But he added, “Christopher would be the first to tell him, ‘You’re not my daddy. I don’t have to listen to what you say.’ And if something was wrong, it would be, ‘I’m gonna go tell my daddy!’ He would have been the first to have done that.”
When I left, Mark hugged me. And I have to say, when all is said and done, he is among the participants in the case for whom I have the highest regard and respect. For all his admitted flaws and problems, he was the one who wanted the truth right from the beginning. When presented with as much of that truth as we had to offer, he was the one who showed the integrity and strength of character to accept it, make peace with the young men he had thought guilty and then fight vigorously for their freedom and exoneration. If those on the law enforcement side had had the broadmindedness and courage of John Mark Byers, three innocent young men would not have had to suffer for so long; and justice for his son Chris, Michael and Stevie would not have proven so elusive.
“John Douglas came to visit me,” Mark said later. “He gave me the answers I needed, and my worst fears were confirmed. I didn’t think the state would mess up that badly. I thought they were here to protect and serve. I’ve always been brought up that way.”
Terry agreed to my request to meet with him again, this time in a suite at the Memphis Holiday Inn where I was staying. And this time I was armed with information relative to the real Terry Hobbs. I was forthright and told him I felt better prepared this time. I noticed that Terry was carrying an unopened can of soda. I suggested he sit down, but he preferred to stand. I have seen this before when I’ve interviewed inmates in penitentiaries. Standing can be a technique for asserting a dominant position over the other person.
“You had me good, Terry,” I began. “When I talked to you the other day, I really didn’t know your background. But since then, I’ve had a chance to do some investigation, and find you were really bullshitting me. A lot of the things you told me just aren’t true. You’re a good liar, Terry, but not that good.”
He didn’t react, except to grasp the soda can a little tighter.
“You have a violent history,” I continued. He looked at me as if I were just mentioning an incidental detail, like the color of his hair.
I employed a technique I’ve often used in the past. I call it, “This Is Your Life,” taking him through key events I had learned about.
“You minimized it before, but I know your father beat the hell out of you, and you beat the hell out of Stevie.” I had learned that he used to whip Stevie viciously with a belt, making him hold his hands up in the air away from his body. Others in the family had described the welts these punishments left. “You’ve been manipulative, lying. . . .”
Everything I mentioned led to a “big deal” shrug or a “So what?” When I mentioned the altercation with his brother-in-law, Terry calmly explained that Jackie Jr. was choking him, and the only way to make him let up was to threaten him with the gun.
I pointed out that shortly after the murders, he and Pam had gone to stay at Pam’s family’s home in Blytheville, Arkansas; and shortly after that, Terry left Pam there and went to stay in Hardy, Arkansas, about 120 miles away. This meant that he was never questioned or examined by the police. Again, “So what?” Remaining in West Memphis was just too much for him, he said.
He didn’t flinch when I brought up the accusations that he had molested his daughter, Amanda. Normally, when you confront a man with a serious or outrageous charge that isn’t true, he’ll go ballistic. Terry didn’t admit the charges, but he didn’t bother denying them. The only thing I noted was that he was holding the can increasingly rigidly, as if it might be used as a weapon. He kept pacing.
Then I brought up an incident with his neighbor that had taken place twenty-five years ago, long before the murders. And that was when he finally became visibly agitated, as if he were shocked I found out about it.
In 1982, Terry and his first wife, Angela, and their child were living in Hot Springs, Arkansas. He was in his midtwenties at the time. Several times, his next-door neighbor Mildred French said she saw Terry outside staring at her through the window. One time, she heard a baby crying and what sounded like the child or Angela being beaten. She went over and rang the bell. Terry opened the door and asked contemptuously what she wanted. Mildred, who was about thirty years older than he, said that if he ever touched his wife or baby again, she would call the police.
Several months later, on December 8, 1982, she was stepping out of the shower after cleaning up from some yard work when she said Terry grabbed her from behind and then put his hands on her breast. She screamed and repeatedly yelled for him to get out. Finally, when he realized the window was partially open and she could be heard from outside, he ran out. Mildred stated that she was afraid he would beat, rape or kill her. She was certain she had locked the front door.
In 2009, Terry Hobbs filed a civil suit against the Dixie Chicks singer Natalie Maines, who had been a major advocate for the innocence of the West Memphis Three. Terry’s action claimed she had defamed him at a concert by suggesting he might have been the killer of the three boys. As part of that suit, Mildred French detailed the events of Terry’s intrusion in a sworn deposition:
That night, after I told my landlord about the attack, my landlord set up a meeting in which both Hobbs and I sat down face to face in front of the landlord. Terry’s father-in-law was also there. I said to Terry, “Tell them what you did to me.” Terry said, “I didn’t do nothing.” After I articulated what Hobbs had done to me, Terry looked me square in the eye and said calmly, “It never happened.” He was cool and collected as he told me it never happened. If you had not known for certain Terry was lying, you would not have been able to tell by his demeanor that he was lying. I was sickened and frightened by Terry’s ability to deny his horrific and perverted actions and seem calm in doing so. I looked at Terry and told him, “You are a liar and you are sick.” Terry looked back at me with cold, dead eyes and said, “Yeah, I’m sick.”
