:23–12:23 – Mark Byers focus; clearing him through timeline analysis
• 14:31–16:09 – Law enforcement corruption and evidence mishandling
• 17:17–20:23 – FBI involvement & ignored professional guidance
• 24:20 – DNA evidence, police resistance, and ongoing court battles
• 33:09 – Discussion on prison deals, confessions, and true group dynamics
• 36:12 – Jason Baldwin’s refusal of plea deal highlighted
• 37:34 – Media leak of Misskelley’s confession and implications
• 50:28–51:11 – Serial killer theory, truck stop logistics
• 55:20 – Mishandling the crime scene
• 59:48–61:14 – Debunking the "fourth boy" witness rumor
• 61:53 – Stidham’s closing quotes on perseverance and justice

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Tone & Final Reflections

The tone is candid, analytical, and at times darkly humorous—True Crime Garage style. Judge Stidham is reflective, persistent, and empathetic, driven by a deep desire for exoneration and justice. The hosts respect the complexity and pain of the case while persistently probing for truth, challenging conventional wisdom, and dismissing “Satanic Panic” sensationalism.

Closing Thoughts:

Judge Stidham, echoing Winston Churchill, reminds listeners (61:53):

"Never ever, ever give up. Perseverance does pay off in the end."

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Recommended for anyone interested in the complexities of wrongful convictions, justice denied, and the dogged pursuit of truth in one of America's most compelling true crime sagas.

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Transcript

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[Nick]

Picture this.

[Podcast Host]

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[Chorus/Group Voice]

West Memphis 3 West Memphis 333

[Narrator]

Damien Echols and Jason Baldwin

[Chorus/Group Voice]

Jesse Ms. Kelly who West Memphis 3.

[Narrator]

They were just years old. Stephen Branch, Michael Moore and Christopher Myers found murdered hog tied and naked in a drainage ditch in West Memphis.

[Chorus/Group Voice]

West Memphis 3.

[Narrator]

The state stands behind the convictions.

[Nick]

From my understanding, there were two Jason Baldwins. I've always wondered when Ms. Kelly's giving this coerced confession, do, do you think that, that he was speaking of the Jason Baldwin that, that that they arrested or you think he was just speaking to the whatever persons they were going to try to.

[Judge Situm]

No, we he knew exactly what he, he was saying and the reason he said it was because that's what the cops wanted him to say. And Jason and Damien were inseparable. They were like adjoined twins, literally. I mean they did everything together but they weren't very much alike. But it doesn't forgive those attorneys for not putting on an alibi defense. They had an alibi.

[Nick]

Are you able to take us through that a little bit?

[Judge Situm]

Yeah, because that was the one day I was at trial is when the jury, after the jury went in the jury room, I wanted to see what was going to happen, obviously, because I was thinking there's no way surely to God they're going to convict these guys because there's no evidence. And so I was stunned when they came back, you know, and the judge read the verdict and asked Damien if he had anything to say. And my recollection was he said no. In fact, I think he just shook his Head. No. And the judge made him say it out loud. I remember very clearly, Jason saying, yeah, I'm innocent, right? And that was the only two or three words that he got to say during the entire trial. And he begged his lawyers to let him testify and they wouldn't do it. They didn't put on any defense. It's like they were scared to have their own trial.

[Nick]

The jury would have seen, like you were talking about, between the contrast between Baldwin and Ecclesiastical that that would have been apparent and obvious to the jury that these are two very different personalities had Baldwin taken the stand.

[Judge Situm]

For people who. It's sort of like having losing a child. It's something if you've never experienced it, it's hard to understand, but let me try to make it understandable. And it's probably. It was one of my goals in the book to do that. May have failed miserably, but I wanted to explain to them just how bad the satanic panic was. And in this day and age of fake news and deep state theories and all these crazy notions on the Internet, back then it was devil worshipping and this was a satanic ritual. And that was their theory. And they stuck with it until they found their scapegoats. And Damien was the prime suspect because he was the standout. He if it was 101 degrees and 100% humidity outside, he wore a black trench coat, black pants and combat boots, and a black T shirt underneath.

[Nick]

The way that that persons try to tell this story on the Internet or on different podcasts that claim to have a great understanding of the cases, they make it sound like Jesse just willy nilly all of a sudden decided, oh, I'm just gonna. I'm just talking and telling and having a good time and telling the story how it happened. And no, a lot of that was people pulling this out of him and setting him up to fail miserably.

[Judge Situm]

Our psychologist called it cheating to lose. Jesse will agree with anything you say just because he's trying to hide his intellectual disability. I started out as I stated in the book I got. First person I called was Park Dietz because of the Dahmer case. He was the shining star in criminal psychology at the time. And I knew if he read this confession that he would be able to punch holes in it. But he wouldn't even talk to me until I wrote him a check for $15,000.

[Narrator]

Right.

