RedHanded - Episode 262 - West Memphis 3 - Part 2

Episode Date: August 26, 2022

In the second and final installment of our two-part episode, we enter the courtroom to hear some flimsy evidence and absolutely bizarre testimony. Get ready for witchcraft, covens, and satanism that convicted three teenagers of triple child murder. Damien, Jessie, and Jason would spend the next 18 years in prison. And as the rusty cogs of the US justice system slowly turned, a final bitter pill of injustice was forced upon the West Memphis 3. 2022 LIVE SHOW TICKET LINKS: https://redhandedpodcast.com Sources: The Devil’s Knot by Mara Leveritt Docs: Paradise Lost and West of Memphis https://famous-trials.com/westmemphis/2287-home https://famous-trials.com/westmemphis/2236-chronology https://www.ualrpublicradio.org/local-regional-news/2022-06-23/judge-rejects-new-evidence-testing-in-west-memphis-3-case https://www.jivepuppi.com/dale_griffis.html https://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2010/10/13/Juror-misconduct-alleged-in-murder-verdict/28341287001195/ https://knowablemagazine.org/article/society/2018/hidden-damage-solitary-confinement See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to Red Handed early and ad-free. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. So, get this. The Ontario Liberals elected Bonnie Crombie as their new leader. Bonnie who? I just sent you her profile. Her first act as leader, asking donors for a million bucks for her salary. That's excessive. She's a big carbon tax supporter. Oh yeah. Check out her record as mayor. Oh, get out of here. She even increased taxes carbon tax supporter. Oh, yeah. Check out her record as mayor. Oh, get out of here.

She even increased taxes in this economy. Yeah, higher taxes, carbon taxes. She sounds expensive. Bonnie Crombie and the Ontario Liberals. They just don't get it. That'll cost you. A message from the Ontario PC Party. Get ready for Las Vegas-style action at BetMGM,

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then you'll know what I'm about to say. If you haven't listened to Part 1, go back and listen to it. Otherwise, this episode is going to make absolutely no sense. We are going back on tour. We are back on the road. We are doing a United Kingdom and Europe tour, assuming they will let us in with our stupid Brexit passports. So please link episode description, click on it,

go and buy tickets and we'll see you. Absolutely. We'll see you in Dublin, Helsinki, stockholm manchester oslo berlin london and then in edinburgh to wrap things up so yes get your tickets get your tickets all right I'm Saruti I'm Hannah and welcome to part two of your bonus episode as a thank you for getting us into the listener's choice gold category but not bonus because if you put it in the title no one listens to it no we haven't put Hannah is exactly right we didn't put bonus in the title because this was a lot of work a lot of time well spent because it's a fascinating case. And almost like Hannah said at the top of the last episode, it's like the perfect crime case. So we just wanted as many people to listen as possible.

And for some reason, when you put bonus in the episode, nobody fucking listens. So that's why it's not there. So now that we've cleared that up, let me clear something else up that you guys might have missed. If you jumped right on over here to hear part two of this we are going to be in columbus ohio at the end of september beginning of october at obsessed fest hooray for us the first time we will ever ever but not the last time that we will ever be doing a show in the united states of america which has been in the post for about four years my god guys before everybody's like why are you only coming to columbus heights because visas are fucking long they're long they're expensive and um the wait times are

very long for uh an interview at the u.s embassy in london and then even if you cry and even if you pay loads of money it makes no difference at all it doesn't um so by all of that you can tell that something is in the pipeline for a us related tory tour shaped tour please wait for that yeah it's coming right there's no point in like it's coming it's coming but until then if you would like to come see us if you are in the columbus ohio area at the end of the month september we will be there we'll be there from september the It's coming. It's coming. But until then, if you would like to come see us, if you are in the Columbus, Ohio area at the end of the month, September. We will be there.

We'll be there from September the 29th until the 1st of October, at least. So if you want to come say hi, want to come watch a show, then go get your tickets and we'll see you there. And you know who else is going? Who, Hannah? Damien Eccles is going. He is. And his partner, Laurie Davis, who we're going to meet in this episode.

We are going to meet her and maybe we'll meet her in the real lives. I hope so. In September. That'd be cool. So yes, as you can tell by the many references we've already made and by the title, this is part two of a two-parter on the West Memphis Three. If you haven't listened to part one, you're lost. Go listen to that because none of this will make any fucking sense.

Everybody gone? Good. Right. you're lost go listen to that because none of this will make any fucking sense everybody gone good right so by this point in our story where we left off in the last episode the police had vicky hutchinson linking jesse miskelly to the murders and jesse had then linked damien and jason to the murders as well and when i say linking i mean in the absolute loosest possible sense, of course. But still, that's what the police had decided to go with. So over the next couple of months, Deputy Prosecutor, here's a new character for everybody, Deputy Prosecutor John Fogelman, carried out a series of under oath interviews with various potential trial witnesses, with many coming forward to say that they had seen

