West Memphis 3 /// Timeline & Confessions

Summary

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True Crime Garage – "West Memphis 3 /// Timeline & Confessions" (Part 2)

Date: May 5, 2024
Hosts: Nic & the Captain

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Main Theme / Purpose

This episode continues the True Crime Garage deep dive into the chilling West Memphis Three case, focusing on reconstructing the timeline of May 5-6, 1993 — when three boys were brutally murdered — and dissecting the police investigation and subsequent confessions leading to the controversial arrests of Damien Echols, Jason Baldwin, and Jessie Misskelley. Nic and the Captain meticulously sift through police reports, family accounts, and the complex cast of local suspects to parse fact from speculation, while critiquing investigative methods and highlighting the community aftermath.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Family Timelines on May 5, 1993

• Moore Family:

  • Todd Moore (father, truck driver) was away until ~5am on May 6, joining the search after returning (08:02).
  • Dana Moore (mother) last saw her son Michael and friends between 6-6:30pm; sent her daughter Dawn (10) to bring Michael home (08:22).
    • Dawn didn't find the boys but saw three older boys (one white, two black males) coming out of Robin Hood Hills; felt threatened by them (10:41-13:06).
    • Timing discrepancies noted in police interviews due to Dawn’s age and recall (13:06).

• Byers Family:

  • Melissa Byers (mother) saw Chris (victim) in/out of house between 5:30-6:30pm while on the phone (18:14).
  • John Mark Byers (stepfather) returned home, noticed Chris missing around 6:30pm, and began searching neighborhood with Melissa and stepson Ryan (19:40).
    • They found Chris’s skateboard but not him (24:38).
    • Contacted police as advised after searching without results (26:09, 27:12).
    • Quote (Nick, 26:45):
      "He was instructed by a police officer to call the police department if his son was still missing at 8:00 o’clock."

• Hobbs/Branch Family:

  • Pam Hobbs (mother of Stevie Branch) worked evenings; Terry Hobbs (stepfather) did sales route, was home early (50:02).
  • Pam saw Michael Moore and her son Stevie leave together to play; Chris Byers later came to their home but missed them (51:33).
  • Terry & Pam drove around to look for Stevie before dropping Pam at work; he continued searching after (53:11-53:50).
  • Terry teams up with David Jacoby that night to search, leaving Amanda (age 4) with Jacoby’s wife (54:54).

2. Neighborhood & Search Details

• Community was close-knit, neighborhoods seen as safe (09:37).
• Parents and neighbors coordinated search efforts until late at night (39:42).
• By 9:30pm-2:30am on May 5-6, extensive but confusing searches occurred in Robin Hood Hills, with groups splitting up (39:42-48:24).
• Police were contacted multiple times, advised staggered escalation (26:18, 45:06).

3. Investigation Critiques & Police Methods

• Investigative Focus:
  • Lead investigator Gary Gitchell used three theory strategy: the perpetrator knew the boys, did not, or crime was by a cult/gang (06:41).
  • Police did not thoroughly record or question families promptly or separately (14:32, 73:00).
  • Lack of immediate evidence collection, late/missing records noted (15:06, 73:00).
    • Quote (Mike, 73:04):
      "You're supposed to separate everybody, because what if this person's just trying to line up their story with yours?"
• Cult/Satanism Theory:
  • Early investigative slant toward cult motivation, based partly on Jerry Driver (juvenile officer) providing names of ‘troubled youths’ suspected of occult interest (75:37).
  • “Cult face paint” misinterpretations, muddy clothing, and suspicious black vans among the odd leads (15:49-16:36, 74:29-75:28).

4. Suspects & Police Focus

• The West Memphis Three:
  • Jessie Misskelley: 17, described as simple, dropped out, worked construction, considered ‘nice kid’ but easily influenced (77:06).
  • Jason Baldwin: 16, decent student, helped watch siblings, seen as a “headbanger”…not goth (78:53).
  • Damien Echols: 18, poor, troubled home life, history of mental health evaluation after Romeo & Juliet-style relationship drama, interest in “spiritual” topics misconstrued as occult/satanic (79:54-85:06).
• Other Community Suspects:
  • Vicki & Aaron Hutchinson: Vicki (neighbor) tries to involve herself for the reward money; claims exposure to satanic gatherings and weird jewelry, likely fabricating involvement (90:36-98:13).
  • Terry Hobbs: Later DNA evidence & behaviors raise questions, though not scrutinized as thoroughly at the time; Jacoby’s testimony regarding their search details is awash in memory gaps and inconsistencies (54:54-58:56).

5. Jesse Misskelley's Interrogation & Confession

• Police zero in on Misskelley after Vicki’s claims and community rumors; his simple nature and desire to help make him susceptible to leading questions (99:00–100:36).
• Father encourages him to talk in hopes of reward money (100:36).
• Sets up the pivotal “confession” and ensuing controversy—promised for part 3.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Police Recordkeeping:
  • "They didn't seem to do a real good job of investigating the families. They didn’t ask them a lot of questions and if they did, they didn’t put pen to paper and make record of it." — Nick (14:13)
• On Timeline Reliability:
  • "It could have been 15 minutes later, it could have been an hour later, who knows? ... Especially a 10-year-old is going to have difficulty with time management." — Mike (13:43, 13:55)
• On Community Search:
  • "Once you see the cops come, then like everybody looks outside to see what the heck's going on, you know, and then people get nosy Nancy...” — Mike (37:52)
• On Motivation Behind Involvement:
  • "She’s interested because there’s a $35,000 reward." — Mike (93:22)
  • “This is her golden ticket.” — Captain (93:27)
• On Investigation’s “Cult” Angle:
  • “The investigator that had discussed this with Don Moore had wrote that sometimes people in a cult paint their... faces black.” — Nick (15:49)
  • "Sounds like a word that she read in a book. And then she just made this shit up." — Captain, about “Esbat” (96:05)
• Critiquing Suspect Interviews:
  • "You’re supposed to separate everybody, because what if this person’s just trying to line up their story with yours?" — Captain (73:04)
• On Small-Town Policing:
  • "It’s a small staff and you know, they probably don’t see a lot of things like this." — Nick (73:20)
• On Damien’s “Weirdness”:
  • “He’s definitely kind of weird. He dresses in black.” — Jessie describing Damien (77:37)
  • “They misuse [the word ‘goth’]. These kids are not goth.” — Captain (78:51)
• Humorous Aside:
  • "What was your confirmation name?" — Captain
    "Isaiah." — Nick
    "Mine was Kanye. Kanye West. I was ahead of my time." — Captain (90:24-90:31)

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Important Timestamps

• 06:41 – Gitchell’s Investigation Theory
• 08:02 – Timelines: Moore Family search efforts
• 13:06–16:36 – Discussion of Dawn Moore’s sighting, timeline contradictions, and police cult theory
• 19:40–26:20 – Byers Family’s actions, community search, and reporting process
• 29:48–48:24 – Nighttime search efforts, cross-family coordination, confusion
• 54:48–58:56 – Terry Hobbs’ search route, David Jacoby’s testimony, and memory discrepancies
• 73:00–73:28 – Critique of police interviews and family questioning practices
• 74:29–75:28 – Community “weirdo” suspects and van sightings
• 75:37–77:17 – Jerry Driver’s suspect list and background
• 77:17–85:26 – Profiles of Jesse, Jason & Damien (the West Memphis Three)
• 90:36–98:13 – Vicki & Aaron Hutchinson's alleged evidence / role
• 99:00–100:36 – Police interview with Jesse Misskelley and setup for confessions (Part 3 tease)

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Episode Tone & Style

• Language: Conversational, insightful, dry with dashes of humor and skepticism.
• Style: Methodical and detail-driven, challenging “official” narratives via point-by-point breakdowns, sometimes with wry asides.
• Atmosphere: A mix of clinical true-crime analysis and informal banter; personal anecdotes and pop-culture references keep it engaging.

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Summary for New Listeners

This episode is a quintessential True Crime Garage deep-dive: a meticulous, almost hour-by-hour reconstruction of the West Memphis Three’s infamous timeline and the tornado of accusations, rumors, and mishandled evidence that followed. Nic and the Captain’s dialogue blends dense factual recall with occasional levity, providing essential context for why the case remains so divisive and haunting. They show how unreliable memories, poor police procedures, community panic, and a focus on “weirdness” (rather than hard evidence) led to lasting controversy — all setting the stage for the next installment on the infamous police “confession.”

If you want a thorough, critical walk-through of the who/what/when/where of May 5, 1993, without tabloid nonsense, this is the episode. And as always: be good, be kind, and don’t litter.

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End of Summary.

Transcript

[Advertiser]

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[Host - Mike]

Sa. This is true crime Garage. And this is the case of The West Memphis Three.

[Narrator]

The West Memphis Three. Damien Echols. Jason Baldwin.

[Investigator]

Jesse Vischelli.

[Narrator]

The West Memphis Three. Damien Eccles, Jason Baldwin, Jesse Ms. Kelly. The West Memphis Tree. The West Memphis Tree. We've had three children missing since last night.

[Host - Mike]

Three young boys murdered in cold blood.

[Investigator]

It appeared that they had been sexually mutilated.

[Host - Nick]

Is it your opinion that these crimes

[Investigator]

were motivated by occult beliefs? Yes.

[Narrator]

The West Memphis Three

[Host - Nick]

arrested at 2:44pm

[Investigator]

Charged with three counts of capital murder.

[Host - Nick]

It was like a nuclear bomb going

[Host - Mike]

off in the courtroom.

[Investigator]

In a statement given to the police, 17 year old Jesse Misskelley allegedly confesses to watching two other suspects choke, rape and sexually mutilate three West Memphis second graders.

[Narrator]

In 1993, the small Arkansas town of West Memphis was robbed by the gruesome killing of three eight year old boys. A police investigation brought murder charges against three local teens. Damien Eccles, Jason Baldwin, Jesse Ms. Kelly.

[Investigator]

Ms. Kelly, this is not.

[Advertiser]

Who do you believe is the real killer?

[Investigator]

Terry Wayne Hobbs. I don't know how much clear I have to make it. None of my DNA was there. None of the Westminster Three's DNA was there.

[Host - Nick]

What makes you so curious?

[Host - Mike]

Hobbs?

[Host - Nick]

What makes you so sure that it's Terry Hobbs?

[Investigator]

Pardon me?

[Host - Nick]

What makes you so sure that it's Terry Hobbs?

[Investigator]

Well, his DNA was found there in the lace of Michael Moore. David jacoby's hair was there. What'd it do? Fly there on harry potter wand? It either fell off of terry hobbs or he was there. There's no other two ways about it. None of the westminster three's DNA was there. This is not just

[Narrator]

damian echols, jason baldwin, jesse misskelley.

[Investigator]

Jesse misskelley.

[Narrator]

The west memphis three. Damien echols, jason baldwin, jesse, Ms. Kelly. The west memphis three. The West Memphis Three.

[Host - Nick]

Welcome to True Crime Garage. Wherever you are, whatever you are doing, thanks for listening. I'm your host, Nick, and with me, as always, the Captain.