[Judge Situm]

And I didn't have 1500 to do that or 150 probably at that time. So we ended up with not the best, but the Worst, if I'd been smart enough to read John Grisham's book, A Time to Kill, I would have thought to ask my psychologist if he had a damn license or not. And he didn't. So it was like a nuclear bomb going off in the courtroom. The guy lied to us when we confronted him about it. Burnett wouldn't give us a continuance to find somebody else to evaluate him. Naturally, the kids never had the best of anything in his life, except for Richard Offshay and Warren Holmes and some may say myself, but. But I started at the top everywhere I went. And I. I got the best person on the planet for false confessions, and I got the best person on the planet for polygraph, which Ms. Kelly passed. But Burnett wouldn't let in, even though there was case law from the Supreme Court, including an Arkansas case that said any evidence tending to show the innocence of the client is admissible. But he wouldn't let it in. Naturally.

[Nick]

Well, and you were. Outside of being an attorney, you were. You were teaching law for a period, right?

[Judge Situm]

Yes, I. I taught criminal justice and the Constitution and a sociology class, too.

[Nick]

And. And I think that's how, you know you had it. Once you take your anger out, I think that that's how you have to kind of deliver the story of. Like a teacher would, standing in front of the class. It's. This is. This is the way it was. Yeah, that's what happened.

[Judge Situm]

Thought of that. That's a good point. Very astute. And, you know, the day the Alfred plea, even though I didn't understand it, I felt like the world had been lifted off my shoulders. And then Pam Hobbs and

[Podcast Host]

Mark Byers.

[Judge Situm]

Mark Byers. I'm sorry. It's been a long week and a long day. But they both came up to me in the courtroom and made me promise that I'd find the real killer. So I went from being done with this nightmare to the nightmare starting over again. But what can I say? So here I am, all these years later, looking for a killer. I've actually got a suspect.

[Nick]

Well, and let's.

[Podcast Host]

Let's go down.

[Nick]

Let's table that for a second. But because we brought up Mark Byers, he. In my opinion,

[Judge Situm]

I.

[Nick]

You know, I hate that. I mean, the whole. Let's, let's. Let's try to. I'll try to make light of the situation as best one can, given the severity of everything, obviously. But Mark Byers, to me, is somebody that could have had his own reality TV show. You know, you could just put cameras and follow this Guy around and he, he, you can't take your eyes off of him for whatever. And he's a. Kind of stole the show, if you would during the Paradise Lost stuff. But you met him several times. What was your first encounter with Mark Byers like?

[Judge Situm]

Well, it was still in the day when I was convinced, absolutely convinced, that he was the one who killed the kids. And I was doing a live feed from New York on Court TV about Damien Eccles Rule 37 hearing. I completed my segment and Byers was next. And so this is the first time I'd been within, you know, 50ft of him.

[Nick]

Striking distance.

[Judge Situm]

Yeah, exactly. Or shooting distance. Yeah, yeah, Might be a better way to put it. He came up to me and took my hand and I thought he broke my hand. I really did. And I took that as a warning to back off.

[Nick]

To say he's a big boy would be an understatement.

[Judge Situm]

I'm a very large human being, but I'm a dwarf compared to him. And it felt like his hand wrapped around mine twice when he squeezed it. And I literally thought he had broken my hand. And I took that as a warning to back off. And of course I didn't back off and wouldn't because I had a duty to my client. He and I actually, you know, by the time we met again, we were on the same team. And I think he realized that, you know, that was pretty stupid of me to act like the clown on Paradise Lost 2 because it drove a lot of attention towards me.

[Nick]

I think they, I think they kind of wound him up a little bit.

[Judge Situm]

I'm sure they did. And the second film was, there's no question about it, it was an advocacy film for the West Memphis Three. By then, which almost didn't happen. HBO was threatened to be sued by the Hobbs family for, for making another film. And they, they almost canned it to

[Nick]

make the third one.

[Judge Situm]

No, the second one.

[Nick]

The second one. Why?

[Judge Situm]

Yeah.

[Nick]

Why would, why would the Hobbs family go after them to cancel the second?

[Judge Situm]

Because this makes them relive it every time something else comes out. And, and I'll go ahead on the record and apologize for that happening again. And I don't completely understand their pain because they had 8 year old who passed away. My kid was 34. But I do understand better than I did then, and it's horrible and, and I, but I remember because I found it in my file when I was writing the book. I didn't put it in the book, but I actually remember writing a letter to the executive producer at hbo Sheila Nevins begging her to let this come out, let the truth come out and let the film come out. And of course, as it turns out, I ultimately determined Byers couldn't have done it because I could account for every second of where he was at the time of the murders.

[Nick]

When I saw that in your book, I jumped off of my couch in celebration because he was an easy. He didn't do himself any favors. Like he looked guilty on camera. And. But, but one thing we did when we covered this case on True Crime garage back in 2016 and we did everything we could in two weeks time to pull together all the information on the confirmed timelines of the night that they went missing up until past the. The time that the boys were found. And, and we pulled all several sources to confirm everything. And one thing that we said at the end of those three hours of our coverage of the case, we said we can't tell you who did it, we can tell you who didn't do it. And one of those persons is Mark Byers because we could not find a. We could not find more than a three or three to five minute gap anywhere that timeline that he was, that he was alone and. And so as guilty as he looked on camera and Paradise Lost 2, he just simply couldn't have done it. And to hear somebody of your level and expertise to say the same thing, I felt, I felt pretty proud of myself in that moment.

