The judge ruled that Hobbs could not establish actual malice, and ordered Hobbs to pay Maines legal fees amounting to more than $17,000, according to the Associated Press. Main Page; I don't entirely think Hobbs did it, but I . Produced and directed by filmmakers Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky, the film and its two sequels, Paradise Lost 2: Revelations and Paradise Lost 3: Purgatory, gave audiences a unique and detailed look into the case, the accused, and the families of victims. But I had to. During Misskelley's trial, Hutcheson testified that she had attended an "an occult Satanic meeting" she referred to as an "esbat." I couldnt not watch it at this point. Its first season ostensibly focused on the disappearance of a Georgia beauty queen, but it spent nearly as much time digging through the salacious details of the victims love life and dipping into amateur psychology as it did looking at evidence. Berlinger says that after months of filming, the parents of one of the victims raised the issue of payment. But on that early morning in 1997, Jason Baldwin wasnt concerned with Berlinger and Sinofskys craft, or legal precedent, or crusading celebrities. But for every Your Own Backyard or Ill Be Gone in the Dark that has applied journalistic rigor to their research in the past two decades, theres an Up and Vanished, which has been at the center of ethical debates since the podcast debuted in 2016. Rollins not only gave interviews to keep the effort alive in the press, he organized a string of benefit shows and released an album featuring Iggy Pop and Chuck D, with proceeds going to the defense. Echols attorneys got a letter from the custodian of records for the West Memphis police department saying some of the evidence ended up lost, or misplaced, and some destroyed by fire. of Auburndale, FL passed away Monday, August 16, 2021. I still believe in my heart that Jessie, Jason, and Damion Echols [sic] are responsible for what happened to our children, Hobbs told Memphis ABC affiliate WATN in June 2019. So, how much is Terry Hobbs worth at the age of 50 years old? Bakken and Sauls say they tried to avoid offering theories about the case publicly, opting instead to try to work through official channels. There also were issues with other details he provided, including how the victims were bound and whether the boys were raped. A hair found on one of the ligatures to bind the boys, however, was found to be consistent with the DNA of Hobbs, according to court documents obtained by Oxygen.com. Now, evidence from the case of the West Memphis Three is either missing or destroyed. Almost 30 years ago, three eight-year-old West Memphis boys were found murdered and three teenagers were charged in the murders. A source said the evidence was transferred to shipping containers where there was a fire, and some of the evidence was destroyed. In 2007, new DNA and physical evidence arose that seemed to further distance the West Memphis Three from the murders. I didnt want to stop with us being that close. The next day, their bodies were found in a nearby canal. Check out never-before-seen content, free digital evidence kits, and much more! But on the subject of Paradise Lost, he speaks emphatically: He understands how important the movies were in helping him, Echols, and Misskelley walk free 10 years ago this August. Now a judgewho coincidentally works part time in the courtroom where Misskelley was convictedStidham spends time speaking to law students about the judicial system. However, in 2010, a series of rapidly unfolding developments turned the tide for Damien Echols, Jason Baldwin and Jessie Misskelley. Under order of the Arkansas Supreme Court, there were to be new evidentiary hearings in the case. October 13, 2018 - Happy 94th Birthday Terry! MEMPHIS, Tenn. (localmemphis.com)More than 25 years after the murders of three 8-year-old boys in West Memphis,a new book gives a first-person account of what was happening behind the scenes. It just needed a catalyst. To authorities working in West Memphisa largely Southern Baptist communitysatanic activity seemed to be the most likely cause for the killings, in part because the boys bodies were bound and appeared to have been mutilated. Its headlined by not only the films directors, but also Sheila Nevins, its executive producer and winner of 32 individual Emmy awards, more than any other person in history. He graduated from Sweetwater High School in 1977. I think I introduced my dad to it because that was not his normal genre., Three Metallica songsOrion, Welcome Home (Sanitarium), and Call of Ktuluwould play throughout the documentary. Explore. I had a friend who was working on 20/20, and they had done a film about exorcism in one of the magazine pieces, Nevins says. The footage included raw jailhouse interviews with the defendants, strategy sessions held by legal teams on both sides, and extended monologues from Mark Byers, the tall, goateed stepfather of one of the victims, who spoke as though he were reciting the Book of Revelation and who, at one point in Paradise Lost, fired a handgun at a pumpkin while reciting the names of the accused. Metallica had never licensed a song for a film before, but when they learned about the case, Berlinger says, they made an