[Host - Mike]

Thank you, thank you, thank you. It's good to be seen and it's good to see you,

[Host - Nick]

Captain. This week, our beer of the week is Elvis Juice by Brew Dog out of Scotland. Garage grade. We're giving it 4 out of 5 bottle caps. This is an IPA with a bitter edge that will push your citrus tolerance to the brink. Great hop level with a touch of grapefruit peel. Pick some up today and enjoy responsibly with your garage friends. Elvis Juice was brought to us by Gregory in Ottawa, Ontario, Jennifer in Luxembourg, Wisconsin. She's a longtime friend of the Garage. Jason in Renton, Washington, and Michael and la who enjoyed hearing that the spurs are one of my favorite basketball teams. So thank you to Gregory, Jennifer, Jason and Michael for providing the beer this week. And if you want to buy us around for next week's show, go to truecrimegarage.com click on the Donate button.

[Host - Mike]

And if you go to contact, we now have a mailbox. So you can send us fan mail, fan art, you can send us beer, you can send us donations, whatever you want.

[Host - Nick]

So check that [e-mail] this week we are covering the West Memphis Three. This is part two. So if you didn't tune into last week's show, stop what you're doing right now, go back, listen and pick up here. When we left off last week, we were discussing the investigation. Now lead investigator Gary Gitchell, he had a strategy for investigating the murders of these three boys. Now, his strategy that it was one of three circumstances that either A, somebody that knew one or all of the boys committed this crime or B, someone that didn't know any of the boys committed this crime or C, that this crime was committed by a gang or cult, a group of people that may or may not have known the boys. So we're going to continue along that investigation. And first of all, I want to talk about the families. So this would be people that knew one or all of the boys. We're going to talk about their movements on May 5, 1993. Now, these are coming from police reports. So from the police reports, we have information on all three families on the Moore family The Branch family and the Byers family. For the Moore family, we have father and mother Todd and Dana Moore. Now Todd, he was nowhere near the area of West Memphis on the night of May 5th.

[Host - Mike]

Because he's a truck driver, correct?

[Host - Nick]

Yes, he, he's a truck driver. And he did not return from his truck run until about 5 or 5:15am on May 6. Now he did join the search when he got home. He joined the search that morning because the family members, neighborhood people, the police, they were looking for the boys that night. Well, this, they never found him. So the search continued on on May 6. Now his wife, Dana Moore, these are both biological parents to Michael Moore. His wife, Dana Moore, she was one of the people to have seen the kids last. She reports having seen the kids sometime between 6 and 6:30pm on May 5. Now she saw them riding bicycles. She saw three boys, Chris Byers, Stevie Branch and Michael Moore, her son, riding two bicycles and they were heading north towards Goodwin. Michael Moore had a sister, Dawn Moore, she was about 10 years old at the time and she was, she was interviewed as well. And she had seen, she was sent by her mother, Dana to look for the boys after they went missing. After they went, you know, they're not technically missing at this point, but after she had saw her son and her two, his two friends going north, she wanted her son to come home. So she sent her daughter, 10 year old Don Moore, to go look for the boys and tell Michael to come home.

[Host - Mike]

Which is pretty typical. I mean, she's probably cooking dinner at this point and then she says, you go find him, bring him back, it's time for dinner.

[Host - Nick]

Yeah. And this is a fairly safe neighborhood. It's a kind of a close knit community. This community, this neighborhood is all like three bedroom homes, kind of very middle class. And she, you know, you kind of know most of the people that live on your street or in the neighborhood. You've had discussions with them or met them at some point.

[Host - Mike]

Yes, lower middle class, probably nationwide, but in that area, probably middle class, maybe a little higher than that.

[Host - Nick]

Yeah, three bedroom home, Some of them even have swimming pools. And she sent her daughter, Dane Moore, who, Don Moore, I'm sorry, who is 10 years old, sent her off on her bike to go retrieve Michael Moore. Well, she comes home and she says that she never saw the boys that day.

[Host - Mike]

Couldn't find them.

[Host - Nick]

Couldn't find them and never saw them. But she also gives some more information to police. She says that around. She's not quite sure what time, she says about 5:30 or 6, which doesn't fully line up with what Dana Moore had said. But again, she's 10 years old, so she probably doesn't know exactly what time it is. Right.

[Host - Mike]

She could be off by 30 minutes to an hour.

[Host - Nick]

Yes, Dana said she had seen him about 6, 6:30. So now the police are going to, they realize that dawn probably doesn't know exactly what time she was looking for her brother. So you can tell this because they ask her, well, was it still light outside? And she does say, yes, the sun was still out. It was still light outside when I went looking for my brother. She said that when she was looking for her brother that she had noticed three boys coming out of the Robin Hood Hills. Now that is the wooded area that is just north of their home. It's about a quarter of a mile from their home. She sees three boys coming out of there. Now these look to be about junior high, maybe teenage teenager age boys. And she describes the three of them as one white male and two black males coming out of the woods. And she stated even further that they were coming out of the Robin Hood area that leads down near the ditch that, that goes to what the kids call the devil's den. And she had said that when she rode up by the boys and they were walking out that one of the boys had asked her if she wanted a shot. Now she didn't know what, she's 10 years old, she doesn't really know what this means. Who knows what they were talking about. But she, she assumed that it meant something to do with drugs. Kind of scared her off and she decided to ride home right now. She would describe these boys as the, the white male was wearing yellow, black, yellow and black shorts and he, he had a yellow and black top as well shirt and he had striped shoes. She didn't provide much information about the two black males that she had seen. Now again, she expected them to be about teenager age. And when the police probed further, she would go on to say maybe 17. She had also said that she had seen these same boys she had seen about 45 minutes later. She had seen the white male and at least one of the black males going into a house north of Goodwin that was close to the Goodwin Avenue. And this was about the fourth house off of Goodwin on the west side. She stated. So what do we have here, Captain? We have the, we have the sister who is seeing these people coming out of the woods. And it was suspected at some point that the kids had gone into the Robin Hood Hills.

[Host - Mike]

Right.

[Host - Nick]

And so she's seeing these kids. Probably if her mom says 6 to 6:30 that she last saw them and sent the daughter off looking for them, it wouldn't take very long to ride your bike. Bike a quarter of a mile to get to the Robin Hood hills. So what are we talking about here, Captain? Probably 615, maybe 645.

[Host - Mike]

Yeah. Again, it's, it's tough with all this stuff because I mean a lot of these eyewitness accounts, they could be off by an hour, sometimes more.

[Host - Nick]

And she's saying about 45 minutes later she saw them go into a house. Now again, right.

[Host - Mike]

It could have been 15 minutes later,

[Host - Nick]

it could have been an hour later, who knows?

[Host - Mike]

And I'm not claiming that she's not telling the truth. I'm just saying that she's 10 years old, especially a 10 year old is going to have difficulty with time management.

[Host - Nick]

This brings us to the Byers family

[Host - Mike]

and also, let's go back for one second. She's not questioned until days after the events.

[Host - Nick]

Correct. It looks like the one thing. So Gary Gitchell's approach to this case was that it was either somebody that knew the boys, didn't know the boys, or it was a gang.

[Host - Mike]

Yeah, yeah, we heard you.

[Host - Nick]

And but one thing that I noticed when going through the police reports, the detectives, Gary Gitchell leading the, the investigation, they didn't seem to do a real good job of investigating the families. They didn't ask them a lot of questions and if they did, they didn't, they didn't put pen to paper and make record of.

[Host - Mike]

Right. There's not enough notes on it.

[Host - Nick]

Yeah. So this, this police report is actually dated many days after the discovery of the boys and it actually has a different date up at the top. So it was submitted later than what they're saying that the report was taken.

[Host - Mike]

Right.

[Host - Nick]

So is this an actual, is this somebody sitting down and putting pen to paper and making this report or is this a detective's recollection of what he discussed with Don?

[Host - Mike]

Yeah, so I sit down, I talk with Don and then a couple days later I write down. So it's like it could be a count of an account, right?

[Host - Nick]

Yeah. And it appears that most of the family members of the victims were interviewed as far as reports were filed on the 10th of May. So they disappeared on the 5th, they were found dead on the 6th. And now at least four days have gone by before we're were writing these reports.

[Host - Mike]

Yeah, but in the reports they're taking on are from five days ago.

[Host - Nick]

Yeah. Not Only that there's very few notes on them. So that that would make one infer that there was probably not a whole lot of questions involved to these, to

[Host - Mike]

this interview, which I understand a little bit, because it's a sensitive subject. You have three parents, you know, three sets of parents that lost their kids, and then you have to question them. I think that would be difficult for anybody.

[Host - Nick]

The strange thing about Don Moore's report is that at the bottom of the page, the investigator that had discussed this with Don Moore had wrote that sometimes people in a cult paint their. People in a cult. They paint their faces black. So. So the investigators not fully believing that maybe this child had seen a white man and two black men coming out of the woods, that maybe it was three white men.

[Host - Mike]

Yeah, I was wondering, too, maybe she just got confused. Maybe two of the suspects were wearing black, and maybe that was just enough for her to throw off her memory.

[Advertiser]

I.

[Host - Nick]

It could have been. Could have been, but. But we do.

[Host - Mike]

Or that they're. That they're muddy.

[Host - Nick]

I, I like the muddy idea a

[Host - Mike]

little bit, but that makes more sense to me than painting your face black.

[Host - Nick]

It also makes more sense to me than if the. If the kids were wearing black, because she does state that the white. The white kid was wearing black and yellow clothes. So this brings us to the Byers family. Now, Melissa Byers is the mother of Chris Byers. And just to clear everything up real quick, John Mark Byers is her husband. They've both been married before. And John Mark Byers is technically the stepfather of Christopher Byers. He's one of the boys that was found dead in the woods. He's also the stepfather of. Of Ryan. Now, Ryan has a different last name than Christopher Byers because Christopher Byers, from what we have heard, was technically adopted by John Mark Byers. Now, some people have pointed out that this is strange, that he would adopt one boy and not the other. And, And. And we can all agree that John Mark Byers is an animated character and that there is some strangeness to him. I find that this speculation is really just kind of BS When I found out the real story was that Melissa was pregnant with Christopher at the time that she had met John Mark Byers.

[Advertiser]

Right.

[Host - Nick]

So Christopher, for the most part, for his entire life, John Mark was involved.

[Host - Mike]

Not for the most part.

[Host - Nick]

Well, yeah, for his whole part. Yeah, for his entire life, John Mark was. Was involved. He. He was. They lived together. And he wasn't technically his father. He was his stepfather. And Christopher Byers did know that he was. That he had a real father elsewhere and had met him on what sounds like just a few occasions.

[Host - Mike]

Real gem of a person.

[Host - Nick]

Well, Melissa Byers would state that she was home sometime around or after 5:30pm that day. And she, between 5:30 and 6:30, sees Chris come, come in and out of the house several times. Now she's on the phone with her boss. And so she doesn't really know what he's coming in and out of the house for. But, you know, she says he may have came in to get something to drink. He may have came in to get a toy or a skateboard. Maybe he came in to get a cookie or something to eat.

[Host - Mike]

This was very common when you're kids, you know, especially it's May, it's May 5, so it's a little hotter. So you're playing outside with your buddies and your, your parents would be on the phone. Not all the time, but, you know, my mother was on the phone constantly. So it was constantly like going in and out of the house and grabbing stuff and you just see her and she'd wave you off, you know.

