Police neglect, a paranoid community and forgotten victims.
When first reading the title 'The West Memphis Three' and knowing some of the background of this case, I wrongly assumed the title referred to the three young boys who's lives were taken. However, the title in-fact refers to the three teenage boys who were wrongly convicted of these murders.
In many of my sources of research, whether they were documentaries or articles, I found that the victims were often lost in discussion, with the attention being mostly on the boys convicted. However, this is not the only part of the case which shocked and saddened me.
May 5th 1993
Friends Steven Branch, Michael Moore and Christopher Byers, all 8 year old boys, went missing.
The first to report the boys missing was John Mark Byers at 7pm. Regina Meeks is the officer who takes this call and visits the Byers home.
Officer Meeks.
Officer Regina Meeks, whilst at the Byers household, was visited by Michael Moore's mother who informed her that her son was also missing. However, Meeks did not take an official statement, and instead tells the worried mother that she will simply keep an eye out for Michael whilst looking for Christopher Byers.
At around 8:29pm, Officer Meeks leaves the Byers house and drives around looking for the boys, however at around 8:42pm she gets a call to go to the near-by Bojangles restaurant. The call explained that there was a man, covered in blood, hiding in the women's restrooms. Yet when officer Meeks arrived, she does not go in. Instead she pulls into the drive through to take the statement from the manager. He tells her that a tall black man covered in blood had stumbled into the restaurant and hid in the women's restrooms, where he left a lot of blood on the walls and floor. The manager also informed officer Meeks that this man had left only a couple of minutes before she arrived, and even pointed the direction in which he headed. One would assume that officer Meeks would go into the restaurant to preserve evidence, or follow the suspicious man, however, she receives a call about a house being egged, prioritises this, and leaves.
At around 9:24pm, officer Meek's finally takes Mrs Byers official statement. She also learns that the third boy, Steven Branch is missing.
Family and friends started to search for the boys, who had been last seen heading towards Robin Hood Hills, despite there being no real police presence. Christopher Byer's father during the search saw a police officer who even asked him what he was doing and upon learning that there was three young boys missing, went back into the forest with him to search. John Mark Byers even called the police station to complain about the lack of police presence during the search. The sheer lack of police concern was also highlighted with the lack of communication from officer Meeks, who only contacted the families again to let them know that her shift was ending.
May 6th
Crittenden County Search and Rescue, at around 8am, began a more thorough police search. At around 9am detective Gary Gitchell announced that he would be leading the search which was mainly focused on Robin Hood Hills.
The searchers combed through the forest but after nothing was found, people began to become discouraged and even police officers began to leave. However, a juvenile probation officer spots a black, laceless shoe floating in the creek. Shouting people over, police officers stood and watched in shock that they had missed this before.
1:40pm
The creek was murky and very muddy, making it virtually impossible to see through. An officer called Brain Ridge volunteers to go into the creek, where he had to crawl on his hands and knees in about three feet of dirty water and blindly search for more. His arms finally reach something, and he pulls out the body of Michael Moore.
Ridge then places the boy on the creek bed, carries on blindly searching on all fours and soon finds the bodies of Christopher and Steven.
All three boys were completely naked with their wrists tied to their ankles.
Michael appeared he had been viciously attacked. Steven had lacerations to his neck, face and head, along with bite marks. Christopher had been beaten and castrated.
Their bodies had been anchored to the creek bed with sticks, along with their clothes.
Poor Police Work.
The medical examiner was not called until two hours after the bodies were found and due to the dense wooded area, the officers had to physically carry the boys to the medical van.
Officers also found the two bikes in the water. They were loaded into the back of an animal control truck, with no effort to preserve any DNA or evidence. Not only was there no effort to preserve evidence or prevent cross contamination, the bikes were not even tested for evidence until two months later.
As this case was announced as a triple homicide, the State Police, who have more man-power and resources offered Gary Gitchell help in the investigation. However, Gitchell let his pride take over and refused the help. Despite this, Gary Gitchell was smart as he with with-held crucial details from the public and even colleagues, a good tactic often used to prevent false confessions or to catch someone who knows something that they shouldn't.
The Three Suspects.
This is a deeply religious area, and at this time there were rising concerns around satanism within the community. The police were given a list of names of teenage boys who were known to be involved with 'satanism' by a probation officer named Jerry Driver. Driver was almost obsessed with the idea of growing satanism in the local area. From this list, three boys were picked out.
The first boy was sixteen year old Jason Baldwin. His mother suffered from schizophrenia and worked night shifts, therefore he would often have to look after his siblings. Baldwin was well liked in the neighbourhood and people trusted him to look after their children. He had long black hair and was best friends with Damien Echols.