[Judge Situm]

Well, you nailed it. You definitely did for sure. And one of the best parts of Paradise Lost 3, Purgatory, I believe was the name was the David Letterman's top 10 reasons why I Didn't do it and Terry Hobbs did.

[Nick]

Why do you think that? This is something I've always struggled with. Why the hell didn't West Memphis PD pull in a bigger outfit to take on this case, in your opinion? This, I get this will strictly be opinion, but.

[Judge Situm]

Well, Mar Lever has pointed that out and I don't know if it was in Devil's Not. I think it was.

[Podcast Host]

There was some, might have been her

[Nick]

subsequent book potential shady activity going on.

[Judge Situm]

Yes, there was not potential. It was actual. The FBI set up a sting the Greyhound park in West Memphis and someone faked a 911 call, said there's a drug deal going down in the parking lot and the drug task force that Brent Davis had exonerated earlier, one of the prosecutors, the chief prosecutor and he had said he looked into it and everything was fine and dandy. But the feds came in and set up this thing and all these Guys show up and what do you know? Some of the money doesn't get reported to the evidence locker, and some of it was found in a shoebox under an officer's bed, that the bills were marked. And so at the time of the murders, the Arkansas State Police, who, who are much better equipped to handle major crimes because that's what they do, the West Memphis police wouldn't let them in because they were pissed off. They were being investigated and there were convictions. Now, I will say this out of fairness. The officer who had the money under his bed must have had the best lawyer, and he is a good lawyer, because I know who it is. It was Bill Bristow from Jonesboro. He got acquitted of that even though the money was under his bed. So

[Nick]

how about that?

[Judge Situm]

Hats off to Bill. Everybody knows he's a great lawyer, but I don't know how he pulled that one off.

[Nick]

And meanwhile we say, you know, then calling a bigger, better outfit with more resources, which they should have done. I mean, this type of crime is extremely rare. I mean, I. That's all I do for the last eight years is cover crime stories. And I cannot think offhand of another situation where there's. Well, other than the yogurt shop case down in Texas, yeah, it's anything similar. And so it's extremely rare. But, but meanwhile, they do contact the FBI, John Douglas, Ken Lanning, and the two of the experts. I mean, if there was a mountain of experts, these guys are at the top of it. And these guys are saying, satanic ritual killing. No, doesn't. Doesn't really exist. Doesn't truly happen. And yet they pursued this avenue instead.

[Judge Situm]

Well, they had to, because they were stuck with Ms. Kelly's confession. They couldn't come in and say, oh, we made a mistake, but we're still going to try them anyway. And that's fascinating because that is in my book and sitting here at my desk, probably writing the book a couple years ago, and I get this text message from a friend of mine, actually it was my prosecutor's wife, Kimberly Warmuth. And she said, I can't even listen to an audible book without your name being mentioned. And I said, well, what are you talking about? And she text back and said, john Douglas talks about you in his book. And I said, what are you talking about? And. And I didn't know.

[Nick]

The cases that haunt us, I believe,

[Judge Situm]

is the one sitting right here in my bookshelf. Let's see. Law and Disorder.

[Podcast Host]

Law.

[Nick]

That's correct. Law and Disorder. And I think you're probably mentioned in the cases that haunt us as well.

[Judge Situm]

I need to look that up because I didn't know about that one either. You know, John Douglas worked on the case with us. He was brought in primarily by Peter Jackson and Fran Walsh, who spent millions probably of their own money to basically give the West Memphis free the trial they never had. That was the purpose of their documentary. The story goes according to. Because I ordered the book immediately and it took about three or four days to get here. And, and I opened it up. I didn't read the whole book. I just read the part about the West Memphis three. And, and he talks about going, returning from Arkansas and I think he even mentioned something about how hot it was there, which was true. And he ran into Ken Lanning and he said, hey, Ken, I was told that the prosecutors in the West Memphis case actually called for help. And do you remember anything like that? And Ken Lanning, who had debunked the theory of satanic ritual homicide, told him that if you try the case that way, you'll be laughed out of the courtroom. And of course, they didn't get laughed out of the courtroom because we're in the middle of the Bible Belt and everybody takes the Bible literally and believes in Satan. I'm not, I'm not mocking anybody's religion, but I'm just saying people in the Bible Belt react differently than other people other places. So. Which added to the Satanic panic. But, but, and he said, Ken said, the next thing I knew, I'm reading in the paper they were all convicted. Douglas thought that was hilarious that the, the prosecutors had called and, and, and Ken, Ken said, he said, well, did they ever call you back? He said, no, they didn't call me back. And they did the same thing in the JonBenet Ramsey case. They, the FBI told them what they thought and they didn't like the FBI's.

[Nick]

The prosecution didn't like what the FBI was saying.

[Judge Situm]

Exactly. This is the same thing as in the West Memphis case.

[Chorus/Group Voice]

Yeah.