[Host - Nick]

And because John Mark Byers, we're going to get to him right now. But because he was considered a suspect by some or.

[Host - Mike]

Well, he, he just, I just want to say he has an interesting jib.

[Host - Nick]

Yeah, a strange jib, but because he's a suspect in, in some of the public's eye, I do want to clear something up real quick. While we're going through the events of the movements of these persons, the family in particular, on, on May 5, we are talking about what I was able to. And you were able to figure out is, is multiple accounts. This is not just, this is not just Melissa Byers saying, I was home at this time.

[Host - Mike]

Right. It's basically of all the eyewitnesses. Then we compile all that together and then we put a timeline together instead of just taking your word, you know,

[Host - Nick]

and if at any time that there's one person that is by themselves that says, I was here doing this and there's no other person to, to back that up, we will let you know. But all these, these accounts that we will go through, that, that we don't state otherwise is backed up by somebody else's account. Now that might be simply a husband backing up a wife or a wife repeating something that her husband said, but it's at least two characters that are involved in this case. Now with John Mark Byers, he says that he noticed that Chris was missing around 6.30pm he had come home. He had. He had brought his other stepson home, Ryan. They were off driving and I believe there was a court appearance that Ryan had to attend. He had, Ryan had seen like a hit and run or some kind of car accident, and he was a witness in the case. Now, John, Mark had dropped Ryan off to do whatever he had to do at the courthouse, picked him up and brought him home. When he had come home, he wanted to talk to Melissa. He's saying, you know, where is Christopher?

[Host - Mike]

Right.

[Host - Nick]

But she goes, well, she's, you know, I'm on the phone. Gives him the one minute, give me a minute here, John. And she, she tells John the First Nation there that Chris is probably in his room and if he's not in his room, he's outside playing. Well, John says, I know he's not outside playing. I just pulled up. And when he had last seen Chris, Christopher Byers. Christopher had gotten in trouble that day. John had seen him riding around. He was riding, you know, you know, when people ride on their belly on the skateboard. So Chris liked to skateboard and he was riding on his belly, but he was just kind of riding carelessly down the road on his belly.

[Host - Mike]

Right. Which a car wouldn't be able to see you.

[Host - Nick]

No, he's a little boy. So, John. And this is probably, you know, I, this is not how you should raise children. But again, this is 1993 and it's in, it's West Memphis. Who knows? But he, he says that this upset him and he, he wanted to, you know, he explained to Christopher that this is not how you behave. This is not. This is careless behavior, reckless behavior.

[Host - Mike]

Right.

[Host - Nick]

And he punished him. He gave him a whack or two with his belt.

[Host - Mike]

And see, I'd argue this is the way you raise your kid. I mean, because he didn't give him wax for no reason. He gave him wax for his safety.

[Host - Nick]

Yeah.

[Host - Mike]

So what they, what a lot of psychologists say is you actually punish this stuff more in children because bad behavior. Yeah, because you're teaching. Well, it's bad behavior regardless. But it's a safety issue. Like make a big deal about not playing in the road, make a big deal about not talking to strangers. Make, you know, some of the little stuff about cleaning your room. Don't just smack your kid for no reason, but really harp on stuff that is when they're putting themselves in danger. Oh, I'm going to touch the stove or whatever.

[Host - Nick]

I'm playing on the train tracks.

[Host - Mike]

Exactly. These are big issues. And that's what a lot of psychologists say.

[Host - Nick]

So you want to do something that would make them remember this so that they don't repeat the behavior.

[Host - Mike]

Right. And it's for their safety. It's not, it's not like he's just be, he's just whooping them to whoop him, you know.

[Host - Nick]

Well, when he had last seen him after the punishment was dealt, he had told Christopher that he could go play with his friends, but he wanted him to clean up the carport before he went and did that. So when he, when, when John Mark left the house, he had last seen Christopher cleaning up the carport area.

[Host - Mike]

Yeah. And it could have just, his toys could have just been out.

[Host - Nick]

So he goes home and he sees his wife on the phone with her boss. She tells him just one minute. He goes and looks in her room, in Christopher's room. He's not there. Well, they decide that they're going to drive through the neighborhood and start looking for the boy. He was supposed to be home by this time.

[Host - Mike]

Well, and it's also dinner time. And so you just picked up your one stepson. You probably want to eat, get your whole family together, start closing in for the night. It's 1993. This is back in the day when by 8, 9 o' clock towns were shutting down.

[Advertiser]

Yeah.

[Host - Nick]

So this is, this is 6:30 or 6:45 in the evening. Now here's the thing though. Some people have pointed out, well, why would, why would they just jump in the car and go looking for him? And they, and according to John Mark and according to his wife and the son, the stepson Ryan backs this up as well, that they drove through the neighborhood asking people had they seen Christopher Byers.

[Host - Mike]

Right.

[Host - Nick]

One person they would talk to is Dana Moore. And the reason being is basically the buyers in the Moore's were next door neighbors. I believe the Byers lived right across the street from the Moore's. And so they knew that, that Michael Moore and Christopher Byers played together, played together often. So they wanted to see, hey, was he with Michael Moore?

[Host - Mike]

Right.

[Host - Nick]

They asked Dana and this is where Dana says, yeah, I did just see them, you know, just not too long ago, saw them heading north towards Goodwin and they. Three boys, three boys, two bikes. And she says, I believe they were with Stevie Branch because Stevie Branch's dad, she's talking about Terry Hobbs had come, his stepfather. Yep. Had come by the home, by Dana Moore's home and was asking about the boys. He was out looking for his stepson. So the buyers would continue on, they would drive around in their vehicle and they would ask People in the neighborhood and check the streets, they kept thinking that they would either see the boys riding around on the bicycles or that maybe the boys were in somebody's home watching TV or playing in somebody's home or backyard and that they would see the bikes out front. Now one thing, that one thing that was a little bit weird was Christopher Byers was not on a bicycle, he was on his skateboard. And while they were out looking for him, they found the skateboard. Which would make sense why some people reported seeing three boys on two bicycles.

[Host - Mike]

Well, sometimes you get tired of trying to keep up with your buddies when you're on the skateboard. So you just ditch the skateboard and

[Host - Nick]

you jump on the back or jump on the front of the bike.

[Host - Mike]

Correct.

[Host - Nick]

They don't end up finding Christopher. And what happens is when they're out looking, Mark Byers, John Mark Byers comes up and he sees a police officer in the area and he says to the officer, he says, hey, we're out looking for our 8 year old son, we can't find him.

[Host - Mike]

Right.

[Host - Nick]

And you know, what should we do? Well, the police officer says, well, how long have you been looking for him? He says, oh, maybe 45 minutes or an hour.

[Host - Mike]

Right. It's still a long time though.

[Host - Nick]

And the police officer says, okay, what time is it? John Mark says something like it's about 7:30 or it's a little after 7:30. The police officer says what you should do is why don't you either continue looking or go home and give it till about 8 o'. Clock. If your son has not returned home by 8 o', clock, then you need to call the police station and file a missing persons report.

[Host - Mike]

Right.

[Host - Nick]

Very good information, very good advice. Now here's one thing that I've always found strange. A lot of people that think that John Mark Byers might have had something to do with the missing boys is that they wondered why would he jump to a conclusion and call police so soon? Well, the reason why he's out looking for Christopher, not only was Christopher supposed to be home, but they were going out to dinner. You had talked about maybe they wanted to sit down to dinner.

[Host - Mike]

Well, you can't have brought it up when I brought it up.

[Host - Nick]

Right. But little suspense.

[Host - Mike]

You could have brought it up when

[Advertiser]

I brought it up.

[Host - Nick]

Little suspense. But the thing is they didn't have anything set out for dinner. Melissa wasn't preparing dinner. They were when, when John Mark came home with Ryan, it was planned that the four of them would go out to dinner together. Well, they can't go out to dinner while their eight year old is not at home or not with them.

[Host - Mike]

Well, they could, but that'd be question.

[Host - Nick]

So they're not. So in the beginning, in the beginning stages of looking for Christopher Byers, they're not like panicking looking for their son. They're just thinking, oh, he stayed out longer than, he doesn't know what time it is.

[Host - Mike]

Right.

[Host - Nick]

We'll go find him in the neighborhood somewhere. He'll get in the car and we'll all go out, we'll all go out to eat. Well, during this search, they never find him. Well, another thing that people point out is, well, why would, why would John Mark Byers be so quick to call police? Well, he was instructed by a police officer to call the police department if his son was still missing at 8:00'.

[Advertiser]

Clock.

[Host - Mike]

Yeah. And if you're a parent and you actually care about your kids, I mean after an hour of not being able to find your kids, I mean, you start getting freaked out. I think I would call the cops as well.

[Advertiser]

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[Host - Nick]

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[Host - Nick]

So John Mark Myers heads home with his family and he he gets home and he's home just before 8 o' clock he sees Dana Moore one more time. He he he tells her I was told to call the police if if the boys don't return by 8 o'.

[Host - Mike]

Clock, right?

[Host - Nick]

It's at this time that he meets Terry Hobbs, as you had said, Terry Hobbs is the stepfather for Stevie Branch.

[Host - Mike]

Yeah. And they've never met until this day.

[Host - Nick]

Correct. Now they talk for a little bit and Christopher. I'm sorry, John Mark Byers tells the other parents, I'm going to go into the house and I'm going to call the police station.

[Advertiser]

Right.

[Host - Nick]

He actually calls the county sheriff's office and he makes a complaint that his son is missing. And the county sheriff's office tells him, you need to call the local police department. He hangs up the phone and this is when he calls the police department. Well, shortly after calling the police is when the officer arrives, Regina Meeks, she arrives and she takes the missing persons report from John Mark Byers. Now, one thing that some people would point out was strange was that John Mark Byers had said in his report that Christopher Byers was taking Ritalin or some kind of mood altercation because he had that hypertension or the. Not hypertension, but hypertension.

[Host - Mike]

He had hypertension. Eight year old.

[Host - Nick]

What's that called? The, the add.

[Host - Mike]

Right, right. Adhd.

[Host - Nick]

Yeah, he had that. He explains to the officer that Christopher has not taken his medication. Now some would point out that this is weird, but, but hopefully none of our listeners have had to place a missing persons report. But what happens typically, and one thing that officers are trained to do is when they show up to take a missing persons report, they are going to ask you, is this person on any medication? Reason being is if any of this stuff is important, if they need to take this stuff tonight or early the next morning, whatever they need to know what that is. Because this could make an already bad situation, a concerned situation, more urgent.

[Host - Mike]

Yeah, yeah, definitely more urgent.

[Host - Nick]

So rather than think that it's strange for John Mark to say that Christopher had not taken his medication, I actually applaud the officer for asking the appropriate questions. Anyway, after giving the report, John Mark Byers and his stepson Ryan, they will continue their search. They go out in a vehicle and, and they're looking the neighborhood and they're looking in the woods. They decide that they want to look in the Robin Hood Hills wooded area. Now it's a bit confusing of where they searched because buyers would end up searching quite a bit of the woods that night.

[Host - Mike]

And just a reminder that this, it's about 4 acres and so it's kind of a thin line. Then the pipe and that kind of opens up and it's a little bit bigger towards the interstate.