The landlord evicted the Hobbses, and Terry was charged with assault and criminal trespass. The case was dismissed in exchange for his agreement to go to counseling.
We went round a little more; me bringing up incidents and him either denying or shrugging them off. After a little while, he declared, “I’ve had enough of this shit,” and walked out, still carrying the unopened soda can. He had not sat down the entire time.
It was neither my job nor my role to say whether I thought Terry Hobbs was involved with the murder of his own stepson, as well as Chris Byers and Michael Moore. I had been brought in to analyze the case from a behavioral perspective and offer an opinion on what type of individual or individuals had committed the crime. Knowing of Todd Moore’s background and alibi, and having looked into and interviewed Mark Byers, I knew they could be eliminated from the suspect list and were, in fact, genuinely grieving parents and victims. Having done my analysis and having scrutinized and spoken to Terry Hobbs, what I could now say was that had I been advising WMPD on the case initially, I would have put him on the front burner of the investigation.
When I returned home, I received an extremely gratifying email from Fran and Peter that read in part: “You have single-handedly done more to humanize this case and advance the cause of Damien’s innocence than anyone we know.”
I just hoped we were moving closer to seeing justice done.
CHAPTER 25
ARKANSAS REVISITED
I went back to Arkansas later that year. On November 1, 2007, I participated in a press conference that Dennis Riordan and his law partner Donald Horgan led at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, William H. Bowen School of Law. The other participants were Dr. Werner Spitz, Dr. Richard Souviron, who has been the chief forensic dentist for the Medical Examiner’s Office of Miami-Dade, Florida, since 1967 and an expert on bite mark identification, and Thomas Fedor, a criminalist, DNA expert and blood and body fluid analyst with the Serological Research Institute of Richmond, California. Like m
e, each of them had worked on the case using the perspective from his own field of expertise.
The case was now styled Echols v. Norris et al, in the federal Eastern District of Arkansas. Larry Norris was the director of the Arkansas DOC, a position often used as the respondent in such appeals cases. Riordan explained that the federal habeas corpus appeal he was heading was different from most that are launched after all state remedies have been exhausted, because this one was based not on procedural flaws at the trial or state appeals court level, but on actual innocence. If that threshold could be established, then other procedural blocks to a new trial would be swept away.
“Actual innocence, in a legal sense, in the federal court means the following,” Riordan stated. “Is there new evidence that was not available at the time of the offense? When you view it with all of the evidence concerning the case, would a federal judge then be able to say, with confidence, that any reasonable juror would have a reasonable doubt about the defendant’s guilt? To state it differently, does the new evidence suggest that no reasonable juror would find the defendant guilty beyond a reasonable doubt? And a third way, can the judge be confident that with this new evidence, if that defendant were tried today, he would be acquitted? We are here today to discuss the evidence that establishes that no reasonable juror would convict Damien Echols, essentially knowing what we know today.”
Riordan reviewed the problems with the Misskelley confession and the problems with the knife evidence. He posed the question, “How could three teens brutally murder three kids and not leave any evidence?” Then he turned the podium over to Donald Horgan, who introduced the DNA specimens submitted to Bode Technology in Virginia, a leading forensic analyzer and the prosecution’s lab of choice.
Horgan announced that Bode was given samples from the three victims and from the three defendants and asked to analyze any possible links to DNA profiles of genetic materials collected from the victims’ bodies and the crime scene. There were no matches.
He said that private investigators had obtained samples of DNA in the form of discarded cigarette butts from Stevie Branch’s stepfather, Terry Hobbs, and a voluntary oral swab sample from David Jacoby, Terry’s friend who was with him the night of the boys’ disappearance. Thomas Fedor analyzed the samples and compared the Bode results.
“The result of that analysis, in May 2007, showed that a hair from the ligature used to tie up Michael Moore could be associated with Terry Hobbs,” Horgan declared.
Fedor then explained that the hair in the ligature could only be tested for mitochondrial DNA—inherited from the female only and therefore not exclusive—meaning it could come from 1½ percent of the population, including Terry Hobbs but none of the defendants. A hair found on a nearby tree stump could have come from 7 percent of the population, including Terry or David Jacoby, but none of the defendants.
Horgan confirmed that Dr. Spitz, Dr. Souviron and several other highly regarded experts all came to the independent conclusion that the injuries Dr. Peretti identified as knife wounds, and that Brent Turvey identified as human bite marks, were actually the result of postmortem animal predation, just as had been reported to me. This included the emasculation of Chris Byers.
Dr. Spitz, white-haired and still speaking in the accent of his Israeli upbringing, elaborated, “When these pictures came to me, I couldn’t understand what this issue was all about because it was so obvious that these are animal products.” With his usual authority, he concluded, “There were obvious claw marks. On all the victims, there was no evidence of sexual abuse. There was no evidence anywhere of anal penetration or mutilation. There were no other abnormalities on the bodies that would in any way conform with that which was alleged to have occurred.”