[Nick]

And to put it in perspective a little bit, and this may not this. A lot of persons listening today, especially the younger audience, may not know what this means. But, you know, I was looking up a lot of the local newspaper articles going on at the time in early May and early June of 1993 in your area. And I couldn't help but notice coming across a June 3, 1993, big advertisement for Billy Graham TV special titled the Value of a Soul was going to be on that night at 7:00pm on WRG Channel 3. And, and that's what, three, four days before Jesse Ms. Kelly gives the, the so called confession to the police. And you know, you have Billy Graham, TV evangelist on, on the local network there, delivering the special, the Value of a Soul. So it, yes, I mean it's, it, it, we had a little bit of that in the early 90s here in Ohio. Again, I was very young, so I don't have a great understanding of it, but I could only imagine how much stronger that was in the South.

[Judge Situm]

It was palpable. And it's like I told Eddie Vetter at our meeting, our first meeting, you know, somebody like Damien Echols, if you go to New York or la, there's a hundred of them on the sidewalk, walking down the street. Gothic and you know, the dark makeup and all that jazz. But that doesn't happen in northeast Arkansas, not even in Memphis. So he stuck out like a sore thumb and he was the perfect patsy.

[Nick]

Well, and he, and he was young and dumb enough that he liked kind of sticking out.

[Judge Situm]

Oh, he, he toyed with the cops like they played with him and said, asked him what, what do you think the killer would be thinking at the time that he was doing this? And the answer was real spooky. And, and it's just, you know, the kid did not do himself any favors and he understands that now. And, and I haven't seen him since Bruce Stanofsky's memorial at the Lincoln center back in 2015, I believe. Gosh, it doesn't seem like it was that long ago, but it was. He's changed a tremendous amount. And of course, you know, how could you not be affected by 18 years and 78 days in a 10 by 10 concrete tomb with nothing to do? One hour of being outside with nothing to do. I don't know how he survived it, but he, he, he said something about I was wearing a tie and he said, he said, hey Dan, are we supposed to get dressed up for this? And, and, and I said, I don't know. This is just the way I dress when I go places because I didn't want to embarrass him. And, but I could tell it freaked him out. So, I mean, and who wouldn't be? I really genuinely feel sorry for him and I hope some of these people are right. And maybe, maybe my book did have some impact on the Arkansas Supreme Court's decision to send it back to the trial court for rethink the concept of testing the evidence with new DNA technology. And of course, what's good for Damien Echols is good for Jesse Ms. Kelly and Jason Baldwin. So we've got a partial DNA. In fact, there's just not enough markers to put it in codis. We can exclude people but not include them. So maybe this will get us to where we need to be. And here we here we still have the state of Arkansas fighting us tooth and nail. I say us because I considered all of us in this together, even though, you know, I'm a judge, I don't practice law anymore. But here they are. Their first story was the evidence was lost in a flood and then the second story was it burned up in a fire and then suddenly it magically reappeared in the evidence room of all places. And so, I mean, they just will not accept the fact that these kids didn't do it because it's going to make them look like what they are. And that is people who put the wrong people in prison and don't want to admit it.

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[Podcast Host]

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[Nick]

Is it just me or why does you know you said the flood and I don't know if this is the situation there, but I've run into this situation many times talking to detectives on cases that we cover, especially old cases, cold cases. Why does the evidence room always seem to be in the basement of the building? Right. The location that would be most affected should there be a flood?

[Judge Situm]

Well, they said that they moved it to a different location to store it, which really they didn't have any obligation to keep it at all because the case was adjudicated legal conclusion. So so they said it was off site and then they suddenly found it in the evidence room and they moved the police station after the trials in 94, sometime after that to an old bank building that had gone out of business. And so the evidence room was actually the bank vault. So it was well protected in there. But they denied they had it because they didn't want to deal with it. It I'm still speaking without having had the benefit of reading the full opinion, but it looks like they're going to get to test the evidence to me and that could have huge ramifications for the case to give those people out there who are on the fence or who are completely convinced that they're guilty. Let me ask them a question. And that question is do you think that three kids accused of murdering three eight year old kids would not roll over on each other?

[Nick]

Right.

[Judge Situm]

That doesn't happen in real life.

[Nick]

Right. And in confession, air quotes, confession aside, that's the thing that I try to point out because there's people that do say, well Jesse Misskelley can confess 5, 6, 7, however many times he but as far as I'm and yes, that does, that does muddy the waters a little bit. But he could, as far as the, as far as courts go, he could, he could have confessed a thousand different

[Podcast Host]

times, but he never was willing to

[Nick]

do it in court when he was offered deals.

[Judge Situm]

And the reason for that was is people who have Mr. Have this and it's a sort of unique trait for people that have. Mr. They believe they cannot tell a lie in a courtroom. They can lie on a Bible sitting at the assistant warden's office at prison in front of me. I've seen people lie on the Bible before. He wasn't there. He never was there. Because when I showed him the police map of where I had him, I told him I needed a Bible and I needed a crime scene map and to white out where the bodies were located. And I finally got that, And I asked Ms. Kelly to point to where the bodies were located. And he pointed to the large pipe that goes across the Ten Mile Bayou, because that came up so many times during the trial. He was just guessing again. That's all he was doing. And so, but when I got down to, are you going to testify or not, he said, I can't lie on those boys no more because he couldn't lie in court, because mentally handicapped people think that that's a mortal sin.