[Host - Nick]

Yeah, yeah, you have the neighborhood and just north of that you have that thin tree line. That the captain was talking about. And then you have the larger wooded area that's north of that thin tree line. Yeah, those two parts of the woods are separated by the Ten Mile Bayou. And there is that large pipe that you could walk across to get to the larger wooded area.

[Host - Mike]

Yeah, this is the pipe that most people know. There's a famous picture, and when they pulled out the two bicycles, they lay the two bicycles on the pipe. And if you look it up on the Internet, it's a pretty popular picture of this case.

[Host - Nick]

Yeah, they found one bicycle on one side of the pipe and the other bicycle on the other. And both appeared obviously to have been thrown from the pipe. Anyway, the. The thing here is buyers as well as plenty of other people would search the wooded area several times that night and again the following morning. So it gets a little confusing as to what part of the woods they were in and what part they weren't in and at what time they could be. However, I do want to point out here that Mark Byers was not by himself at this time. He had gone to the woods to look for his son and the other missing boys. And with him he had taken his stepson Ryan. And when he's there, Ryan had kind of recruited. You know, at this time, it's a smart. You know, it's a neighborhood. People have seen multiple. Sorry. People have seen a police report, police officers looking for somebody in the area. Words kind of gotten out that some boys are missing.

[Host - Mike]

Yeah. Once in any neighborhood, once you see the cops come, then like everybody looks outside to see what the heck's going on, you know, and then people get nosy, Nancy, and they're like, oh, what, what's happening? And then. So it's now it's a community search. And a lot of the parents. Hobbs will talk about this. I believe Myers Byers talks about this a little bit. But, you know, it's anywhere from 20 to 40 people that are out looking.

[Advertiser]

Yeah.

[Host - Nick]

And Ryan especially is. He's a teenager. He's not a small boy like Christopher. So he and some of his friends are searching too. So during, during Mark Byers search of this woods at this time, also in the woods, we have Terry Hobbs. He comes across Terry Hobbs and he's out. Terry Hobbs is out looking as well in the wooded area. And John Mark is uncertain if Terry was with somebody or if he was by himself. But they spoke for a little bit and, and Byers had said, hey, I've been searching over here. Terry says, I've been searching over in this area. And they agree that they should probably just, they should spread out.

[Host - Mike]

Right.

[Host - Nick]

And one search one side, one search the other side. So it's unclear what side each person was searching on or what was the division between the two of them.

[Host - Mike]

But they're not the only people searching is what I'm saying. There's, there's 20 some people out there. 20 to 40 people out there.

[Host - Nick]

Yeah. And you have, you have Ryan who's with some of his other teenage friends. He's with Richie and a, and a boy named Brett and they're kind of searching the area together. Now this is after, after dark time. And it's about 9:30. John Mark Byer says they searched until approximately 9:30. He comes out of the woods because he doesn't have a flashlight.

[Host - Mike]

Yeah, it's a full moon, but at 9:30, especially in this dense woods, it's probably hard to see where you're walking. It's probably not too safe. You're also going over areas that you probably have looked for four before.

[Investigator]

Yeah.

[Host - Nick]

And he gets out of the woods and he's going to go ask somebody if he can borrow a light, knock on somebody's door that he might know.

[Host - Mike]

Right.

[Host - Nick]

And, but before he can do that, he sees a police officer and the police officer is aware that there are children or a child that is missing. And he says, what are you doing? He goes, well I'm looking for my son. I'm going to go get a flashlight. The police officer says, let me help you search. So now John Mark Byers goes into the woods with a police officer. They walk around. He said, he said that they went into the tree line area, that they did go past the pipe, they went up and down some trails and they even went up by the water and the police officer shined his light into the water.

[Host - Mike]

Right. But this is muddy water. I mean you can't see the bottom through this water. It's muddy.

[Host - Nick]

So they, they searched the area until approximately, from, from about, until about 10:30ish, you know, is the best time that I can put on this. And John Mark Byers says to the police officer, you know what, what should I do? You know, I don't, I don't know what to do. We've looked all over. We can't find him.

[Host - Mike]

Right. The part of him probably feels like it's pointless, you know, like he's a dog chasing his tail. And as a parent you don't want to stop looking, you know, you want to keep you. You'll use as much energy as you can to, to fix this problem. But he's now at the point where he was going, this doesn't make a lot of sense. So he's asking the police officer, what do I do?

[Host - Nick]

Well, and the police officer says, here's what I would do. We're going to keep searching. We're going to keep driving up and down the roads and we, if we see bicycles or if we see the boys, we'll send them home or we'll call it in or whatever. We're going to keep looking. But they don't want to keep looking in the woods. It's late, the woods are tough to look and the mosquitoes are bad. So the police officer is going to drive up and down the roads, drive up and down the streets, and he tells Mark Byers what you should do is you should probably get in contact with the officer that you originally filed the report with and ask them if there's any updates in the missing persons report.

[Host - Mike]

Right.

[Host - Nick]

John Mark Byers goes home around 11pm and this is when he does contact the police officers and he calls Regina Meeks, who took the missing persons report, asking for if there is any update on his missing son. And she tells him, no, he's still missing at this time and we are still looking, and that she will have the, the current officers that are currently working, they will tell the next shift to be on the lookout for these boys as well. Byers hangs up the phone and then after that he calls the sheriff's department and he complains to the sheriff's department that they should probably have search and rescue out in the area, that his son is missing, there are two other boys that are missing, and that he finds it absurd that there's not a search and rescue team out here other than just these police officers and some neighborhood people looking for these boys. After he gets off the phone, after he gets done complaining to the sheriff's department, he and his stepson Ryan decide to go back out and they want to search the woods one more time. Now, it's pretty late at this time, and they pull up by the Blue Beacon behind the blue beacon and they're going to search the woods along that blue beacon area right now, one thing that is weird here, but this also corroborates with his story. He says that I'm out with my stepson Ryan. We're searching the, the woods area. The two of the, there are two Blue Beacon employees. And he kind of yells at him and he says, hey, have you guys seen any boys? And the Blue Beacon employees say, no, we haven't seen any boys. And there's been other people that have come by and asked about these boys as well. He says, well, I just want you to know that me and my son are going to be searching in the woods here and that's why my car will be over here.

[Host - Mike]

Right.

[Host - Nick]

Some people have pointed out that maybe he's trying to bring up why, you know, maybe this is buying an alibi, why his car would be seen in the area. I actually think that it's just plain and simple. It's, it's out of respect for the business. I'm here on your property with my vehicle. It's very late at night. I want you to know what I'm doing because I'm, I'm not out breaking into something or looking to make trouble. I'm here trying to find my son. At this time, they don't actually go into the woods again. It's very late. What he says is that he let Ryan kind of drive his car, you know, kind of let it idle along the, the tree line and keep the, keep the light shining. And he walked along and just inside of the woods a bit and he was basically just yelling out the children's names, hoping to hear one of them or, or hear something or see something. They don't find anything. And they go home at midnight. This is around midnight. And when he gets home, this is when he says that he tells Ryan that he should probably go to bed. After sending Ryan to bed.

[Host - Mike]

Brian has school the next day.

[Host - Nick]

Exactly. And Byers, Byers goes out front and he's basically goes out to the street and he's standing underneath the street light and he meets up with some of the other parents. His wife is out there with him, Melissa Byers, and they talk to Dana Moore. They talk to Terry Hobbs, they talk to Terry Hobbs's father in law and they also talk with. Terry Hobbs has brought a friend with him. Now, Byers would say that he either didn't know the name of the friend or he did not recall the name of the friend at the time of giving this report.

[Host - Mike]

But we know that Byers doesn't really know Hobbs at this point. He met him that day.

[Host - Nick]

He had met him for the first time that day. You're exactly right. And they stand out there and he said they talked for quite some time. They all wondered where the boys could be. They all kind of told stories of who they had talked to and what was related to them and, and they even started to speculate a little bit of what could have happened to the boys and where they could be. And Byers goes on to express his concern to the other parents that he was disappointed that the sheriff's department didn't show up with search and Rescue. Now somebody in the group, it's unbeknownst to, to the members of that group that was out talking that night, but at some point somebody in the group says that, you know, I hope that they didn't drown in the water out there. You know, there is, there's that 10 mile bayou. There's also that, you know, the drainage, drainage ditch. There is some water out there. And that was a concern amongst all of the parents.

[Host - Mike]

I mean, even in pools you'd have accidental drowning. So this would be something that I think a natural conclusion that one might come to.

[Host - Nick]

Buyer says that he doesn't know how long they stood out there talking, but it seemed to be quite some bit of time. And then he said after they were done talking, he went out briefly. And this would have just. If you put the timeline together, Captain, he could have only gone out for probably a half an hour, maybe 20 minutes at the most. Now at this point, he does not have anybody else to, to back up his story other than, other than the parents having said that they saw him and spoke with him out underneath the, underneath the street light streetlight. Thank you. And that at some point they broke up. And then Byers says he went out and he searched for a little bit by himself. He went home. He says he was home about 2:30 in the morning.

[Host - Mike]

But there's also reports of just people out in general looking. Other people that might not just be the parents. There's still people in the community out looking.

[Host - Nick]

Yeah, he would say that he didn't know who some of these people were, but while he was out, he had seen other people that were on four wheelers and driving around the neighborhood and kind of looking and asking for the boys.

[Host - Mike]

Yeah, Nosy Nancy, which, I mean, there's. They're being respectful of the neighborhood and trying to find these kids, but still it's Nosy Nancy.

[Host - Nick]

He claims to have gotten home about 2:30, maybe three at the very latest. He says that at this time he was unable to sleep. His wife was at home during this time he was unable to sleep. It was too late, he was too tired and he couldn't search anymore that night. But he said because he was so stressed and so worried, all he could do was basically sit and wait for daylight. There was no point in searching at this point.

[Host - Mike]

At that point, you're so exhausted you almost get the sick feeling, you know, you can't sleep but you know, but you're so exhausted.

[Host - Nick]

He doesn't know exactly what time, but he says about 5:30, maybe 6 at the very latest. Some he, there's a knock at his door and he opens up the door and it's some of the other parents. Now at this point he sees Terry Hobbs and again he believes that Terry Hobbs's father in law is there as well. This would be Stevie Branch's grandfather. And at this point, this is where Todd Moore has now come home. He's aware that his son is still missing and now he's going to join the search. And at this point John Mark Byers as well as Melissa Byers, they go out and they continue to search for their son. And the other two missing boys along on that search as well at some point would be Pam Hobbs. She would either join them or she was there at the door. The recollection is a little unclear, but she was involved in searching that morning. Now let's go through the Hobbs family. So now Pam Hobbs has a little bit better of an understanding of May 5, where she actually saw some of the boys a little bit more than the other parents may have. So she says that, you know, she worked second shift so she's at home, she's alone. And her husband Terry Hobbs, he's the stepfather of Stevie Branch. Now they actually have a daughter together and their daughter's name is Amanda. She's a, she's 4 years old at 1993. Now Terry Hobbs is working for the Memphis Ice Cream Company. He, you know, he goes out and he has like a sales route and he goes to different stores and he checks their coolers and refills whatever needs replenishing and sell, tries to upsell and sell different items.