Spitz also thought the ME was wrong in another area. He did not believe that Chris Byers bled to death from the genital wound or any other trauma. “I think they all drowned. The injury in the groin area was almost bloodless or was bloodless for all intents and purposes, and showed ripping, chewing by a predator animal, a carnivorous animal, a large animal with evidence that this did not occur during the life of the boy. So there could not have been bleeding from that source.”
Dr. Souviron concurred, completely refuting Dr. Peretti’s testimony. It was Souviron’s bite mark analysis that made the case against Ted Bundy, finally putting away for good one of the most notorious serial killers in history, and his opinion carried a lot of weight. He then took apart prosecutor John Fogleman’s closing demonstration with the knife and the grapefruit. “That is the most ridiculous statement that I’ve ever heard anybody make. And to sell that to a jury is unconscionable, in my opinion.”
Riordan’s takedown of self-proclaimed cult expert Dale Griffis was equally withering. After reviewing his mail-order Ph.D. and loony satanic theories, Riordan held up a book entitled Secret Weapons.
“Here is his new book, 2001, in which he details how he discovered that two thirteen-year-old girls were taken over by the CIA, given electroshock treatment, and at the age of fourteen became military pilots and committed assassinations for the CIA and then were brainwashed to forget it. And it was only with his assistance that he was able to recover the memories of this abuse of these thirteen-year-old girls by the CIA. This is a man who stands on the same level as those who claim that the World Trade Center bombing was a result of explosives in the basement, and that all of the Jews in the building were given notice so they could get out before the bombing was committed. There is probably no greater disgrace in the history of death penalty litigation in this country than that Dale Griffis was placed on the stand in a death penalty case to testify and offer testimony as the basis for executing Damien Echols. And with that, I would like to turn to someone who actually does know something about analyzing crime, John Douglas, twenty-five years with the FBI criminal analysis unit.”
I detailed my findings that the West Memphis homicides were not perpetrated by a stranger or a teenager, but rather by a relatively criminally sophisticated individual; that the original intent was not to kill; that there would be no remorse. I declared that although the UNSUB might have known one of the boys better than the other two, there was no preferential victim and that any more severe wounds on one boy over another would have resulted from the way that boy reacted to him.
I repeated what I had told Mark Byers: Someone who could commit this crime would be a psychopathic personality who would show no remorse and easily lie about his involvement.
This was a personal cause homicide, I stated, perpetrated by someone who knew the victims and so was able to control all three at once by verbal command; was familiar with the neighborhood; and had criminal sophistication based on age and aggressive experience. When he found the boys, his initial intention was to degrade and punish, but the scene got out of hand. Perhaps one of the kids mouthed off to him or tried to run away, and he became more violent. At a certain point quickly reached, he had passed the point of no return and therefore had to kill all three to cover up his initial crime. He then had to delay finding and identifying the bodies until he could get back and establish an alibi: hence the immersion of the bodies and the hiding of the clothing and bicycles.
I also pointed out that I had never seen a case involving more than one teen in which they wouldn’t turn on each other. “That would be very unusual for guilty teens.
“So, looking at this case,” I concluded, “besides being a travesty of justice, this is not a satanic murder.”
The reporters present asked a number of questions. Several focused on whether it was the team’s intention to shift the murder charge from Damien Echols and the other two to Terry Hobbs.
Riordan was quite clear on this. “The last thing as defense lawyers we would intend to do is indict and convict someone beyond a reasonable doubt of this case. The evidence as to Hobbs, even less so to Jacoby, I don’t think should be viewed that way. But is it evidence that would lead any reasonable juror to acquit Damien Echols? Yes, it would.”
I had accomplished much of what I’d set out to do after analyzing the case. I had made my point that this was neither a ritualistic nor a multiple offender crime, that it was not perpetrated by teenagers, and that it was almost certainly not a stranger who killed the three boys. Perhaps as important, I had managed to convince the Byers and Pam Hobbs of this.
We all understood that the reason Damien was still alive was the public—at first through viewing Paradise Lost and then through the grassroots efforts so many people put together. And if we knew if Damien, Jason and Jessie were ever to get out of prison, that effort had to continue at a high level.
Getting two out of three of the victims’ parents to publicly express doubt or disagreement with the original verdict was part of the strategy for keeping up the public pressure. Damien had always worried that his, Jason and Jessie’s social status would mean they would be “thrown away and forgotten.” That wasn’t going to happen now.
As the defense team and the WM3 supporters worked toward getting the state supreme court to mandate an evidentiary hearing or a new trial, I went back to Arkansas.
Amy Berg, who was down there directing the documentary project that would become West of Memphis, said that David Jacoby liked me and was impressed with the evenhandedness of the analysis I’d given him, so he agreed to see me and help us work through a strategy.
One thing that had become clear to me is that David had always loved Stevie Branch and had been deeply affected by his death. He had thought justice had been done when the three teens were arrested, tried and convicted. Now he understood that the horrible deaths were still unpunished. He didn’t want to believe Terry Hobbs had any involvement, but more than that, he wanted to help get to the truth.
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