[Nick]

It's like a little child, right? The child, the child wants to please the person they're interacting with, and it's almost like he wants to provide an answer. That's the answer that you are seeking rather than the true answer.

[Judge Situm]

Exactly. And Tim Durning, who was our post conviction forensic psychologist, he's the one who interviewed Ms. Kelly and, and provided his findings, which changed my whole impression of what Jesse Ms. Kelly was capable of intellectually. I mean, it shocked me because I had no experience whatsoever in dealing with people who had Mr. Or who were intellectually challenged. You know, I couldn't understand, and it actually frustrated me that I couldn't understand, why can't this kid get the story right? And according to Dr. Durning, people with Mr. Believe they can't tell a lie in the courtroom, but they can lie anywhere else they want to, but they can't do it in a courtroom. And in reading that in the transcript, I called Jason Baldwin one night. He didn't answer, but he called me the next day and he said, I said, I heard they offered you five years to testify against Damien. They said, yep, they did.

[Nick]

A prison sentence of five years.

[Judge Situm]

Yes, they offered me five years to testify against Damien.

[Nick]

But I told him just, just so everybody out there listening completely understands, he's facing what, life in prison or the death penalty? Or the death penalty. And instead he's offered five years to turn on his friend for something that the state or at least the prosecutors are convinced that he is guilty of. And we know he doesn't. Five years. He doesn't take the five year deal.

[Judge Situm]

I told Jason after he confirmed that, I said, you do understand that that would have basically been time served. He goes, yeah, that's what they told me. And I didn't take it. And he was willing to spend another five years waiting to get a new trial if necessary so that he could be exonerated. But instead he sacrificed himself, just like I did when I fell on my sword at the Rule 37 and told the truth. The other lawyer said, oh no, we did this because it was strategy and we did a good job and. But I was the only one that told the truth.

[Nick]

Let me ask you this while we're talking about doing the wrong thing and you can give me a short answer, long answer, or you can say, nick, I'm a judge, I don't feel comfortable answering that question.

[Judge Situm]

Okay, this sounds like it's going to be exciting.

[Nick]

Do you think or have evidence of that somebody at the West Memphis Police Department sold Jesse Misskelley's so called confession to the Commercial Appeal, the newspaper?

[Judge Situm]

No, I could never find it. I firmly believe that it happened. I looked for it, I did.

[Podcast Host]

How?

[Nick]

I mean, how else could they got.

[Podcast Host]

There's no way that they. I.

[Nick]

So I did a word count on the newspaper article of Ms. Kelly's confession on the June 7, 1993 commercial appeal.

[Podcast Host]

It's the headline on the front page.

[Nick]

It's 1627 words about. It's practically his whole damn confession printed in the newspaper.

[Podcast Host]

It taints the jury pool.

[Nick]

Any possibility of jury?

[Judge Situm]

Absolutely.

[Nick]

So you're confident saying we think, I think somebody sold it. Right. There's probably some money that exchanged.

[Judge Situm]

The only motive for doing that, other than money was to get that information out there to taint the jury pool.

[Nick]

Oh, that's true.

[Judge Situm]

And the only people who would have had that motive would be somebody who just walked by and saw it sitting on the transcript, sitting on a table. Maybe a secretary or somebody at the police department or even a victim's parent, which I don't believe. I think it was a cop, but I can't prove that. I wish I could. The closest I ever came was I was involved in a panel discussion with Mara Levert and the former editor of the Mid South Commercial Appeal and which is now defunct. They're out, completely out of business. Newspapers are a thing of the past, pretty much. I asked him directly, I said, did you purchase that from a police officer or anybody else? And he looked at me and if body language is the answer, he did buy it from somebody, a cop. But he wouldn't answer the Question. But of course, he didn't have to answer the question. But just asking it and seeing his response was enough for me to know that he bought it from somebody. Otherwise it wouldn't have been copyrighted. It's very rare for a true crime store to be copyrighted.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah.

[Nick]

By a newspaper.

[Judge Situm]

In fact, I've never seen one, to be honest with you. They're like unicorns.

[Nick]

We already talked about Mark Byers, but obviously you've met all six. I'm guessing all six of the parents of the victims.

[Judge Situm]

I've never met or spoken to Mr. Moore or his wife.

[Nick]

They seem to be the two that are most kind of removed from everything. Right.

[Judge Situm]

Yeah. And you got to remember. And of course, you're in Ohio, I'm in Arkansas. But, you know, the O.J. trial I use as an example, here's a case that they changed the venue to a larger courtroom to accommodate the press and the live coverage of the trial. And by doing so, they increased the number of African Americans in the jury pool. The riots were, I think, the year before 92. And. And I guess that was Rodney King and all that stuff. And so you had a jury pool in. In LA who were very distrustful of the police. And in Arkansas, people will buy a cop their lunch or restaurants will give them free coffee or food. And everybody believes that the cops are your best friend. And for the most part, they are. But there are some who aren't. So to compare those juries, we had a jury that was distrustful of the police. Then we had Mark Fuhrman who said he didn't use. Never used the N word, but they had him on tape saying it repeatedly. In our case, we had a jury pool who believed everything the police would tell him of the sky was green, had yellow polka dots.