The second was seventeen year old Jessie Misskelley Jr who lived with his father. He was often called 'simple' and in the more modern day, we would see that Misskelley had a low IQ and possibly a learning disability. Despite this, he, alike Baldwin was well liked by the neighbourhood with both parents and children trusting him.
The third boy was eighteen Damien Echols, born Michael Echols. He changed his name to Damien after a religious character in the Catholic Church, but many believed it was inspired by the main character from The Omen. When just sixteen years old, Damien and Diana, a girl he was dating, ran away together but were quickly caught by the police. Damien was arrested and during questioning, officer Jerry Driver pulls out Diana's journal and accuses him of being a satanist.
May 6th
Damien wakes up to see the news about the three young boys and claims that he did not know of them up until that moment.
May 8th
The police go to Damien's house to talk to him, but they did not tell him that he was a suspect in the murders. However, they simply asked him about the occult, and Damien in an interview stated he simply thought the police wanted to know more about satanism to help them with the case.
May 9th
Damien, Jason and Jessie were asked by the police for their alibis the day that the three boys were killed. Damien and Jason say that they were as Jason's uncles house, which was confirmed. Damien's father then picked him up from Jason's uncles home and had an alibi for the rest of the night that was also supported.
Despite the boys having alibis, Damien was brought into the station by police and questioned for eight hours. Not a single moment of that eight hours was recorded by the police, which went against all protocol, and which will be discussed further in this blog.
The police claimed after this interrogation that Damien had 'inside knowledge', that he made cryptic comments and suggested guilt.
Focuses are then turned on to Jessie, as they believed him to be an easy target due to his obvious cognitive deficits.
9am June 3rd
The police brought Jessie to the station for questioning and despite the questioning beginning at 9am, the recording did not start until 2:44pm.
11:30am a one hour polygraph test is conducted with Jessie which officers claimed showed signs of deception.
2:20pm Jessie claims to have been at the scene of the murders.
2:44pm- 3:18pm first recorded interview happens.
10:45pm Jason and Damien are arrested.
Unethical Policing.
The polygraph conducted on Jessie was ten questions long, however the report only showed the five questions that indicated that Jessie was not being truthful. Gary Gitchell used unethical interview techniques, especially for someone of Jessie's mental capacity. The interview was full of leading questions and the officers basically put words into Jessies mouth, correcting him when he got vital details incorrect. They even played Jessie a creepy clip of a little boy saying "no one knows what happened but me" in order to try and scare the already stressed boy. Confusion and shock obviously had taken over the boy, who just wanted to go home, and was promised he would if he told officers what happened to the three boys. For roughly six hours, officers interrogated Jessie without recording, due to the obvious fact that they used techniques to scare, lead and put words into the boys mouth.
When the recording finally started, Gitchell got Jessie to say exactly what he wanted him to say. Jessie spoke of satanic rituals and how he got a phone call that night of the two boys asking if he wanted to go and kill someone with them. Also, the time stamp of Jessies arrest for Capital Murder was at one minute before his alleged confession, highlighting obvious police corruption. Jessie was wrong in his confession multiple times and got times wrong, with even at one point, the officer telling him that it was dark when it happened.
Prosecution.
Jessie was tried separately to the other two boys and with no DNA, they relied solely on his confession. Expert of interrogation,Warren D Holmes, said that Jessie's confession appeared to be straight off the questions from the officers and that it was highly unlikely that if he was in-fact guilty of these crimes, he would not have got the details so wrong. The prosecution however tried to diminish Holmes. Jessie later said in an interview that he was upset that the prosecution pointed out that he did not look up at anyone, as his lawyers had instructed him to keep his head down.
February 4th 1994.
Jessie was found guilty of first degree murder of Michael Moore and second degree murder of the other two boys. He was sentenced to life in prison with a minimum of forty years.
Even after his sentencing, Jessie confessed multiple times. He thought his lawyer was another police officer, and it wasn't until his father explained that the lawyer was there to help him, that Jessie admitted he had not been there and he was not telling the truth. According to Jessie, in the police car after his trail the officers said that he should tell them the whole story again because he had already testified against Damien and Jason, and if they were not found guilty, they would go and hurt his family.
Not only was there clear police corruption, with unethical questioning techniques and leading questions, Jessie did not have the mental capacity to make the whole story up on his own.
Damien and Jason's trail- January 28th 1994.
