Also fwiw, in the DVD commentary of the directors' previous documentary Brother's Keeper, both Berlinger and Sinofsky state they believe Delbert Ward did in fact kill his brother, but also maintain he shouldn't be punished for it.

It's a bizarre case, and like the PL films, it focuses as much on the community as the actual incident, but at least shows they can be personally honest about their beliefs about a case they're so close to. Though some of the Room 237 crew believe Blair Witch 2 was Berlinger's guilt admission that the WM3 did it...it all gets very weird.

Thanks: I did not know the backstory.

So, we have the omission of the "Bible Confession." When did that happen, pre or post trial? Was there anything made of it in either trial?

I feel for Bob Moore, and I understand how he was seething with hatred for the WM3 as I think he genuinely believed they did it. I think his biggest problem with the movies is that they resulted in funds used for the WM3 defense.

As for the trial (as depicted):

1. I can't believe Echols' lawyer put him on the stand. That was a fundamental error. However, given the later claims of jury misconduct, I don't know if it made any difference.

2. Miskelly's lawyer (Stidham) did a fine job. I thought his performance deserved a more reasonable audience (including an impartial/reasonable judge).

3. Jason's lawyer (Ford) was also very competent and smart. However, I think he over-thought his closing argument. It is true that guilt by association is a bad thing, but here there is no argument that Jason was Echols' best friend and that they are virtually inseparable. So, Ford essentially provides the jury with a vehicle for finding guilt and gift wraps one of the elements. The argument itself also implicates the first element - that Echols was guilty. In other words, by breaking ranks and throwing Damien under the bus, Ford sets up the scenario he seeks to avoid in the first place.

I think smart evil can seem perplexing. No reason or rationale is ever needed for such minds.

A few days after he was convicted and sentenced, he confessed to his lawyer in great detail (transcript). He confessed again to prosecutors a couple weeks after that.

I understand why the films would brush over this (they do show the prosecutor saying that Jessie confessed to the officers on the drive from the court to jail, which is what led to the others). People might believe one false confession. But these made with no coercion or promise of leniency, are much harder for even an open-minded viewer to accept, particularly given they tried to explain the first one as a compliant false confession (one given mainly to escape the interrogation) where these look more like internalized false confessions (where the person actually believes they are guilty).

I don't mind that the filmmakers have an agenda, and the concept of objectivity is ludicrous for any film, documentary or otherwise. But I think they would achieve more artistic integrity *and* a more powerful discourse if they confronted and tried to refute all the elements that point towards guilt, especially the most difficult ones.

It wasn't just the closing argument. His case was based largely on Damien being guilty. The whole trial was pretty ridiculous for a lot of reasons, but the defense cases having diametrically opposed positions is chief among them.

Just read Eberts review of West of Memphis which is a brand new documentary on this in theaters today in very limited release. Ebert says 4 stars and that if you only watch one doc about this case this is the one to watch. Just giving a heads up to followers of this that there is a new doc out today.

Isn't it a bit out of order for a bunch of film makers, backed by A list actors and rock stars, to start an amateur investigation concluding that they have found the killer? The first doc's position (I saw many years ago) seemed to be these guys are innocent and getting railroaded, here is why, which is a bit different from throwing as much **** at one guy as possible and saying he did it and then releasing the film and hanging out with Johnny Depp.

I suggest that in order for you to make such a generalized claim, you need to watch the film (I haven't, but I plan to) and discuss the claims being made as well as the support they offer before we can consider the conclusions you assert.

Perhaps.

Well, I am interested in your proposed argument. I am really interested to hear feedback on the new movie as well. I just haven't found it in a theater close to me.

why do they think it's terry hobbs?

I saw the film a few months ago and my memory of how much it included is a little hazy, but:

(it's not really a suspense film, but spoiler just in case)



A few other things. It's pretty compelling, and could be enough to sway someone on the fence about the case, but the WM3 non-supporters have answers for everything that also makes sense from their POV.

Interesting story all around. I have watched all three PLs.

It does seem like they left a lot out. Never knew about the multiple confessions. And Echols psych treatment.

Echols, in the first one, comes across as incredibly intelligent to me. Not what I was expecting.

The Misskelley kid seems to be as dumb as it gets. I could see him confessing to assassinating JFK.

And if that was brought to trial in West Memphis Arkansas, I could see them finding him guilty of it.

Pff this is just so hard to call. If you only watch the documentarys you lean much more towards not guilty. But i do have to admit that the misskelley confessions are very weird. Just a weird case all in all..

I should have known better the 'documentaries' are invariably one-sided. I am sure if prosecution made a documentary, we would be wondering why their innocence is even being discussed.

I don't give that much credence to the confession(s). He seems incredibly dumb and naive and I do think they could have had him admit to anything. It is Damien's time in a psych ward and what he said/did that was disturbing but never fully disclosed in the docs.