[Host - Mike]

Yeah, we need some ice cream in the garage.

[Host - Nick]

It's hot in the garage. Anyway, Terry Hobbs will go in very early, sometimes at 5, 5:30 in the morning. And this would allow him to get off pretty early in the afternoon. Pam would say sometimes he would be home at 2:30, 3, 3:30. Now Terry would say that he.

[Host - Mike]

Well that's a tough thing when you have two parents, even one being a step parent. But they're working opposite schedules so it helps one to take care of the kids so you don't have to get babysitting and stuff like that. But it's still kind of a odd schedule to keep the family together.

[Host - Nick]

Well, and it's something you got to do. I mean Pam typically would Go to work about 4:30, maybe 5:00'. Clock. And she would work sometimes a shorter shift. You know, she might go in and only work for four hours or five hours. And then so they would have some time to spend together between the time that Terry got off work and Pam had to go in. And then you would have a little bit of time after Pam got off of work. So there was time for family stuff and to make sure everything was right with the household. During this time, Pam would cook dinner, leave dinner for the kids, or sometimes they would eat dinner together and then she would go off to work. On this particular day, Terry has to drive her to work and then pick her up afterwards. This has been going on for some time because Pam had a DWI and was. Did not have a license at the time. So Terry Hobbs gets home from work and. Well, let me back up for a second. Pam sees Michael Moore and her son Stevie Branch at the house. They leave together to go off and play. At some point, Christopher Byers shows up to play with the other two boys, but the boys have already left and she tells Christopher they've gone. Well, Christopher notices that one of his favorite shows, the Muppet Babies, is on and he asked if he could come in and watch it for a little bit. She says that Christopher comes in, he watches Muppet Babies, he might have been in the house for about 15, 20 minutes. And she believes that the show goes off, that it ends about 3:30, maybe 4:00', clock, and that he had left when the show was over.

[Host - Mike]

But you must feel pretty comfortable with her if you're going to ask, stay and watch the show.

[Host - Nick]

Yeah.

[Advertiser]

And.

[Host - Nick]

Well, and she would tell her son Stevie that he needs to be home at 4:30 because she needs to go to work at 5 and Terry is going to put all of them in that they're all going to get in the car and Terry's going to drive Pam to work. Well, Terry comes home from work and he asked where is Frog Leg? I guess that's what he called Stevie Branch. And she says, well, he's out playing with his friends. Four o' clock comes and. Yeah, and Stevie Branch never comes home. So. So Terry Hobbs, their Pam and their daughter Amanda get in the vehicle together. They're going to drive Pam to work. But their idea is that they're going to stop by Stevie Branch's friend's house who he left, was seen left with Michael Moore. They're gonna swing by the Moore house and ask if they've seen Stevie or if they could pick up Stevie?

[Host - Mike]

Yeah, because now there's some concern here because you have to go to work. You don't want to just leave your kid. Why? You know, your husband drops you off at work. So, so then they go to stop by the Morris house.

[Host - Nick]

They swing by the Morris house and of course the boys are not there. Now this would make sense why later Dana Moore would say to Mark Byers that, that Stevie Branch's father has been out looking for him as well. So that's how we can back up that information. They don't, they don't find Stevie. They go to Pam's work. He drops off Pam and he comes home and he says on his way home that him and Amanda would drive through the neighborhood and continue to look for Stevie. Now one of the stops that they made, he says that we stopped by the Moore house again and at this point he got there and it didn't appear that anything had changed. He didn't see any bicycles in the front yard.

[Host - Mike]

Right.

[Host - Nick]

And didn't see the boys playing. So continued on he said, he then says that they drove around the neighborhood for about 30 minutes and then they went back to the house to see if Stevie Branch would be, would have returned home by this time. Now from my, the best I can put this together, Captain, I believe that this would put Terry Hobbs and Amanda at home around 6pm Terry says that this, shortly after this is when Dana Moore drops by his house. And he says, you know, he's talking with her and he says, you know, have you seen, have you seen Michael Moore? And Terry says, no, I thought he was out with your boy. I was expecting to find him at your house. And at this point, this is when Terry follows. Shortly afterwards he would go back to the Morehouse one more time and this is where he would meet Mark Byers for the very first time. And they would figure out that both of their sons are missing.

[Host - Mike]

At this point is when Hobbs knows that not only is his boy missing, but three boys.

[Host - Nick]

Yeah. So this would have had to take place, but sometime between 7:30 and 8. This would have been after Mark Byers came home and was waiting to call the police. So after he meets Mark Byers, this is where Terry says that he went to his friend David Jacoby's house. And he goes there because they were good friends. He was good friends with David and his wife Bobby. And on several occasions the Jacoby's or Bobby Jacoby had watched her, his son, his daughter, I'm sorry, Amanda. And so he goes by and he asked David if he would Help him search for Stevie. And if, while they're searching, if he could leave Amanda with Bobby after searching with his friend David. Now, David would back up some of this story. His story is a little different, but David would say, yes, I went out with. I went out with Terry Hobbs. And he was asked specifically, did. Did your wife or girlfriend, Bobby, did she watch Amanda? And he says, you know, now let's keep in mind David Jacoby is being interviewed in 2007. This is many years after this crime has taken place. And he says, I can't remember for certain if. If my. If Bobby would have watched Amanda, but she watched that kid so many times that it would seem likely that she probably did. He states that they went out and they did look in the woods. He was with Terry, and they were looking in the woods. He was asked, what part of the woods did you go to? He says, he says, kind of like what Buyer said. He says, you know, I remember looking, going up and down some trails. I remember being around the water, but I can't say specifically what part or parts of the woods we were in.

[Host - Mike]

And if you watch West Memphis, you can tell that this bothers him. Bothers him that he can't remember. And he really start questioning his friend about his original story. But we got to remember that Hobbs's original story and Pam's original story happens on the 10th, five days afterwards, not however many years later, 14 years later.

[Host - Nick]

Yeah. And we should also point out here that the story that the police collected on May 10 in 1993 was an account by Pam Hobbs. There was no Terry Hobbs present. He was not home at the time that the officers came to interview her.

[Host - Mike]

Just. It's coming from Pam Hobbs, but it's also coming from all these other stories that they're pieces together.

[Host - Nick]

Correct? Yeah. Yeah. And Mark Byers is a big part of this because they spent so much time talking to him.

[Host - Mike]

Well, he love. He loves to talk.

[Host - Nick]

And they were able to get a lot of different times and a lot of different details of that night from him. Well, Terry says that after they searched the woods. Now, back to what you were saying, Captain, about David Jacobe and how he seemed even upset that he couldn't remember certain details.

[Host - Mike]

Yeah.

[Host - Nick]

Now, he was asked specifically, did you guys search in the area where the boys were found? And he flat out says, I'm not certain. I'm not very clear on where exactly the boys were found. All I can say is that I know that we searched in the woods. We went into the woods. We went up and down some trails and we went near the water.

[Host - Mike]

This is when there's light out. But he does talk a little bit in the west of Memphis documentary. He talks about how they didn't go searching right away. He remembers them playing guitars because they normally would play guitars. And then at some point, you know, Terry Hobbs showed him how to play something. But again, was that the fifth or was it just some other random day?

[Host - Nick]

Well, it would have had to have been the fifth because David Jacoby did go to work on the sixth and the boys were found in the afternoon.

[Host - Mike]

What I'm saying is, were they playing

[Host - Nick]

guitar on some random.

[Host - Mike]

Right, but what I'm saying is, is he's telling a story of 14 years ago.

[Advertiser]

Yeah.

[Host - Mike]

So who knows? I mean, how many times did they sit down and play guitar? It's the same thing when he says, oh, yeah, well, we watched Amanda a bunch, so I can assume maybe we watched him. But it's the same thing with the picking out a guitar.

[Host - Nick]

And according to Terry, that after they searched the woods for a while, they couldn't find Stevie. That this is when he took David Jacoby home and dropped him off and picked up the daughter Amanda, and continued on to pick up Pam. Now, he says that he would have arrived at the Catfish island restaurant where pam worked at 9pm now, this is probably fairly accurate because let's look at Pam's story. Now, Pam says all of the same things up until this point, right? So Pam says that he. That Terry Hobbs arrived shortly after 9pm and at. that point, Terry had came into the restaurant. He made a phone call on the pay phone without telling her who he was calling or why. And then they go outside and Pam discovers that only Amanda is in the vehicle. She expected to see Stevie. Stevie's still missing.

[Host - Mike]

She's like, where's Stevie at?

[Host - Nick]

Now, according to Terry, Terry says that he told her right away or very quickly after he saw her, that we were unable to find him. He's still missing.

[Advertiser]

Right.

[Host - Nick]

So there's a little discrepancy between the two. But basically the officer was dispatched and he. He left in a. And arrived shortly after 9:24pm so this would back up Terry Hobbs's story a little bit, that he arrived, he says, right, at 9pm Pamela Hobbs says shortly after 9pmSo we know that this is

[Host - Mike]

accurate because, I mean, but we always got to do my math, add five to 10 minutes either way.

[Host - Nick]

Well, let's say it was 9:30 when the report was given, but we obviously know that Pam Hobbs was present for the report. And she does state that Terry, even though he's not mentioned in the report, that he was present. Now she would go on to say that after they left the, the restaurant that on the way home that they continued to look at some point Terry Hobbs would go back and pick up his friend David Jacoby.

[Host - Mike]

Well, now they're, now we gotta go back just a little bit because there is a discrepancy here because the police recently interviewed Hobbs because a lot of people, based on this new evidence and stuff that comes out that we'll talk about later, there was a lot of pressure to. You guys didn't really interview this guy enough. You talked to Pam Hobbs maybe enough, but not Terry Hobbs enough. And he claims that when he picks her up that her first thing is she says he's dead. And he said, well, that's a crazy thing to say. She goes, he's dead. And she wants to know where her ex husband is at the time. Now they go back and figure out that the ex husband was not even around that area because she, I think her major concern, I mean she claimed from what Terry Hobbs says, he says she said he's dead. But I think her concern was that her ex husband came and picked him up and just took him away.

[Host - Nick]

Yeah, and it's a mild discrepancy because he says that she said he's dead. Now Pam Hobbs would report that she did immediately suspect her ex husband may have come and abducted the boy.

[Advertiser]

Right.

[Host - Nick]

Because he had threatened her, you know, years before that. It, that at some point I'm going to come and get Stevie and he's going to come, he's going to live with me. So I mean, who knows, who knows exactly what was said. But it is, it is agreed upon by the two of them that there

[Host - Mike]

was very close, their stories are very close.

[Host - Nick]

Exactly. Now they would both agree that they went and searched for the boys afterwards. Pam said that she was in the woods very briefly that night, but the

[Host - Mike]

mosquitoes were so bad.

[Host - Nick]

Not only the mosquitoes were bad and other people would report that as well. But Pam went on to say further that the, there was something about the area that, that really kind of scared her and terrified her and she didn't want to be in that area.

[Host - Mike]

And at this part it's, it's real dark, so it'd be hard to see anything now.