[Chorus/Group Voice]

Right.

[Judge Situm]

So it's two different situations. And I think I pointed it out in the book that I think both juries got it wrong for the wrong reason.

[Nick]

Yep.

[Judge Situm]

It's. It's just. And of course, in any case, whether it's high profile or not, a jury is only as good as the evidence in front of it. And Burnett would not let us put on our case because he knew what would happen. We almost won the case. We had five votes for acquittal and the first round of voting in the

[Nick]

jury room, which is amazing considering the circumstances.

[Judge Situm]

Yeah, exactly. A Dr. Ashley been permitted to testify. You and I might be having the same conversation. Conversation. But it would have been 30 years

[Chorus/Group Voice]

ago,

[Judge Situm]

and I would be a kazillionaire with the.

[Nick]

Yeah. Oh, yeah, of course. But with the parents of the victims, from my general understanding, it sounds like of the six, that likely maybe three of them were swayed the other way of thinking that the West Memphis three were innocent eventually. Mark Byers, his wife is hard to say because unfortunately she passed away years ago. Pam Hobbs, of course, has been very vocal at times saying that she believes that the. The West Memphis three are innocent, but the Moors seem to, from my understanding, still believe that they're guilty. And of course, Terry Hobbs as well. Maybe Dana Moore may have wavered on that a little bit at times. I don't know.

[Judge Situm]

She did, but I never spoke to her. I did speak to Terry Hobbs one time.

[Podcast Host]

I've.

[Nick]

I've actually spoken to Terry Hobbs a couple. He. He said that he would do an interview with me if I sent him the questions in advance. And I sent. What I did was I sent him the same questions that the FBI said to ask every. Every person that you interview to the West Memphis Three. Because. Because I thought, well, sorry to be laughing, but that's. Is that I thought it was a

[Judge Situm]

good idea because I think it's brilliant.

[Nick]

Like, I'm not trying to put any of the parents through anything, but it's like, well, these were the questions we were asking people that we knock on the doors of, but we. I've been doing this long enough to know that the younger the victim, the smaller their social circle, the let you know, the. The less suspects you have. And so I. And he told me, I'll answer any question you give me. So I sent him the. I sent him the same ones that the FBI told the West Memphis PD to ask everybody they encounter the same questions that Jesse Misskelley would have answered and Damien Echols would have answered. And, well, I was going to say between me and you, but there's going to be a hundred thousand people that hear this. All of a sudden, a family emerg up. And we never did the interview.

[Judge Situm]

He couldn't make it. Yeah.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah.

[Nick]

But anyway, you said you talked to Terry.

[Judge Situm]

I did. I had a strange encounter with him during the second trial. I didn't go in the courtroom because there was a live feed in the hallway. And so I was just kind of watching just because I was curious, obviously. And I stepped out of the courtroom to go back to Perigord where I live, and. And he approached me. And at first I thought, oh, I'm fixing to get cussed out here.

[Nick]

Right.

[Judge Situm]

He's not a very big fellow. I wouldn't worry about my safety. But he came up to me and quite graciously said, hey, I think you did a good job for Ms. Kelly, and I know you're just doing your job. And was actually very kind. And I was stunned by that. Not stunned, surprised. I was stunned when his DNA link showed up on the shoestrings of Michael Moore. That was a shock.

[Nick]

Well, let me interrupt you here for a second because I was trying to find this the other day, and you probably won't know it off the top of your head, but I remember six, seven years ago when I was looking at this case, that the boys, of course, they're tied up with the shoelaces, but they're not necessarily tied up with their own shoelaces. Right. Like some of them were tied up with. With another boy's shoelaces. I only go down that road because I think, obviously, like, it wouldn't be out of bounds to find something of Terry Hobbs DNA at that scene. Especially when Stevie Branch, who lives with him 247 in the same house. But then it's a different victim, Michael Moore, but I don't recall offhand whose shoelaces tied up Michael Moore.

[Judge Situm]

I do recall it was Michael Moore's. Okay.

[Nick]

Percentage wise, less likely that you would find Terry Hobbs's DNA on Michael Moore's shoelaces.

[Judge Situm]

Let me answer the question this way. And there's more evidence against Terry Hobbs than any of the West Memphis Three. Yes, and. But do I think Terry Hobbs did it? Not without some proof, I don't. I think we're dealing with a serial killer.

[Nick]

I get why a lot of people have kind of turned on Terry Hobbs. And, and I know you said you were kind of surprised, and yes, you're surprised because I don't think you're saying you're. You were surprised by his demeanor toward you because he's under suspicion. I think you're saying that because you were surprised by his demeanor because he. You're helping. Trying to exonerate the persons that were accused of. Of the crimes.

[Judge Situm]

Yeah, I mean, that whole encounter has really kind of haunted me all these years.

[Nick]

He was very nice when he spoke with me. And not that that means anything, but.

[Judge Situm]

Well, he does have a history of violence. He shot Pam's sister or her brother, I think. Right. Or her brother. Her sister. Her brother, yes, his brother in law. And then he got out of it, a bunch of it. But essentially saying, well, I'm a victim of the West Memphis Three case.