I have just seen the last movie one from Peter jackson and there it shows it is pretty clear that they didnt do it. Of course it is biased and I haven't read all the callahan documents, but I am leaning very much towards innocent. Especially since there was no motive for the killing. All the satan stuff was based on the mutilation of the little boys and the general consensus of 6 (independant) forensic analists is that the wounds are most likely caused by animals.

There is also no DNA, while Jessy (and one of the witnesses who Damien supposedly confessed to) says the boys have been raped. Seems kind of inpossible to leave no DNA..

Jessy is of course a ****** who can probably confesses to a lot more if you pressure on him. Besides that there are several people in the movie that give him an alibi for the day of the killings, so he couldnt even have witnessed anything.

Then there is this knive that is found in the water, which - according to the prosecuters - is used in the killing. The movie clearly shows that that is just a bogus story.

Finally you say there is a disturbing psych report on Damien. That maybe so, but Terry Hobbs behaviour raises eyebrows as well.

PR - I have read a lot of your posts in the Knoxx case. You seemed a lot of times spot on there. Maybe a good idea to what the Peter Jackson movie and let us know what you think of it - based on your knowledge of the Callahan website. I would love to hear your thoughts.

Got this from another site. This pretty sums it up for me:


I too have been through the Callahan documents and do not base my opinion of innocence solely on the documentaries. I just find the fiber evidence far too weak to say, "That's the smoking gun! They did it!" But I also don't believe that Damien was zeroed in on simply because he wore black and listened to heavy metal. I think he enjoyed the idea of people thinking he was a Satanist. He liked being "that weird guy", and I believe he taunted Driver just because he could. And once arrested he relished in the attention. His behavior was as disgusting then as it is now. But his having mental illness and being an angsty teenager doesn't mean he and the others murdered Chris, Stevie and Michael. And there is in no way enough physical evidence for me to believe they did it. Especially not the way the prosecution contends that they did.

By his own admission, Terry Hobbs, was in the woods searching for the boys as early as 6:30, around the same time they were last spotted alive. Police were in the woods not long after that with many others searching. I can't fathom 3 teenage boys having the time to strip the boys, beat them, kill them and then have enough smarts to wrap the clothes around sticks to try and hide the crime without anyone hearing them, or them hearing the search party. They would have been far too hyped up on adrenaline to think straight, and none of them seemed clever enough to leave that place without leaving so much as a hair. While there was some blood it wasn't the amount of blood one would expect to find after what those poor boys went through. I've always felt they were killed at another location and brought to the woods later. Damien, Jesse, and Jason all had long hair at the time of the killings, and the boys would most likely have put up some sort of a fight. Yet, there was no DNA evidence left by anyone other than a close family member. And I'm not saying Hobbs is the killer, there isn't enough evidence there. But if there isn't enough evidence to tie Hobbs to the crime, then there certainly isn't enough to tie the WM3.

The only eye witness to place Damien or any of the others at the crime scene wasn't even sure it was Damien and Jason she saw. She identified Jason as Domini originally, but cops told her she was confused. It was actually Jason she saw, because that fit in with their theory that they were the killers. There are eye witnesses though who say they say Hobbs with all three boys shortly before their disappearance even though he maintains he never once saw Stevie that day. He also didn't notify Pam that the boys were missing until he picked her up from work some 3 hours after the parents notified cops. Many of the witnesses have recanted their testimony and admit to lying on the stand.

If it would have gone to a new trial, which I wish it would have, I don't think there is any way they would have gotten a conviction. The prosecutor said as much. I also don't believe they would have ever let a man on death row, convicted of killing three children, loose into the world with "time served" if they truly felt he was responsible and they had a solid case. I think the case was too big for the West Memphis PD and the town was hungry for someone to be held accountable. Jesse's confessions don't ring true to me at all. He was fed details of the case after his arrest which helped him when he would confess later, but still things didn't add up. The confession he supposedly gave police on the way to prison after his trial wasn't recorded as far as I know, so I can't be sure what was said.

Cops should have interviewed all the family members but they didn't. It wasn't until 2007 that Hobb's was even interviewed by police because Pam had found Stevie's pocket knife in a box of Terry's things. And she was adamant that Stevie would have had that with him. During the police interview Terry said he didn't remember ever having that particular knife, but in a TV interview he said he had taken the knife away from Stevie shortly before the murders. He also couldn't remember anyone he had been with that night while searching for the boys. Jacoby contradicted Terry's alibi by saying he wasn't with Terry in the woods at the time Terry claimed they were there. Still, there isn't enough to say he did it. But his inconsistencies raise a lot of reasonable doubt as to whether Damien, Jason and Jesse did.

But, now that they are out I really hope all the focus shifts away from Damien and his fame hungry wife and goes back to Stevie, Michael and Chris.