exception. When we were driving in the car a lot, wed play a lot of the Metallica album Master of Puppets, says Alex Sinofsky, who became a doctor instead of getting behind the camera himself. The second is by looking at it as an act of passion and perseverance. The sheer mountain moving amount of money it cost to prove the obvious innocence of Jessie, Jason, and Damien still staggers me. Terry Hobbs's income source is mostly from being a successful Actor. They formed the organization Proclaim Justice, a nonprofit that reinvestigates crimes with the hopes of freeing innocent people. (Maines briefly became a part of the story when Terry Hobbs, stepfather of another of the victims, sued her for defamation after she wrote a blog post pointing out that physical evidence at the crime scene potentially pointed at him and not the three convicted for the crime. Leave your condolences to the family on this memorial page or send flowers to show you care. As rumors of a Satanic sacrifice swept the community, the minds of many in West Memphis were already made up. Over two decades after the murders, what really happened to Stevie Branch, Christopher Byers, and Michael Moore on the evening of May 5, 1993, remains a mystery. I deeply admire that and I thought it was worthy of putting on film.. You need corroborating evidence.. La Mirada, California. This case was filed in U.S. Bankruptcy Courts, Tennessee Western Bankruptcy. Defense attorneys also pointed out that Griffis' doctorate was obtained through a notorious diploma mill and had been awarded with Griffis having never attended a single class. She has since expressed her belief that her ex-husband was involved in the murders,citing the discovery of her son's favorite pocket knife in Terry Hobbs' belongings. They were naked and hog-tied with their own shoelaces, and showed signs of blunt force trauma and mutilation, the latter of which may have been the work of wild animals, reported the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette newspaper. Once there got to be this global pressure, and there was a big concert here with really big-name musicians within a mile of our Supreme Court building, things started suddenly to change, she says. Terry Hobbs stated both family and co-workers believed he was guilty from day one and continued to believe him guilty after the trial and convictions of the West Memphis Three. We made a promise early on that we would never pretend to be law enforcement or detectives, Sauls says. Eventually, they began traveling to Arkansasabout 35 trips in total, always on their own dime, Bakken and Sauls sayto collect case documents, which they scanned and uploaded to the site, also transcribing the documents so that the text could be searchable. Years of solitary confinement and the abuse he said he suffered at the hands of prison guards had taken its toll. Cinemorgue Wiki. Echols is an author and mystic living New York with his wife, architect Lorri Davis. (Its worth noting that despite the issues raised by Lindseys work, the first season of Up and Vanished renewed interest in the case, which ultimately led to arrests, albeit of people that Lindsey hadnt previously covered on the podcast.). Sinofsky family connection aside, Berlinger says this was an important part of the film: The prosecutors had put heavy metal lyrics and Baldwins and Echolss Metallica fandom on trial as much as the teens themselves. While police had focused on Echols and Baldwin in the intervening weeks because of their reputation, the arrests came largely because of a confession by Misskelley, which was leaked to the largest newspaper in the area, the Memphis Commercial Appeal, and ran under the banner headline Teen describes cult torture of boys. At a press conference shortly after the arrests, the lead investigator was asked how confident he felt about the case on a scale of 1-10. Coverage of the latest true crime stories and famous cases explained, as well as the best TV shows, movies and podcasts in the genre. Now, he was being asked to consider something that he never dreamed he would: accepting a plea deal that would set the West Memphis Three free, but require them to give up their quest for exoneration. Their bikes were found by a pipe nearby. It's affected a lot of lives, but for some reason it keeps being brought up," said Hobbs. He responded proudly, 11.. Quality. He was 56. Hobbs denied seeing the boys that night and questioned why eyewitness evidence surfaced 16 years later. Paradise Lost also led to a famous citizen-activist campaign championing the release of the three teens that caught on at the dawn of the Internet Age and would eventually pull in Eddie Vedder, Henry Rollins, and a whos who of the rich and famous. Among them was a disoriented, muddy, and bleeding African-American man who stumbled into a West Memphis Bojangles restaurant men's room less than a mile from the crime scene. All three had been submerged face down in the mud, stripped naked, and bound with their shoelaces. His net worth has been growing significantly in 2021-2022. By choosing I Accept, you consent to our use of cookies and other tracking technologies. Now, I see they can. Terry Roland Hobbs <p>Terry Roland Hobbs, 62, of Sweetwater, passed away on Saturday, September 11, 2021.