Prosecution had a lack of incriminating evidence, so they heavily relied on Jessie's confession. However, they did have some fibres in which were found on the boys bodies which they claimed linked to Damien and Jason. A red fibre was found which was also found in Jason's trailer, and a green fibre was found which linked to Damien's home. Despite this, these fibres were so generic that they could have been found in most house holds in the area. Prosecution also brought up an 'occult expert' who said that the boys had the 'look of a satanist' due to their long dyed black hair and black clothing. Damien's lawyer did in-fact expose this 'expert' as not an expert at all, he had received his PHD from a mail-order college and did not take any classes to gain it. It was evident that the prosecution simply used this 'expert' to create fear in the jury, which was easily done due to the deeply religious community they came from.
March 18th 1994
Verdict comes back as both of the boys being guilty. Jason Baldwin was sentenced for life. Damien Echols was sentenced to death row, to die three times for each of the murders.
Damien in a later interview speaks of the shock he felt as the judge sentenced him to die, not once, but three times.
A Media Storm.
A HBO documentary brought light to this case. Concerts were held, celebrities such as Johnny Depp helped to spread awareness and books were written to right the obvious injustice. People were shocked to find out that something so big had been allowed to happen in that little town, and felt they could relate to the boys being judged purely because of what they wore and things they liked. In the trail, the prosecution even used the fact that Damien enjoyed Stephen King novels against him.
Unfortunately, the three young boys who lost their lives were lost amongst this media storm as the focus shifted onto those wrongly convicted.
John Mark Byers.
John acted differently than the other parents, one moment he was singing gospel and next he was acting out and shooting his gun. He was loud and the police found him suspicious. Despite his history of drugs and illegal activity, he was very co-operative with the police, passed a polygraph and was quickly cleared of suspicion.
And It All Falls Apart.
Better DNA testing meant that a hair found in one of the boys shoe laces, that was used to tie up one of the boys, did not match any of the incarcerated boys. A forensic pathologist was also asked to study the autopsy report and believed that the scratches, bites and castration was done by animals, especially snapping turtles which were common in the area. This idea was supported by many experts.
It come to light that the police had also tried to set Damien up, by using a women to get close to him to attempt to get him to say something incriminating. She states that police put words into her mouth and she was offered rewards, which as a newly single mother she could not refuse.
Due to the public out cry and new evidence, there were appeals for a new trail. The judge however, denied the new appeals even though not one piece of evidence matched with any of the convicted, and openly admits that he wished he did not let cameras into the court room. This again highlights the corruption which happened amongst the police and court room in this case.
Jury misconduct was also highlighted. The jury foreman, who's role is to guide the juries' verdict, had knowledge of the case and Jessies confession which he should not have known.
Police interviewed two teenage boys and once again pressured them into giving false confessions for the murders. The teen's were not even read their rights and once again, similar unethical questioning techniques were used. One of the boys, who was obviously agitated and distressed, confessed but soon after said that he did not do it.
A New Trail.
The three boys were granted a new trial where they were offered a deal. Damien and Jessie took the deal with Damien's attorneys stating he maintains innocence but it was in his best interest to plead guilty. Jason did not want to plead guilty as he wanted full innocence, however he did not want to risk the freedom of Damien and Jessie, so he took the deal.
A Second Chance At Life.
Damien got married whilst in prison and when he was released, ten years after his arrest, he moved with his wife to Salem.
Jason upon his release also got married.
Jessie moved back to West Memphis where he lives a quiet life.
Jerry Driver, who had it out for Damien throughout the whole process, was arrested due to $27 thousand in unauthorised cheques and was placed on probation. He was arrested again due to theft and later died whilst still on probation.
Terry Hobbs.
I decided to focus on Terry Hobbs, Steven Branch's father, last due to both his actions and the police's treatment of him.
On the afternoon of the young boys disappearances, Terry Hobbs who worked as a 'trucker' arrived home to find his step- son missing. He then dropped his wife Pam off to work and went to look for his step-son around 5:30pm. Initially he was never questioned by police, no DNA was taken from him and no alibi was asked for.
He later gave an alibi to the police where he stated he had gone to his friend David's house, with his four year old daughter after dropping off his wife at work. According to David, they played on the guitars for a couple of hours before he asked Terry where Steven was. It was then that Terry explained that he was missing. Straight away this appears to be suspicious, why would you sit and work on a song instead of searching for your missing son?
They drove around for about fifteen minutes before David asked if he could go back home to change and get a flash light so that they could search properly. Terry dropped him off and agreed that he would come back to get him, however, he never came back to pick David up. David however, did go out into the woods without him to search for the boys. Terry, in his alibi, states that he was with David in the woods at 6:30pm and then was with him all night, however, David claimed he never went into the woods with him. He also claimed to be with officer Regina Meeks that night, but she states, similar to David, that she was not with him. There consequently is a big chunk of time in which Terry was alone, with no alibi.