So hilarious to happen upon this thread and see Henry17 and his GF trolling WM3 supporters the same way they troll the Amanda Knox thread.

Such sick dedication to your craft. Bravo.

Just watched West of Memphis. It's long but really good. I knew nothing of this case prior other than glazing over a few posts itt several years ago and knowing it was something about a possible mistrial. This is also the only documentary I've seen on it. With that said:

I don't see how Mr. Hobbs (stepfather of one of the kids) isn't the killer. His alibi is total ****. Mr. Jacoby, ONE OF HIS BEST FRIENDS, claims that Mr. Hobbs came to his house that night for about an hour then left to go look for his step-son. Mr. Jacoby said he NEVER left his house that night to look for the kids with Mr. Hobbs. There is a 2-hour gap in which nobody knows what Mr. Hobbs was doing or where he was. Mr. Hobbs' alibi is that he went to Jacoby's house and got him to come help him look for the kids for 3 hours that night in the woods. Mr. Jacoby, his own friend, says this is bull****.

Additionally, two other kids overheard in about 2004 a discussion between Hobbs and Hobbs' brother in which Hobbs told Hobbs' brother (one of the kids' dad) that he killed the West Memphis Three. The dad (Hobbs' brother) later told his son that the son's uncle (Hobbs) admitted to killing the kids but it was a family secret and to not tell anyone. The kid told a friend or two and they called a tip hotline and were questioned and polygraphed and came out with a squeeky-clean polygraph.

All kinds of other red flags. Hobbs being found with the kid's knife and claiming he took it from him that day for safety reasons (though it was common household knowledge the kid carried the knife with him everyday). Him doing laundry that night which was witnessed to be an event which has all but never been witnessed before. (Who does laundry when your ****ing step-son is missing at night-time?) His wife saying he showed up to pick her up from work wearing different clothes than just over 4 hours earlier when he dropped her off.

A former neighbor claims he broke into her house and molested her in the shower. She claims it was common to hear him beating either his wife or his kids. His own daughter having told a confidant when she was a kid that he would beat off in front of the young boy and make him watch, and that he would make them molest eachother. By age 21 she said she can't remember anything that happened prior to age 9. Other people saying the boy (his step-son) would hide in a closet because he was so terrified of his step-dad's beatings. He'd be thrown against the wall and stuff. The mom claims that Mr. Hobbs complained that he was #2 in her life behind her son.

The doc shows plenty of footage of him being interrogated after generating a lawsuit against Natalie Mains of the Dixie Chicks (lol). All of his answers are really weak or vague. And he is seen laughing multiple times when asked about beating people in the past. If his step-son was murdered over 15 years prior and he was being interrogated about it you'd think he'd maybe be upset, angry, or adamant about his innocence and them finding the real killer. But we don't see any of that (could be left out of doc, tho). The laughing we do see, though.

Also, a neighbor claims she saw Mr. Hobbs and the 3 kids on their bikes around 6:30 the night of the murder after church. He was calling to them "get back here" (or something). She didn't come forward for years b/c she assumed cops already knew he was with them b/c she didn't automatically imagine he was a suspect. She had no idea he presented a story that he did not see the kids AT ALL that night. She swears it was the 4 of them.

The knife story in the lake is bogus since it was known to the prosecutor that it was thrown into the lake a year before the murders.

One of the WM3 also had an alibi for that night - he was at some wrestling event and even signed in on a registry when he got there. There was also a handful of people that testified they saw him that night.

As far as all the Hollywood liberal bleeding heart attention wh0res in the film I could do without but it was a really enthralling viewing. The satanic ritual slant seemed really backwoods bible-thumping unsubstantiated crap. A forensic expert says there was no evidence of any human ritualistic mutilation and that most if not all of the marks on the bodies were via huge turtles in the water (they show one of the turtles and it is a beast). A bite mark on one of the boys looks precisely like a bite mark one of these turtles gives a brave demonstrator in the doc. The genitals being gone is due to being easy soft-cell tissue that a turtle could readily eat. The expert believes in addition to blunt force trauma to their heads, that drowning was the main cause of death. Not knife attacks. The local "occult expert" also seemed like a huge short-sighted moron who even admits to being the default expert because nobody else knew anything about the occult. He said he saw Echols with a long black coat and a staff once. ZOMG Satan! He looked like a total idiot to me. Remember, this was 1993 back when Middle America still thought things like playing Led Zeppelin music backwards resulted in Satanic messages. This was a looong time ago in that regard. Middle America was scared to death of Ozzy Osbourne and Alice Cooper. Now reality show stars and avid golfers.

Final thought: West Memphis is a ****ing dump. I've passed through Memphis via car and stayed in a hotel 1 night and instantly recognized it as the biggest piece of **** "big" American city I've ever seen. And I'm fully aware that the West edge is the **** side of it. I grew up in St. Louis and had heard West Memphis likened to East St. Louis multiple times. Almost everyone in the documentary was either mentally deficient, an abuser of drugs, or incestuous. By admission.