</p> <p>Terry was born on September 11, 1959 in Sweetwater, to Jack Harvey and Marjorie Hobbs .Terry graduated from Sweetwater High School in 1977. Despite the best efforts of the police, dozens of volunteers, a search-and-rescue team, and a helicopter dispatched from nearby Memphis, Tenn., searchers came up empty handed. With a large population of fundamentalist Christians, the American South was particularly subject to occult paranoia. Misskelley initially told police that the killings happened during the day; knowing that they actually occurred some time after dusk, the officers corrected him, helping him retrofit his story to the cases few known facts. Beyond the black-and-white print of the newspaper, there was a movement brewing. Published by The Commercial Appeal from Jun. While Berlinger says that the work of people like Bakken and Sauls was more impressive than that of any celebrity, its undeniable that the famous and influential brought a megaphone and funding mechanism to this case that most never get. But they werent just voices in the growing choir calling for the West Memphis Threes releasethey were leading the movement. View Source Suggest Edits Memorial Photos Flowers Created by: Legend Added: 11 Aug 2021 Find a Grave Memorial ID: 230642037 Feigning a romantic interest in Echols, she asked Misskelley to arrange a meeting. It hurt all over again, he said. They were releasedfrom prison in 2011 on whats called an Alford plea, after new forensic evidence was presented as part of the case. People would drive by and yell at us, Theyre going to burn in hell, Sauls says. But they never had any physical evidence that connected us to this crime, Echols said in 2012. One of Kathy Bakkens earliest jobs in Los Angeles allowed her a certain kind of cultural currency: She designed movie posters for an entertainment-advertising company, which meant she got to see films months before they were released. In August 2011, Jason Baldwin was pulled from his prison cell under confusing circumstances once again. The prosecutor would later say, There was a lack of physical evidence to tie anyone or anything to the crime scene, while the lead investigatorthe same one who told the press the case was an 11 out of 10would concede, Youve got a lot of circumstantial evidence is what youve got. Due to marital problems stemming from Stevies death, the couple divorced in 2004, reported CNN. That didn't make sense to me. Inevitably, the West Memphis Three case always comes up. The story felt personal for all of them, but especially Sauls: He had grown up in Florida and Georgia as an outcast obsessed with art and reading some of the same books Damien Echols had. Critics were effusive in their praise and stunned by the footageparticularly Roger Ebert, who wrote in a four-star review that at the end of the film I was unconvinced of their guilt. The film won Emmy and Peabody awards to go with more than a dozen other nominations. Theres no smoking gun. Throughout the late 1990s and early 2000s, defense attorneys working for the West Memphis Three filed multiple appeals on their behalf scrutinizing the lack of physical evidence against them. On Aug. 11, 2011, the West Memphis Three entered the courtroom for the final time. '", In 1999, a more mature Echols explained the comment. The bodies had been removed from the water and placed on the adjacent embankment, possibly disturbing physical evidence or otherwise contaminating the scene. More than 2,500 people attended and the story dominated the local press for days. A statement he made to the producers of Paradise Lost: The Child Murders at Robin Hood Hills did little to help his public image. On the evening of May 5, 1993, 8-year-olds Stevie Branch, Christopher Byers and Michael Moore went missing in West Memphis, Arkansas. Although the appeals were repeatedly denied, a new batch of DNA testing done in 2007 reignited the investigation. Griffis also knew how to spot a Satanist. Everybody Id come in contact with was hostile to the truth, Baldwin says. He said, J.B., youre going home, man, youre going home.. The consequences of that online campaign were ruinous: The person they targeted, a Mexican metal musician who worked under the name Morbid, was harassed into hiding. (Police questioned Byers several times during the investigation, but never considered him a suspect.) Maines won the lawsuit; police have never named Hobbs a suspect or charged him in connection with the killings.). This article was updated after publication to add more context about the honorariums paid to the families of the victims and the West Memphis Three and also to correct the time frame in which Berlinger and Sinofsky informed HBO about the changing scope of the documentary. 