Terry's first wife stated how he was abusive and Terry and Pam were known to have issues. In 1994, Terry hit Pam, and after her brother came to their house, he shot him in the stomach, fortunately, not killing him. Along with this, he was accused of sexually abusing his daughter, Amanda, who still to this day is so traumatised about all of the events in her childhood, she is not sure what is true and what isn't.
The last witness sightings of the three young boys say they saw them riding back towards Terry, therefore he was the last person to see them. A witness also saw Terry on May 6th, the day after the disappearances, cleaning Steven's room, washing his clothes and even taking clothes out of his drawers to wash them. The witness said this was odd behaviour as it was unlike Terry to clean or do any house work. It also seems suspicious that a worried father who's son has gone missing, would want to then wash his clothes.
Along with this, Terry was having an affair. His girlfriend said that he told her that he had found the boys bodies first but did not inform the police incase they thought it was him that had killed them. Again, this rings alarm bells. For one, why would a father come across the body of his dead step-son and decide to leave it where it was? Personally I believe he said this in case any evidence was found on the bodies or at the scene that would link back to him. Which of course, it did. The strand of hair which was found on a shoe lace that was used to tie one of the boys, matched that of Terry Hobbs. Despite it not being able to be matched via DNA due to the lack of hair root, the strand was the exact same type of Terry Hobbs. This was more evidence linking him to the murders than that of the three who were convicted.
Terry's neighbour in an interview calls him 'crazy' and speaks of how she believes he killed her cat. Pam Hobbs believes that the three convicted did not kills the boys and that Terry was jealous of her and Stevens relationship. This almost gives a, as we learnt, violent Terry a clear motive. If the police had interviewed Terry Hobbs at the time of the murders and taken DNA from him, more may have came to light. However, the poor police work led to Terry never being a suspect.
Terry Hobbs to this day refuses to take a polygraph or to give DNA samples.
The blood soaked man from the restaurant was never discovered and due to the restaurant having to clean up the blood, no DNA was ever taken.
So Many Failures.
So whilst we sit and question, who did it, was it Terry? Should the blood soaked man have been a suspect? we can not forget the many failures that we find in this case...
There was no initial police search and no urgency to take official statements about the boys disappearances. A lack of police urgency is evident as police were not informed of the initial search and there was a lack of communication between officer Regina Meeks and the parents. Along with this officer Regina Meeks appeared to be the only officer in the area who was taking calls, and showed a lack of ability to prioritise incidents, choosing to go to a domestic call of eggs being thrown rather than going to preserve what possibly could have been a crime scene. Especially knowing that three young boys have just gone missing in the area, you would assume that a man covered in blood may ring alarm bells?
Help from the state police, which could have been vital, was also rejected due to Gary Gitchell's ego being too big and wanting to solve the case himself. All interviews and questioning was unethical. They were not recorded, which went against protocol, as the officers obviously did not want people to know what was being said. Unethical questioning techniques and leading questions were used on vulnerable people, with no effort to take any steps needed to protect them during the interviewing process. This led to false confessions which went off the lead of the officers suggestions.
In court, scare tactics were used to convince the jury of the boys guilt, playing on the 'satanic panic' which was growing in the area. Not only this, the jury foreman, who gives guidance to the juries' decision knew information which he should not have known, which could have caused biases in the decision making. The refusal of another trail despite new DNA, leading new suspects into false confessions and failing to interview someone who indeed should have been a suspect, further solidifies the corruption in the courts and police.
The community also failed the convicted boys as they played into this 'satanic panic', accusing people of being devil worshippers just because of their appearances. They let three teenage boys get wrongly accused and have, especially in Damien's case, ten years of their life lost in solitary confinement.
However, the biggest and most prominent failure in this case is the fact that the victims, the three young boys who's lives were so abruptly ripped from them, were forgotten. They got lost in the media storm around the wrongfully convicted, and people began to be so wrapped up in the police corruption and the 'satanic panic' that the true issue was lost- finding who was responsible for their deaths and getting justice for the little boys families. Whilst researching this case, I discovered so much information about the boys who were convicted, yet I found very little about the three victims. Despite Jason, Jessie and Damien losing a lot of their life being wrongfully incarcerated, those three little boys had their lives taken from them forever. Therefore, I would like to emphasise their names again, Steven (Stevie) Branch, Michael Moore and Christopher Byers.
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