Final final thought: As a dad, there were a few moments that really hurt to watch. Seeing some of the footage of the bodies was almost unbearable. As well as hearing the stories of Mr. Hobbs' step-son and daughter being sexually and physically abused and assaulted. I realize how lucky I am to have never endured either of these and it is so sad that kids out there have to live with this behavior. I am no better than them and they do not deserve this. No matter how righteous you live your life, you will always know that you are riding this rock called Earth with all of the most heinous people alive. Unfortunately.

.

Damien Echols produced West of Memphis.

This is all from distant memory, so bear with me:

Jessie Miskelley's lawyers attempted at the time to demonstrate his susceptibility to suggestion by trying to get him to confess to a robbery. They failed, he was actually so insulted that he stormed out of the room. In any event they did think of proving his confession was coerced and were unable to replicate it. He maintained their guilt for a very long time.

No one had an alibi. Damien Echols gave a false alibi of being home on the phone with different girls during the evening hours but phone records showed the calls ceased late afternoon and he wasn't seen again until late evening.

I've never heard of this wresting match sign in. If someone wants to dig it up on that document archive that would be great. I believe it was not entered at their original trial or at any time since, and was not part of the "new evidence" they wanted to present at a new trial. I would guess it's either not real or was not signed at a date/time that would be helpful to the defence by proving the non-involvement of whomever it's supposed to exonerate. I don't recall whether any of them told police he was at a wresting match, you'd have to check their original statements.

The reason they went to retrieve the lake knife was because a neighbour heard a screaming argument from... Baldwin's (?) trailer shortly after the murder and watched his mother throw it into the water. It was serrated on one edge and had a missing compass, similar to the knife Echols carried. Their defence consultants were meant to argue in the new trial that the irregularity of the cuts to the boys were not caused by being cut with a serrated blade but are rather the result of being chewed on by turtles.

There are other points but again it's pretty much all in this thread already. I'm not really into arguing against films that don't give a complete overview of the case against them. Once you get into the more out-there allegations like the state planting evidence against them or they had documented alibis that just got ignored for twenty years I think you're giving the films way, way too much trust and kind of ignoring the overkill they propose. Recommend reading at least the closing arguments if you want to understand the court case.

I saw another HBO documentary, Hot Coffee, at the end of which they cover Jamie Leigh Jones, who worked for Halliburton in the early 2000s. She says she was gang-raped in Iraq and locked in a storage container for days, held at gunpoint by marines to protect her employer. She has testified before Congress about this. It's extremely compelling and had me steaming, because **** Halliburton obv. Then I learned none of it is true.

II. Found the wrestling alibi, it was Miskelly's third alibi. It is true that he went wrestling with someone, he remembers because he made a deposit into his bank account the next day. The ATM receipts show this was a week before the murder.

And, like, isn't that an important detail to include in the film? Why would they include the part about the wrestling match but omit the date?

The knife was apparently thrown into the lake a year before the murders. In the film (fwiw) they said that the prosecutor knew this and still presented it as evidence.

The knife was serrated on at least one side and the forensic guy said no wounds on the bodies came from this knife.

No DNA evidence (or otherwise) was found at the crime scene linking Echols, Misskelley or Baldwin. DNA evidence was found at the crime scene linking Hobbs and Jacoby.

Thrown by whom and why would the state keep track of garbage in the lake? If it was thrown in a year prior and for some reason they knew about this, why would they enter it as evidence against Echols and risk having their ploy exposed in court?

Was it exposed in court?

If they were trying to frame him by retrieving an unrelated knife from the lake, is it not more practical to chuck it in the day before the search? The allegation of a year seems randomly chosen for dramatic effect.

Did they know it was missing a compass and that Echols carried a knife just like that, and then seized on the opportunity to nail him? If so, couldn't Echols have produced his "real" knife in this case? "That's not my knife, because this is my knife." It's very far-fetched that everyone in West Memphis knows what's in that lake and it just so happened to match the knife carried by the guy they've charged with murder, who also happened to have lost his knife-- by coincidence-- in the days following the murder.

To what was the neighbour referring when he gave a statement to the police saying he saw them throwing a knife into the water after the murder?

Does "the" forensic guy work for the state of Arkansas, or as a consultant to the defence? What is his name, do you remember?


Man, this is the reason I don't talk about anything from those films. I gather the whole thing is like this -- do they explain why the wrestling alibi failed to clear at least Miskelley, or no? It seems very dishonest to say you presented an alibi .... and then we were convicted! but skip over the part where the alibi was proven false.

That came out like I'm jumping all over you personally. I apologize for that, it's just incredulity at how incredibly complex and implausible these simple explanations are in reality.