24 to Jun. On August 19, 2011, all three accepted the deal and were immediately released from prison. Bakken immediately showed her friends Burk Sauls and Grove Pashley, who were both equally gripped by what they had just watched. Sheila Nevins, the HBO exec who pushed for Berlinger and Sinofsky to make that initial trip to Arkansas, is most proud of the companys willingness to let her finance three documentaries over 18 years without knowing where they would go. As the first in a trilogy of Paradise Lost films about the case, the 1996 movie was a stunning example of cinma vrit, as directors Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky embedded themselves with the prosecution, the defense, and the families of both the slain and the accused to put human faces on a heart-wrenching tragedy, as well as highlight the overblown worries of satanic rituals and murderous cults that proliferated throughout the 1980s and 90s. It was a call about Damien Echolshe wasnt dead, but his wife, Lorri Davis, feared he might be soon. But Echolss situation changed Baldwins thinking. One person who has come up in the investigation is Terry Hobbs, although police have never named him a suspect or charged him in connection with the case. . hangyermoon 2 yr. ago. I'm not stupid." Hobbs denied the accusation, saying that his family does have secrets, but none of them have to do with murder. (Maines briefly became a part of the story when Terry Hobbs, stepfather of another . Echols, who prosecutors argued was the ringleader, was sentenced to death. You still dont really know what happened to these kids. It was clear that Paradise Lost was resonating. The sneaker ligatures in which Terry Hobbs' DNA was found in," Soury said . Example video title will go here for this video. At the request of West Memphis authorities, the two were picked up and questioned by Oceanside police. But then the verdicts arrived: Both Baldwin and Echols were found guilty on all counts, just like Misskelley had been six weeks before them. Terry Hobbs USAF Ret. In 2004, Vicki Hutcheson recanted her trial testimony, stating that she had lied on the stand. He was 56. Although Griffis' testimony was dramatic, it showed only a tenuous grasp of occult knowledge much of it, including a reference to a cult called "Crytos," was simply made up. Last year, I noticed that Terry went missing. Other details that have come to light include that many wounds on the slain children, originally attributed to human bites and/or a serrated blade, were the result of animals feeding on the bodies. By staying on this subject for the next couple of decades, they gave these men a chance and really decades of freedom afterward. Over the course of the initial investigation, a number of alternate suspects and scenarios came to light that were largely ignored or otherwise dismissed by authorities. Their main worry was Damien, who was staring down the threat of lethal injection should the appeals fail. He just didnt know it would take another 14 years to happen. I said, Im going to send some kids down there., Those kids turned out to be Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky, the young documentarians who had recently completed the acclaimed Brothers Keeper, a film chronicling a death and the resulting trial in a small upstate New York village. On 04/08/2021 Terry Hobbs was filed as a Bankruptcy - Chapter 13 lawsuit. The case status is Pending - Other Pending. To send flowers or plant a tree in memory of Terry Hobbs, visit the Tribute Store. But most notably, his initial timeline of events didnt match what was known about the crimes, and every time he offered a detail that diverged from the accepted chronology, the interrogating officers seemed to steer him back in the direction of the official version. We have estimated Terry Hobbs's net worth , money, salary, income, and assets. The great irony of the 18-year quest to free the West Memphis Three is that it didnt begin as a crusade. "I knew from when I was real small that people were going to know who I was," Echols said in 1994. Rather, they were fighting for something they believed in. The obituary was featured in Idaho Press Tribune on March 13, 2021. Create a free profile to get unlimited access to exclusive videos, breaking news, sweepstakes, and more! Iwould journal something and put it in the box, said Hobbs. Blood and urine samples from both men were collected and sent to the West Memphis Police Department. He began his career in the. No knives and not weapons were used," says Jo Lynn McCaughey. Although Damein Echols had a teenager's typical disdain for authority, he nevertheless trusted that the system would work in his favor. Echols tweeted, New technology and evidence in science would now allow us to test DNA in amounts so small that it would have been previously impossible. Case Number &colon; 2:21-BK-21177. The killings came at the peak of the so-called Satanic Panic, a time of heightened worries about ritualistic abuse. Wading into the murky water, Allen unknowingly dislodged the pale, grotesquely arched form of Micheal Moore. Although blood scrapings were taken, the West Memphis police lost the evidence. Mojo jumped up, Baldwin recalls. Much of Cecil Hotel focuses on the amateur investigators who turned coincidences into conspiracy theories, ultimately accusing an innocent person of her death. Baldwin and Misskelley were sentenced to life without parole while Echols received the death penalty. Reaching its apex in the late 1980s and early 1990s, the Satanic Panic was a wave of paranoia rooted in the belief that Satanic cults intent on corrupting the souls of the young had infiltrated American society. Except this was 1996, and home internet was still in its infancy. " (Detective Allen) told me if I knew anything, that there was a $35,000 reward, and if I could help them