[Nick]

But those two had a volatile relationship. Don't you think?

[Judge Situm]

They did. They did and, and there's no doubt about that. But, you know, I'm, I'm, I'm not going to point a finger at Terry Hobbs at this stage in the proceedings, because I don't think there's enough there. Not yet. There may be after we get some more DNA testing done.

[Nick]

Well, let's go down the serial killer route. All right, you want to expand on that? Do you feel comfortable expanding on that a little bit? I mean, there were other child murders in the area, and obvious. And what is so bizarre is some of them took place in May. And I'm not a big believer that these, that it's like on TV or the movies, where these killers operate on a calendar, so to speak, or, or fascinated by numbers or anything like that. But do you think that it, that this really involves the, the blue beacon and the traffic through the area, or do you think it's somebody very local?

[Judge Situm]

If you look at the crime scene overhead map or the sketches that were made by the police, that truck stop was immediately adjacent to the place where they found the bodies. In the wooded area, you could literally throw a baseball. So if you parked up against the back. And in the photograph that HBO took, it shows the trucks backed up as far away from as they could get from anybody else in the parking lot, which is someone like 10 acres or maybe more, and which means they didn't want to be bothered for whatever reason. I don't remember whether I addressed this in the book or not. I've slept a couple times since then. Not many, but a few. Those shoelaces were tied in such a way that I don't think they were designed to keep them from running or getting away. I think they were designed as carrying handles because you had left foot to left ankle. Right. What am I saying?

[Nick]

Left wrist, left to left, right to right.

[Podcast Host]

You think.

[Nick]

You think they were killed elsewhere?

[Judge Situm]

I do, I do. There's.

[Nick]

There was no blood.

[Judge Situm]

There would have been a tremendous amount of blood. Different location or in the back of empty 18 wheeler or in the cabin. An 18 wheeler. The best job to have if you're a serial killer is a truck driver. So that you can be six states away by the time they find the bodies, and there's no connection.

[Nick]

And the FBI has told us that for, for years, since the 90s, in fact. And, and so you think it was somebody. You lean toward the idea that it would have been somebody that was not local, that would have had the ability to move on very quickly.

[Judge Situm]

Yes, I do.

[Nick]

And, and do you have anybody in,

[Judge Situm]

in Particular I do, but I don't want to share that because I don't want to impede my investigation.

[Nick]

But, but it would be a name that persons that, that would be, it would be a name that what is not in the Paradise Lost movies or not in West Memphis Three books.

[Judge Situm]

I've never spoken to anyone about it without an NDA agreement.

[Nick]

Right.

[Judge Situm]

And, and, but I, I can place a over the road truck driver in the area, the immediate area, who confessed to killing someone and told the police exactly where the body would be found. And it was found exactly where he said it was in 1992.

[Nick]

Do you, does it have anything to do with the Bojangles?

[Judge Situm]

No, I don't think so at all.

[Nick]

Do you think that's one of the biggest missteps in this whole.

[Judge Situm]

I think it was. And I'm not saying this because I, for the truth of the matter asserted. I'm saying it because I believe that is why that blood never made it to Little Rock to the crime lab. Because they didn't want it to match anything because they already had their three guys wrapped up. That's just my belief, but I find it strangely coincidental and I really don't believe in coincidences. And on the night that the kids come up missing and the patrol is out looking for these three kids and they get a call from a fast food place saying, hey, this guy just stumbled into our ladies restroom and bled everywhere in there and saturated a roll of toilet paper with blood, left behind some bloody sunglasses which would have had fingerprints on them. And the cop pulls through the drive through and says, eh, throw it away, we don't care. And so by the time they found the bodies the next day, they suddenly cared enough to come and take the blood sample. But Brian Ridge testified that he lost it and never got sent to the crime lab because by then they had their guys and they had their story and they had to stick to it even though the FBI told them they were full of. However you want to phrase it again.

[Nick]

I'll if, if you give me the answer. Nick, I'm a judge and I don't feel comfortable answering this question. I, I, I'll be fine with that. But what do you think? And I know this is pure speculation, complete absolute speculation, and it's probably not fair that I'm asking this, but you're, you're, you, I, I've met Jason Baldwin very briefly. So you, you are the person that is the closest to this case that I've had this level of interaction with. What would be Your speculation as to what maybe Regina, Officer Regina Meeks might have seen had she brushed off the mosquitoes and walked into the woods that night?

[Judge Situm]

Well, I mean, it's obviously speculation. She wouldn't get out of the car to walk into the fast food restaurant. And she could have at least, at the very least bagged up the toilet paper roll saturated with blood and the sunglasses. But she told the manager to throw them away and they were gone by the time they got there the next day. And suddenly were interested somehow again, for reasons unknown that I can't prove other than what the testimony of the officer was, he says, I just lost it. How do you lose that? I mean, that could be the most important evidence in the case. And how do you just lose something like that? And the reason she wouldn't get out of her car to walk into the woods is because if you've ever been to Arkansas in May, the mosquitoes are horrible. They're hungry and very hungry. And several of the officers stated that they quit searching because of the mosquitoes,

[Nick]

but potentially could have seen.