[Host - Nick]

So David Jacoby, as you said, his, his account is a little bit different than Terry Hobbs. Yes. He says that, that Terry Hobbs would have come over about 5:30 or 6pm that day. And they would have played guitar and probably Amanda would have sat with, with his, with Bobby and hung out with her while they played guitar. David believes that they played guitar for about an hour. So this would put it at 6:37pm and that Terry had said that he needed to go home to see if Stevie had come home.

[Host - Mike]

Right.

[Host - Nick]

So he, he leaves for a while. Now he doesn't know exactly what time he sees Terry again, but what he does say is he does recall searching in the woods with Terry with flashlights. So this would be after dark. And he also remembers seeing Mark Byers. Now, Mark byers is what, like 6, 4, 6, 5?

[Host - Mike]

I'm not really for sure.

[Host - Nick]

Right. He's a tall guy, he's a big dude and he's, he's. He's an unforgettable character.

[Host - Mike]

Yeah. And something.

[Host - Nick]

And this is what I find interesting though. Mark Byers says, you know, I remember meeting Terry Hobbs, his friend. I don't recall his name.

[Advertiser]

Right.

[Host - Mike]

So it kind of goes, backs up the story.

[Host - Nick]

We know David Jacoby was there and he was probably that friend that Mark Byers was referring to because Jacoby says, I remember meeting Mark Byers. And how could you forget meeting Mark Byers? He also says that the other person that was with them for part or most of the night was Jackie Hicks. Jackie Hicks is Pamela's dad. He did say that he had been to the pipe area, that at some point they did go to the pipe or over the pipe. And again he was asked if he was. If they were around where the boys were found. And he said he didn't know exactly where the boys were found. The only other discrepancy that we should point out in this timeline here is according to Ryan. Now, Ryan is the stepson of John Mark Byers. Now, the first major discrepancy is that there is some dispute between the two of what time Ryan went to bed. Did he go to bed at 11, did he go to bed at midnight? Or did he go out and continue searching with John Mark Byers? It's a little unclear. But again, as you had said, they were both interviewed days afterwards.

[Host - Mike]

Yeah, I think the kid would actually know more because it's a school night. So, you know, when, you know, maybe the kid didn't think it was super serious. I'm going and looking for my brother, but I also get to stay up late on a school night.

[Host - Nick]

And not only that, he's out with some of his friends or neighborhood kids his age and they're looking as well. And the, the one thing we should point out is one thing that Ryan would report while he was searching in the woods. So he says between 9:30 and 10 that they heard he and his two friends. Now, this is backed up by their reports as well, that he and his two friends had heard five loud splashes in the water. And it was around this time that they had heard what he said was a gunshot. What Ryan said was a gunshot. Now, keep in mind, at approximately the same time, John Mark Byers is in those same woods looking as well. And, and maybe the police officer is left at this time. We don't, we don't know exactly, but there's a lot of people, as you said, in and out of these, 20

[Host - Mike]

some, you know, 20 people looking.

[Host - Nick]

He says that after the five splashes that they, they started calling out, who's there? Is there anybody there?

[Host - Mike]

Getting a little freaked out.

[Host - Nick]

And then they hear what they think is a gunshot and they decide to get out of the woods and look elsewhere. He would report this to John Mark Byers the later that night or the next day. I'm not certain. Now, both of them bring it up when they discuss this night with police. Now, John Mark Byers says that he had pointed out to the boy that he thought he had heard something as well. He, he wasn't sure that he had heard splashing, but he thought he had heard something that sounded like a car backfiring.

[Host - Mike]

Right. And you and this guy's an avid gun shooter.

[Investigator]

Yeah.

[Host - Mike]

So he would know if it was a gunfire or if it was something else. And also around that time, you know, sometimes in the summer, you'll just hear fireworks going off.

[Host - Nick]

Or it could be. It could also be in relationship to how your proximity to that noise.

[Advertiser]

Yeah.

[Host - Nick]

You know, your, your opinion of what you heard. Now, when probed by police, Ryan would say it's possible that it was a

[Host - Mike]

car backfire or something other than a gunshot.

[Host - Nick]

Yeah. He said he wasn't certain. They were already kind of scared looking in the woods to begin with after dark. I wanted to point out that discrepancy because I think that might come into play later. These are the police reports and the family's accounts of what they were doing and what each other were doing at the time of the search. And keep in mind, you know, they, they did search the next day, and of course they found nothing. But most of them were together for most of the search the following day. I couldn't find much time that any one of them were alone on the 6th.

[Host - Mike]

So basically there's Some searching going on in the morning, and then the cops are now more involved and then that's where they find the floating shoe and now they find bodies.

[Host - Nick]

And not only that, at one point there was a meeting on the 6th where the parents had gone, they had all gone to the school or they met somewhere together with law enforcement to be brought up to speed on what's going on and where they intended to search. Because on the 6th they had brought in other law enforcement agencies where we had talked about the helicopter, the sheriff's

[Host - Mike]

department, but anyways, we, we kind of covered that. So the boys are found. Now the tenth, they're interviewing the, the family. We've kind of gone over that, but we're talking about now it's a, it's a town in panic. Right. We need answers to what happened to these three boys and who did this, who is responsible.

[Host - Nick]

And for as little amount of time that they spent questioning the families and talking to the families about their whereabouts and what was going on the 5th and the 6th, they ended up spending a lot of time on the other two parts of the investigation. They spent a lot of time talking to local pedophiles or people that were convicted or suspected of having just local weirdos. Exactly. They spent a lot of time talking to those type of people and, and filling out reports and asking questions. They did go and they did spend a decent amount of time near Michael Moore's home and near Christopher Byers home, going door to door asking questions. They didn't spend a ton of time going over by the Hobbs family's house though. Now keep in mind, so you have the area that the boys were found and just about a quarter mile south of that is where Moore and Byers had lived. And even further south than that is where Branch had lived. So they were, they were really focusing on the buyers and more area. Now they spent a lot of time, like you said, talking to local weirdos. And part of that too though was people calling in with tips and hey, we've seen this and we've saw that. And there were some people that were in question. You know, people were calling saying that we had seen this or that one, one thing that was in question was a hitchhiker was a person of interest. They had even actually sent out some, some notice to area police officers, to other police departments that they wanted information. If anybody had seen this hitchhiker, this was somebody that was seen in the area. They didn't have an ID or identification for him at the time. When police talk to these Persons of interest. Now there is a lot of, a lot of people that they talk to Gampton, and there's very few notes on these persons. And some of these notes are just a paragraph long. And a lot of times they were quickly to disregard somebody because they had said they had an alibi or they talked to one person. They did have an alibi. But on some of these people, we're

[Host - Mike]

not talking about a huge staff. So they could figure out if all these alibis check out.

[Host - Nick]

And they were interviewing a lot of people. And with some of these people they did request that things like fingerprints or, you know, maybe a urine sample or blood sample, hair sample.

[Host - Mike]

A lot of these people had stuff on file anyways, and they were able

[Host - Nick]

to collect some of that information.

[Host - Mike]

So, so it's funny that they have that information, but they don't have Mr. Bojangles information because that was lost.

[Host - Nick]

Yeah, yeah, they conveniently lost the, or maybe inconveniently lost the blood flecks that were found at the, at the Bojangles restaurant. Now they did collect some, some of these same items from some of the family members. They were able to collect these items from Mark Byers, from Melissa Byers, from, from Pam Hobbs. From Pam Hobbs, from Dana, From Dana Moore. I don't know. I can't remember if they had, if they had found, if they requested these items from Todd Moore. And I, I know they didn't request these items or receive them from Terry Hobbs, but again, it's not through fault of Terry Hobbs. It was never requested.

[Host - Mike]

Yeah, you, you want to see some people go, oh, well, you're guilty because you didn't just submit this stuff all willy nilly. Well, if you're not asked for it, how you know, you're supposed to give it.

[Host - Nick]

Now we both agree that they could have spent more time investigating the families and figuring out what was going on there.

[Host - Mike]

I think they could have, they could have dived more into the, the timeline details. I mean, I think they, you know, did some cross checking, but I think they could have found more holes and

[Host - Nick]

they could have talked to all of them much sooner and recorded this information much sooner.

[Host - Mike]

Well, and they should. I mean, there's, there's actual interviews where they're together. You know, it's like, no, you're supposed to separate everybody, you know, because what if this person's just trying to line up their story with yours?

[Host - Nick]

Yeah, they would interview the husband and wife together.

[Narrator]

Right.

[Host - Mike]

You should have separated them. But again, it's a small staff and you know, they probably don't see a lot of things like this.

[Host - Nick]

I do believe that they could have spent some more time on the weirdos and the miscellaneous tips that they were receiving. Now the problem with this is when you look at these tips, some of them are complete waste of time and waste of energy and their resources. I mean, one person that they interviewed was somebody that was calling the police department. He lived in Arizona. He had a dream that he was, he was talking to one of the dead boys and that he had seen things through one of the dead boy's eyes and he gave his own account of what was seen. Now one thing that they did spend a lot of time on was they were searching for vans. They wanted to investigate and find out everybody in the area that had a van because they had come across when they went and did their door to door searches and when they were receiving these miscellaneous tips, there were several people that had reported seeing a van. Now there are varying descriptions of this van. Sometimes it was a black van, sometimes it was a tan van, sometimes it was a white van.

[Host - Mike]

And they're looking for a creeper van basically.

[Host - Nick]

Exactly. And these are only reports that they're getting by people getting an uneasy feeling about seeing whatever color van this was. But one that kept coming up was a. There, there was a report of a white van. That's what they were really looking for.

[Host - Mike]

But they were willing to investigate the typical creeper color.

[Host - Nick]

They were willing to investigate any actual van. But the only reports that I could find that seemed suspicious were that of a black, tan or white van. Now there are multiple reports of people having seen a white van. Some of these people saying that was driven by a young man, some by an old, by a young white man, some by an older white man, and some saying a black man. And in one occasion somebody had even gone on further to say that the van was a white van driven by a black man. That and it was an Illinois plate. It was an out of, out of town plate.

[Host - Mike]

That's what's so difficult with eyewitness testimonies is they're all over the place and some of them don't even sound logical.

[Advertiser]

So.

[Host - Mike]

But, but they are looking at some weirdos. They are looking weirdos and they get a tip from the juvenile officer.

[Host - Nick]

Jerry Driver is the juvenile officer in which you're speaking of. Shortly after the murders, he provides some of the investigators with a list. Now what's on this list, there's a list of eight names. This.

[Host - Mike]

Yeah, it happens on the 8th, but probably what's going down is so they find the boys on the sixth. So on the seventh, they're probably sitting around going, okay, well, who are some possible suspects right off the top of our head, other than, like, obviously family members. And that's when he comes up with this list. Now, a lot of juvenile officers work closely with detectives and most branches.

[Host - Nick]

Yeah. And he provides them with this list because he has kind of told them for the last year that, hey, there's a lot of gang or satanic activity going on amongst these teenagers in the area. And you should stay aware of that because they probably will commit crimes. So after the murders, he provides these investigators with the name. With a list of names that. It has eight names on it. Now, four of the names are known to us. And those names are Jesse Misskelley, Jason Baldwin, Damian Eccles, and Domini Terr. Now, let's introduce these one at a time. So first we have Jesse Misskelley Jr. He lives with his dad. He's about 17 years old at the time, and he is. Has been held back two grades. He drops out of high school. He's not. He's not a very. How should we say this?