out, we'd get the money," said Misskelley, as quoted by Mara Leveritt in Devil's Knot. Published: Dec. 21, 2021 at 9:56 PM CST WEST MEMPHIS, Ark. A quarter-century later, what does the documentary tell us about citizen activism, the criminal justice system, and the Satanic Panic of the 1980s and 90s? For the next two hours and 29 minutes, the two inmates sat in near silence watching Paradise Lost: The Child Murders at Robin Hood Hills, the landmark documentary released on HBO 25 years ago this week that captured the trials of Baldwin, Jessie Misskelley Jr., and Damien Echols, the three teenagers convicted in 1994 of the crimes that ripped through the small, working-class community of West Memphis, Arkansas. However, under pressure, leading questions, and scare tactics, Misskelley wove a contradictory story that first placed him at the crime scene as an eyewitness to the murders and then as an active participant. In West Memphis, Hobbs worked as an ice cream delivery man and Hicks worked at a restaurant. Initially, Misskelley repeatedly denied having knowledge of the crime, aside from rumors that Damien Echols was involved. Hobbs said, I still believe in my heart that Jessie, Jason, and Damion, 'Feels Like Home:' electrical failure from a light fixture caused December fire that killed 1, Shelby County reporting an increase in drug-related overdoses, largely due to fentanyl, Severe weather threat is over | Prepare for a sunny weekend, Daylight saving time starts soon. Making his way through the muck on his hands and knees, Ridge soon discovered clothing twisted around sticks and thrust into the ditch's bottom. "The reason I made the West Memphis boogeyman comment during the first film was because I was making light of the situation," Echols says in Paradise Lost 2: Revelations. Terry was born on September 11, 1959 in Sweetwater, to Jack Harvey and Marjorie. Baldwin is the co-founder of the legal advocacy organization Proclaim Justice. Im not the judge. Quickly, however, he realized Berlinger and Sinofsky were taking a different approach. Nevertheless, Echols made no incriminating statements. She also stated that beyond the single meeting at her trailer, she had no further contact with Echols. Misskelley's coerced confession, as contradictory as it seemed to the evidence, was consistent in implicating Echols and Jason Baldwin. As the movement to free the West Memphis Three gained traction, a number of celebrities joined the cause, bringing the case under more scrutiny. In fact, for the better part of 1993, it was nearly impossible to find anyone who believed they were innocent. Its something that Baldwin couldnt envision when he first agreed to let the documentarians interview him in jail in exchange for an honorarium, or even when Mojo played that VHS tape for him in 1997. Berlinger also concedes Revelations had some ethical problems, chiefly because it raised the possibility that Mark Byers committed the killings. I kind of enjoy it because now even after I die, people are going to remember me forever. Its like ripping a Band-Aid off a wound. Well theres been a lot of things that happened over the years. For Rollins, it was a moral imperative: Id find myself up at 3:30 a.m. thinking about Damien. But they were saying that he was about to die.. Griffis also found the devil in nearly every number associated with the crime. All of those factors combined to create a tipping point, says Leveritt. 1.0. . Inconsistencies in Terry Hobbs' alibi, as well as revelations about subsequent violent acts, have also led many to believe that he may be the actual killer. eyewitness evidence surfaced 16 years later. every single person in my class was either . Create your free profile and get access to exclusive content. And without substantial physical evidence, police zeroed in on a pair of teens they knew well: Echols, a self-professed Wiccan who wore all black and read Stephen King, and his best friend Baldwin, who was considered an outsider because of his love of drawing and bands like Metallica. Even though they said they didnt murder the three boys, they are technically convicted killers. Echols' disdain for authority, penchant for black clothes, and propensity to make shocking statements didn't help his plight. Like everyone else who was familiar with the case, they wanted to know who committed the crimes, but their main goal was advocacy, not using the opportunity to play investigators. Not everyone believes that the West Memphis Three are innocent of the killings of Michael Moore, Stevie Branch, and Christopher Byers. La Verne, California. Its evidence that Damien Echols attorneys wanted to do new DNA testing on. After new DNA evidence was discovered, the West Memphis Three were released from prison in August 2011 by agreeing to an Alford plea, which allowed him to proclaim their innocence while admitting the prosecution had enough evidence to convict him. They had a daughter together, Amanda Hobbs, who was 4 years old at the time of her brothers death. Terry Hobbs is absolutely terrible. It's one. He had always maintained he didnt commit the crimes, and outside the Varner Units walls, a growing chorus of activists and legal observers were arguing that same thing on his behalf.

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