[Judge Situm]

Well, they could have seen bodies floating, you know, whoever dumped those bodies there and you know, one person could have with, with those ligatures, carried a kid that weighed 50 pounds in each hand and carry two of them at once and dump them in. Of course they make this big deal about the clothes being stuck in the mud. After all the things they've said that weren't true. How do you believe them on that? Of course they did everything wrong at the crime scene. They, they didn't drain the water first. They, they felt around and after they removed the bodies, but they should have drained it before they lifted the bodies out, but instead they trampled it before they did the right thing. So I mean, it was out of their lead. And just like this case was out of my league in 1993 and. But I'd love to have the chance to try it again, but the offered plea has deprived me of that.

[Nick]

So do you think that it's one killer or multiple killers?

[Judge Situm]

Well, if you, if you believe the handle theory, I mean, I've never tested it, but I mean, it seems logical, you know, because if you're a truck driver, the last thing you want to do is dump the body somewhere other than nearby because you don't want to be pulled over three dead eight year olds in the back of your truck. So that's why that it was a dump site. And also you'd want to be getting the heck out of there before they were found so you could get to the next blue bacon truck ward and clean out your truck. Yeah. And disappear into.

[Nick]

You only need them to be concealed long enough for you to get out of die.

[Judge Situm]

Exactly. Exactly. You know, Terry Hobbs's alibi is weird and suspicious to say the least. But again, until we have some evidence that a prosecutor would actually use to prosecute, it's not going to happen. And the sad truth of the matter is, even if they did prosecute him, it doesn't mean that it's an automatic exoneration or pardon for Smith is three, they're already out of prison. So even if they found the right guy and corroborated the confession or corroborated through DNA or whatever, and nobody has the ambition to do that, the authorities here in Arkansas think this is a closed deal. And that's why I wrote the book. So that I could reopen the case to some extent and get people's minds thinking. I had two retired FBI profilers visit with me at the crime scene and they both agreed that this was a serial killer lust crime because of the bit being adjacent to the crime scene, the truck wash and the truck stop. And I know John Douglas's theory is different. I think he's a firm believer that somebody these kids knew were responsible. And he's, he's a much better profiler than I am. I, when I got called to Quantico, I turned, turned it down. Sometimes I wish I hadn't because my life would have been dramatically different.

[Nick]

Now I'll give you one last question and I'll let you go. Judge and, and I so appreciate your time tonight and thank you for all of your insights into this case. I know that the audience is going to enjoy it and even more reason for them to go out and pick up the book. But a question that, that constantly comes up in this case is there are several eyewitnesses in the neighborhood with the young boys that say that, you know, at times when they were kind of running through the neighborhood and having a good old time. Christopher, Stevie and Michael. That they were spotted with a fourth boy. At anything that you've reviewed in this case or your investigation, was that fourth child ever identified?

[Judge Situm]

I believe the closest that anybody's ever come to finding out who that was was Aaron Hutchinson.

[Nick]

That it might have been Aaron Hutchinson. And then he, he had departed from the group before probably that 6:30 timeline.

[Judge Situm]

Well, I don't think so. That day, I think that

[Nick]

that was

[Judge Situm]

mother Victoria had moved into a different school district.

[Nick]

Okay.

[Judge Situm]

I think that they hadn't been friends in a while, but used to be close friends but it had been quite some time since they'd hung out and, and not. They weren't in the same school district anymore.

[Nick]

And so that that fourth child that that may have been hanging out briefly with the boys that evening as far as we know has not been fully identified or could be Ms. You know, mis remembering by.

[Judge Situm]

Well, I'll be honest with you, and this is a 32 year old memory. I don't recall there ever being a mention of a fourth boy other than Aaron Hutchison making the claim that he witnessed the murders from their fort that they had built in the Patch of woods. But there was no fort. Even the prosecutors were skeptical enough not to call him to the stand. In fact they, they hit him out so nobody else could.

[Nick]

Exactly. Exactly. Because the things he was saying was so fantastical. They didn't make any sense at all. I mean, at all. So Judge Situm, I appreciate your time this evening. It's been a fascinating conversation. The book is the best book about this case since Mara leverett's book in 2002. It's a must. It's a must own. It's a must read for everybody out there that has been intrigued about this case all of these years later. And I appreciate your candor and your optimism that maybe that we could find who is in fact responsible one day.

[Judge Situm]

Well, if I may end on with two quotes. One being Churchill is and became my mantra throughout this entire process was never ever, ever give up. Perseverance does pay off in the end. There's no question about that. John Douglas told me to find the artist. Look at the artwork.

[Chorus/Group Voice]

West Memphis three. West Memphis three.

[Narrator]

Damien echols and jason baldwin. Jesse. Ms. Kelly. Who?

[Chorus/Group Voice]

West memphis three.

[Narrator]

They were just 8 years old. Stephen Branch, Michael Moore and Christopher Myers found murdered hog tied and naked in a drainage ditch in West Memphis.

[Chorus/Group Voice]

West Memphis 3.

[Narrator]

The state stands behind the convictions.

[Chorus/Group Voice]

West memphis 3. West memphis 3. West memphis 3.