[Host - Mike]

I think he's just kind of a simple person. A lot of people say he has a little iq. He just comes across as pretty simple to me.

[Host - Nick]

A little childlike for his age.

[Host - Mike]

Yeah.

[Host - Nick]

So he's dropped out of school and he works. He does have a job. He works in roofing. And it's. Maybe it's full time. Who knows? It's a little unclear, but it sounds

[Host - Mike]

like a tough job. I mean, he's doing grunt work.

[Host - Nick]

And. And from my understanding is obviously there's not always work. You know, you're only working that day if there's a roof to build.

[Host - Mike]

Right.

[Host - Nick]

So he is working when jobs are available. He wants to be a professional wrestler, and he knows some of the other people on the list. He would go on to say that he knows Jason Baldwin. He considers Jason Baldwin to be a nice kid and a friend of his. And he knows that Jason hangs out with a kid named Damien Echols. And he describes Damien as someone who seems to be all right, but he dresses in black, and he's definitely kind of weird. The next name is Jason Baldwin. Jason Baldwin lives with his mother. His mother has some mental issues. And Jason is 16 years old, but his mother works at night. So a lot of times what Jason's job is is after he comes home from school, he then has to stay with his siblings and watch them while his mother is at work.

[Host - Mike]

Yeah. And Jesse, Ms. Kelly is known in the neighborhood to watch a bunch of the kids as well. And I think it's because, you know, oh, here's this, you know, sweet, kind of simple kid, and we'll leave our kids with him, you know, a cheap babysitter.

[Host - Nick]

And Jason is described by other kids as kind of I, I not goth. Goth's not the right word. He's kind of one of those headbanger kids, one of the heavy.

[Host - Mike]

Yeah, they use the word goth, but they're these.

[Host - Nick]

They misuse it.

[Host - Mike]

These kids are not goth.

[Investigator]

This.

[Host - Nick]

You might be able to use it. It would be a stretch, but you might be able to use it for Damien, but definitely not for Jason. Jason's like jeans. He's blue jeans, concert T shirt kind of guy.

[Host - Mike]

He is MTV Headbangers Ball.

[Host - Nick]

Yeah. And he's the type of kid, he doesn't particularly love school or the other kids there, but he actually does fairly well in school.

[Host - Mike]

He seems like a smart kid.

[Advertiser]

Yeah.

[Host - Nick]

He completes his work and he participates, and a lot of his teachers had good things to say about him. Now, it is well known to everybody in the area that his best friend is Damien Echols, which is a couple years older. Damien Echols is 18 years old in 1993. Now, Damien's real name is Michael Hutchinson. He grew up probably more. Even more poor than. Than Jesse Misskelley and Jason Baldwin, who. They all lived in basically the same trailer park area. And Damien, he is. His parents are Jack and Pam Eccles, and he has a sister, Michelle. And when he was younger, he was like 16ish.

[Host - Mike]

He.

[Host - Nick]

He became known to police because he was dating a girl named Deanna. Now, Deanna was a little bit younger than him. Okay. So he had. They were getting together and wanted to be physical together.

[Host - Mike]

Right.

[Host - Nick]

Okay. So they were devising plans of how to be physical together.

[Host - Mike]

Yeah, you sneak off.

[Host - Nick]

Well, he. What. What would typically happen is when they were supposed to be at school, they would walk back to her place and try to hook up. And eventually they got caught. And this was not cool with her parents at all.

[Host - Mike]

Right.

[Host - Nick]

Her parents threw a big fit. She's no longer allowed to see Damian.

[Host - Mike]

Well, because he's kind of the older. Kind of a weirdo in their eyes.

[Host - Nick]

He's a couple years older now. He's been held back two grades as well now. He's genius. Yeah, is for different reasons, I guess. But. But he. He claims it's because he.

[Advertiser]

He.

[Host - Nick]

He liked going to school, but he did not want to do any of the work.

[Host - Mike]

He Makes a lot of claims, though.

[Host - Nick]

I actually believe there's. There's one point where he's talking and he talks about a kid that he. There's very few kids that he liked or idolized in school, but there was one kid that he talked about that he seemed to idolize a bit, who was a kid that had been held back, and he liked how cool and casual that guy was and how he didn't have to go along with the trends because he was so much older

[Host - Mike]

than the other two and casual.

[Host - Nick]

I almost wonder that it was calculated that he. That he was held back a couple years. Regardless.

[Host - Mike]

Either way, it's silly.

[Host - Nick]

Regardless, he's no longer allowed to see his girlfriend. Now this. This breaks his heart. He claims to have been in love with her at the time. And they do this little Romeo and Juliet routine, okay. Where if they can't be together, they're either going to run away or they're going to have a suicide pact. And so what happens is another genius idea. Brilliant. Brilliant. When you can't be together, suicide pact works every time.

[Host - Mike]

That's the way to go.

[Host - Nick]

They come up with the idea of, let's run away. Okay.

[Host - Mike]

Well, that's better than a suicide pact.

[Host - Nick]

Yeah. But this presents a big problem because at the time.

[Host - Mike]

Because you can't even get through high school.

[Host - Nick]

And not only that, Damien is 16, but he does not have a driver's license or access to a vehicle. He's. He's probably only driven a vehicle once at this point in his life. And his girlfriend is not even 16 yet. So again, no license, no access to a vehicle. So running away is. Doesn't work out to be driving away. It works out to be walking away. So they walk away and they decide that they're going to crash for an evening in an abandoned trailer. And that's romantic.

[Host - Mike]

They, like, light some candles in this smelly, old abandoned trailer.

[Host - Nick]

It's very romeo and Juliet. 1993, West Memphis. They hang out in this abandoned trailer, and the cops or somehow the neighborhood kids or somebody figures out that they're there.

[Host - Mike]

They probably saw the candles being lit and they're like, whoa, somebody's there.

[Host - Nick]

They call the police, and the police come and they find the two of them and they arrest them. And basically what happens is they return the girl to her parents, and there are. They're going to press charges against the boy, Damien Echols.

[Narrator]

Right.

[Host - Mike]

And which is stupid because they both were making stupid decisions, you know?

[Host - Nick]

Yeah. And because he's a little bit older there, the. The fault is Falling on him. And it's discussed. Now, Jerry Driver, he's the guy that came up with this list. He's aware of Damien Echols. He was involved in arresting Damien Echols when he was 16 years old.

[Host - Mike]

Right.

[Host - Nick]

He would say that Damien Echols was. You know, he had. He had reviewed some of his journals and that he was. It was clear to him that this boy was evil. He was involved in Satanism and all kinds that he probably wanted to murder people, sacrifice people.

[Host - Mike]

Well, I think Damien was. Damien was interested in some spiritual stuff, which to. I think people in that area was just odd and.

[Host - Nick]

Well, and he said that he had threatened the father of his girlfriend.

[Host - Mike]

Yeah, that sounds like something you do if you're trying to run away with the daughter.

[Host - Nick]

Not only that, I think it's probably pretty common. I would bet you that when the parents told her that she could no longer see Damien, that the. Probably the father probably said a few bad things about Damien.

[Host - Mike]

Yeah, well, and they probably could have stopped the charges, and they didn't. So he's going, screw you, old man.

[Host - Nick]

Well, what ends up happening is that Jerry Driver explains to Damien and Damien's parents that Damien wouldn't have to go to jail, he wouldn't have to serve any time or be. Be Even presented with these charges if he would just go to a mental hospital and get checked out. So they agree to this, and he goes to the mental hospital, and they realize that he's probably depressed and that he's got some issues going on that

[Host - Mike]

might have had something to do with the suicide pact.

[Host - Nick]

Definitely. Definitely. And Damien does state. Yeah, I was depressed. I lived in West Memphis. My family was dirt poor, and I would just been taken away from my girlfriend, the one thing that I had that I liked, and I can't see her anymore.

[Host - Mike]

Yeah, well, he's a little. He's kind of a hopeless romantic.

[Host - Nick]

We could go on and on about Damien Echols and his juvenile criminal career, I guess, and. And actually, more, not so much his mental state, not so much his criminal career, because there. There wasn't much more than that. That's all. That's all he really did.

[Host - Mike]

Yeah, you made it sound like it was a big thing, and it wasn't.

[Host - Nick]

What I meant to say was his

[Host - Mike]

character just say that in the first place.

[Host - Nick]

But what we should say is, why would Jason Baldwin or Jesse Ms. Kelly be on this list? And why would Jerry Driver know about those guys? Well, he knew about Jesse Misskelley because after Jesse Misskelley dropped out of school, Jesse Misskelley wanted to build a racetrack, okay? And he, he thought he would build this racetrack.

[Host - Mike]

So I can't finish high school, but I can build a racetrack and, and

[Host - Nick]

you can be a professional wrestler. So Ms. Kelly had big dreams, all right? And so he, when he was building his racetrack, he decided that he needed some flags. You can't, everybody that's watched NASCAR has no, you got to have flags, baby. So he decides that he is going to go back to school. Not, not actually go to school, but he's going to go visit the school because the marching band has flags and he's going to steal them so he can use them for his racetrack. Well, he gets caught. You can't, you can't steal flags and then display them and hope not to get caught for stealing the flags. So that's how Jerry Driver knows about Jesse Misskelley. Jason Baldwin is even more innocent than those, I guess. He, he was charged with trespassing and vandalism. What had happened was there was an area that was frequented by a lot of kids. He had went there with some other kids. He went on to the property. They had some old broken down vehicles that had been there for God knows how long, busted somewhere and they busted out a couple of windows and they end up being charged with trespassing and vandalism. And actually the area that they so called trespassed on, I could see being charged with vandalism. But the area that they trespassed, there was no signs, there was no chain fence, there was nothing.

[Host - Mike]

You know, if it's not your property, you don't break shit. How about, let's just start with that also? I think it's just some of it. It's just a random list of 10 people that probably did something in the last, you know, couple years.

[Host - Nick]

Well, it was eight people and people.

[Host - Mike]

So, but, but you know, what's happening is the detectives, they're going, we don't have any leads, we don't have anything. And then they probably ask everybody in the department to think of something. So he sat down at his desk and came up with a list of eight.

[Host - Nick]

Yeah, he came up with eight kids that he believed that were in trouble with the law before that were on his radar. And he believed that they were involved in heavy metal music or satanism or in some kind of cult, maybe a gang. But for whatever reason, he deemed them to be troubled youths that he was going to keep an eye on. Now the fourth name that we haven't mentioned yet was Domini Terre. Now Domini Terror was actually Damien's girlfriend after the girl that he had gotten in trouble with. Right now, she was probably, see, I don't know.

[Host - Mike]

Kids, see kids, you will get over the breakup. You'll move on.

[Host - Nick]

I don't know why she was on Jerry Driver's radar other than the fact that she was dating Damien Echols. Yeah, they, you know, I couldn't find anything of her having a criminal past.

[Host - Mike]

And it could be as simple as juvenile cop goes. I've been kind of following Damien, what's going on with him, and now he's dating this new girl, so he just knows of her. So he's had at least an incident with his ex girlfriend. So maybe that's going to be something that repeats itself in the future.

[Host - Nick]

Well, and at some point now, this would be July of 1992, Damien actually moves away from West Memphis after he got out of the mental hospital for this problem with his girlfriend. His real father returned. Now, we didn't say why he changed his name. You know, his original name was Michael Hutchinson. Well, that, that's because his father's last name was Hutchinson. And when they. Him and his mother had split up, his mother met a man named Jack Eccles. Well, at that point, Jack Eccles decided to adopt her kids. And when he did so Damien changed his name to Damien Eccles. He took Jack's last name. And he says that he took the name Damien because at the time he was considering getting into Catholicism and that there was a Saint Damian that he respected and he wanted to take his name. Yeah.

[Host - Mike]

And St. Damian, what he did was he lived on an island and he took care of leopards, and he ended up getting leprosy himself and then dying. And after hearing that story, Damien thought, hey, this is a good guy to kind of model yourself after.

[Host - Nick]

Some might find this weird, but I don't. I, you know, was raised Catholic, and anybody that was raised Catholic knows that once you confirm your, you know, once you confirm yourself to the religion of Catholicism, that you can take on a Catholic name.

[Host - Mike]

Yeah. What was your confirmation name?

[Host - Nick]

Isaiah.

[Host - Mike]

Mine was Kanye. Kanye West. I was ahead of my time.

[Host - Nick]

Well, Michael Hutchinson's was Damien, and he took on his stepfather's last name.

[Host - Mike]

Would have been cool if he would have went with Kanye Eccles.

[Host - Nick]

Kanye Eccles. We have to reintroduce Vicki Hutchinson. Remember Vicki Hutchinson? She was the one that was questioned by police about the credit card overrun at the truck stop.

[Host - Mike]

Yeah, she's the credit card thief.

[Host - Nick]

And she had her son with her who was eight years old, Aaron. And he was Friends with some or all of the boys that had gone missing. And he had told the story about seeing the Michael Moore boy talking to a black man after work, after school, that the black man was coming to pick him up. And we know that this isn't true because Michael Moore went home after school. Now, Vicki finds out that there is. That there is reason to believe or that the police are interested in this Damien Echols character.

[Investigator]

Yeah.

[Host - Mike]

Because he's on a list two days before they even question the family.

[Host - Nick]

Not only he's on a list, but he has been approached by police and he's had some. Some interviews with them. And a lot of them are kind of off the record at this time.

[Host - Mike]

Right. But he is very forthcoming, and he does fingerprints and whatever they ask. He's. I mean, he's being cooperative.

[Host - Nick]

Not only that, they take a. They take a picture of him, a Polaroid picture of Damien Eccles when they talk to him the first time. Now, police would later say that they. They don't have this Polaroid picture. They don't know what they're talking about. But there was.

[Host - Mike]

It could just be some. That somebody made up.

[Host - Nick]

There was some rumor that police were going around town and they were asking people about what they had seen or what they had heard, if they've heard anything. And not only that, that sometimes they were even presenting a picture and saying, do you know this person? Anyway, this gets back to Vicki Hutchinson, that they would be or want to know more information about Damien Echols. Well, she lives in the trailer park and she lives right by Jesse Misskelley. She does not know Damien or Jason Baldwin, but she knows Jesse Misskelley pretty well because on occasion, he had watched her son. He had cut the grass for, you know, done chores. Yeah.

[Host - Mike]

Find the simpleton.

[Host - Nick]

And actually, she would describe Jesse Ms. Kelly Jr. To police as a nice boy that lived by her that was. Seemed like he was always willing to help out whenever she needed it.

[Host - Mike]

Yeah. It's also trying to make some money.

[Host - Nick]

She tells police that she would be interesting in helping them. Now, let's keep in mind, remember we had talked Interested. Yeah. She's interested because there's. There's a Reward. There's a $35,000 reward for information.

[Host - Mike]

Right.

[Host - Nick]

About the murders of these boys.

[Host - Mike]

And she lives in a trailer park. So this is her golden ticket.

[Host - Nick]

This is like the hitting the lottery.

[Host - Mike]

Yeah. This is her Charlie and the chocolate factory Charlie Bucket.

[Host - Nick]

So she tells Investigator Bray that she. She would be willing to help them out and that she is going to talk to Jesse to see, to see what he knows about the other boys because he's the same age as Jason Baldwin and Damien Echols. They say that's fine and that she should probably read up on witchcraft or Satanism in the meantime.

[Host - Mike]

Yeah, that's what you need to do.

[Host - Nick]

Well, they suggest that you should probably go to the library and research this stuff.

[Host - Mike]

This is.

[Host - Nick]

Vicki states, I don't have a library card.

[Host - Mike]

And then, yeah, because she's a freaking genius.

[Host - Nick]

And Investigator Bray says, that's fine, you can borrow mine. So she does go to the library and she does study up on some of the Satanism and, and witchcraft stuff and she learned some of the terms and some of the terminology and, you know what to expect. Well, she tells Jesse Misskelley that she would be interested in meeting Damien and Jason, which Jesse finds weird because Vicki is 30, she's like in her early 30s, but Jesse said, you know, I'll help you out.

[Host - Mike]

Anyway, she's a nice kid.

[Host - Nick]

He introduces, he introduces her to them. Now, he doesn't know them. He knows Jason pretty well, but he doesn't know Damien very well. But the next time that he sees them, he tells them, hey, Vicki would like to meet you.

[Host - Mike]

Right. But don't you think that if Vicki's sitting there talking to Jesse Misskelley about this stuff and her main motivation is this $35,000, don't you think this is coming up in conversation at some point?

[Host - Nick]

Well, she tells police that she had arranged to go on a date with Damien.

[Host - Mike]

What?

[Host - Nick]

Yeah. Well, he's 18 at the time, and so she's going to go onto this date and she went on a date with him and she describes.

[Host - Mike]

But he has a girlfriend. Yeah, and he's Captain Romance Romance Pants, so.

[Host - Nick]

Well, not only that, his girlfriend's pregnant at the time.

[Host - Mike]

Right. So is it really a date or is it just a hangout or. Well, whatever it is, I'm.

[Host - Nick]

I'm just telling you what Vicki told the police.

[Host - Mike]

Okay.

[Host - Nick]

Okay. We don't even know if this happened. Okay. Vicki tells the police that she went with Damien and Jesse Misskelley to what's called an S bat. Now what this is, was, this is going to be a gathering of like minded people that are there to worship Satan and that they're getting together in some, some location that she was unsure of.

[Host - Mike]

Sounds like a word that she read in a book. And then she just made this shit up.

[Host - Nick]

But she was picked up by Damien and Jesse. She didn't drive. Damien arrived in a vehicle and he was driving and they went to this s bat and she said that she had seen people there that were painted and they were decorated and they were clearly worshiping Satan and they were getting ready to have some kind of orgy. And she said that this really, really bothered her. So she told Damien that she had to leave.

[Advertiser]

Right.

[Host - Nick]

He said, he says that that's fine, I'll drive you home. And they leave Jesse there and they go home. Now, she describes Damien as somebody who is kind of soft spoken and he doesn't like to talk a whole lot, but she can kind of talk to him and probably pry things out of him. She says when she does get him to talk that he is talking to her quite a bit about the murders of the three boys. Now, he's not implicating himself as being involved in these murders, but he's explaining to her that he's been questioned multiple times by police and for some reason they think that I've done it or I was involved.

[Host - Mike]

Yeah. And then once you think that the cops think you did it, guess who pays attention to the case.

[Host - Nick]

Then Vicki would bring her son in to talk to the police one more time because she's saying that Aaron now has more information regarding what happened with the boys. She's saying that and Aaron's saying the same thing that, that I had often gone into the. The woods with these other boys. And on occasion we had witnessed some boys and some men doing some strange things. Said that on, on one occasion that there were five men in the woods and they, some of them were dressed up, they were sitting in a circle, they were singing songs about the devil and they were committing homosexual acts upon one another.

[Host - Mike]

So kind of like a satanic circle jerk.

[Host - Nick]

Well, at the circle jerk, Aaron would describe what some of the, some of the men were wearing. And he went on to say, you know, what he saw. They had jewelry, they had certain clothing on.

[Narrator]

Right.

[Host - Nick]

Well, the following day, Vicki showed up to the police department and she shows them an earring. Now, this is an earring that had like a snake or a skull or a snake coming out of a skull or something like that. But it, you know, kind of a devil earring. Yeah, heavy metal type looking earring. And now this was similar to some of the jewelry that was, that was described at this satanic event that Aaron and his friends had seen in Robin Hood Hills. Now she tells police, I found this in my trailer after hanging out with Damien. He must have dropped it in my trailer. Therefore, he's one of the satanic people that are going to Robin Hood Hills and having these meetings. Well, this is very interesting to the police now, isn't it?

[Host - Mike]

Of course it is.

[Host - Nick]

So they decide that they want to talk to Jesse Misskelley because Jesse Misskelley is the person that was able to put Vicki in contact with Damien and Jason. Police would go on and they would pick up Jesse Misskelley. Now, remember, Miss Kelly's only 17 at the time.

[Host - Mike]

It's only about five foot tall.

[Host - Nick]

And so they talk to Jesse and they say, you know what, we have some questions we want to ask you. Would you mind coming down to the police department with us? And he says, I don't have any problem with that.

[Host - Mike]

Right. So they're very interested in him, and he's very interested in this award money.

[Host - Nick]

Well, he doesn't know ward money. He doesn't know that at the time. They. He. He's unclear why they even want to talk to him. What, what, what when it becomes clear to him is after they go and talk to his father because they have to ask for permission to talk to Jesse because he's under 18. His father figures out why they want to talk to him, and he tells his son, you know, look, there's son there. There's reward money. They want to talk to you about what you might know about the murder of those three boys. Go ahead and tell them everything you know, because if you do, maybe we can get this reward money. Right. And I guess Jesse thought that his father would be able to buy a new truck or something. Here. Here it is. Jesse wanting to help again. And so Jesse Jr. And Jesse Sr. Both agree to this interview. Jesse Senior does not go along. He doesn't tag along for the interview.

[Advertiser]

Right.

[Host - Nick]

Junior goes off with the police officers, and he goes to the police department. And now they're going to Interview Jesse Misskelley Jr.

[Host - Mike]

Okay, but we're now an hour and a half into part two, so we need to wrap this up. We're going to have to do a part three, you know, because we got a lot more to cover.

[Host - Nick]

There's a ton more to cover.

[Host - Mike]

We're just. We're just getting started.

[Investigator]

Really.

[Host - Nick]

Well, then that's when the garage stays open and we throw an after party.

[Host - Mike]

Yeah, so now we got the after party. And so for those that need more garage to listen to, we're gonna put this out. We're not even gonna wait a week.

[Host - Nick]

No, we shouldn't wait a week because we got to get the season three at some point. It was my bad. Picking such a huge case to end.

[Host - Mike]

Well, it's a fascinating case. And so what we're gonna do for

[Host - Nick]

it's the best case of season two?

[Host - Mike]

Yeah, I think so. And I think everybody's enjoying it. So if you want more garage to listen to, we're gonna release this the next day. So check that out. So two episodes, one week back to back.

[Host - Nick]

So to make that less confusing, how about we'll see you tomorrow in the garage. And until then, be good, be kind, and don't litter.

[Narrator]

Sam. Foreign.

[Advertiser]

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