Damien walking around late on the night of the murders covered in mud. But it was all just eyewitness testimony. The prosecution wanted at least one thing they could point to as physical evidence. And that was when John Fogelman said that he might actually know where the murder weapon was. He said it was in a lake behind Jason Baldwin's trailer. So divers were brought in and within 30 minutes of a considerable sized lake to search, they found a six inch serrated knife. The divers claimed that they had been told exactly where to look and that's how they'd found it so quickly. What a lucky break. But it was very interesting, this particular

turning point in the case, when you consider that the press seemed to have been told ahead of time to come out to the lake because a discovery was about to be made. Please somebody explain to me, would the police or prosecution really have risked humiliating themselves by calling the press out to the lake on the off chance that they might have found something? Doesn't it seem much more like they knew it was there and exactly where it was? It does seem that way. It does seem that way. I think it would be different if it was like one rogue reporter just trying to get a shot but the police are like no guys come come come down you know that thing that we've been working on and getting nowhere with well yeah you know that huge case everyone's

obsessed with we're about to find the murder weapon and we know exactly where it is and maybe you're thinking maybe it's not that weird you know he did say that he knew that's where the weapon was but it is strange that John Fogelman never named an informant he never pointed to a person that had told him where this murder weapon was and how he could find it which would be typical in a case like this because what would ordinarily happen is somebody would come forward and say hey the knife's in that lake and then that person would be interviewed so that the police could understand how they knew hey the knife's in that lake and then that person would be interviewed so that the police could understand how they knew that the knife was in that lake obviously somebody could call up anonymously and say the knife's in the lake but he doesn't even say that that's what happened

he just said that he had a hunch yeah yeah right don't believe you john and uh this is the thing it doesn't really work like that the police can't just you know say they've got a hunch they're meant to show they're working they're meant to say i found out from this person and this person knows because of xyz but that's not the case here what was revealed much later was that jason baldwin's mum had actually told fogelman about the knife in the lake how did she know it was there well because she'd taken it off her son and thrown it in there. A year before the killings. Which is something Fogelman also knew. Yeah, because if she was your informant, couldn't be better.

She'd be like, I found a knife on my son, I threw it in the lake. Oh my God. Oh, it was a year before those kids were killed though. But aside from the knife, the police did get some favourable fibre evidence. Apparently, fib fibers found on the murdered boys were microscopically similar to fibers found on items of clothing in damien and jason's homes i don't know what that means isn't every fiber microscopically simple like how it's like they're very 99 banana like what's the they're very like specific colors and fibers

it's like red and green and like man-made fibers and they're like they're microscopically similar we'll come back to the fibers later but for now that's all you need to know so now the prosecution had the fibers the mud witnesses the softball witnesses a bunch of cult witnesses which we will come on to in one moment jesse's confession the knife and the medical examiner's testimony which as we will go on to see was incredibly damning for damien jason and jesse at the pre-trial hearing judge david burnett ruled that jesse would have a separate trial to damien and jason this was done mainly because they wanted him to testify against Damien and Jason. He also decided that all three defendants could be tried as adults rather than juveniles, despite only Damien being 18 and 17-year-old Jesse having an IQ of just 72.

And also another thing that's absolutely ridiculous about this case is the very fact that Damien and Jason were tried together at one trial. Because the prosecution had almost nothing on Jason. He was on Jerry Driver's list and he was mates with Damien. And Jesse pulls him into the confession. But again, we don't know how much of that was coached. They had nothing. All of the witnesses, the allegations of witchcraft, the mouthing off around town. These were all linked to Damien,

not to Jason. And I think if Jason had been tried separately, I actually think he would have walked. He was 16 years old. 16 years old. But because they were going to be tried together, all of the evidence that, all of the evidence that they had against Damien would also be allowed to be heard as evidence in Jason's case too. But before we get to that shit show, let's start with Jesse Miskelley. They say Hollywood is where dreams are made, a seductive city where many flock to get rich, be adored, and capture America's heart. But when the spotlight turns off, fame, fortune, and lives can disappear in an instant. When TV producer Roy Radin was found

dead in a canyon near L.A. in 1983, there were many questions surrounding his death. The last person seen with him was Lainey Jacobs, a seductive cocaine dealer who desperately wanted to be part of the Hollywood elite. Together, they were trying to break into the movie industry. But things took a dark turn when a million dollars worth of cocaine and cash went missing. From Wondery comes a new season of the hit show Hollywood and Crime, The Cotton Club Murder. Follow Hollywood and Crime, The Cotton Club Murder on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts.

You can binge all episodes of The Cotton Club Murder early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can binge all episodes of The Cotton Club Murder early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus. You don't believe in ghosts? I get it. Lots of people don't. I didn't either until I came face to face with them. Ever since that moment, hauntings, spirits, and the unexplained have consumed my entire life. I'm Nadine Bailey. I've been a ghost tour guide for the past 20 years. I've taken people along

with me into the shadows, uncovering the macabre tales that linger in the darkness, and inside some of the most haunted houses, hospitals, prisons, and more. Join me every week on my podcast, Haunted Canada, as we journey through terrifying and bone-chilling stories of the unexplained. Search for Haunted Canada on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, or wherever you find your favourite podcasts. Jesse's trial began in January 1994, and Judge Burnett allowed the prosecution to introduce Jesse's confession as evidence, despite clear signals that it had been obtained using coercion,

a total lack of corroborating evidence, and despite the fact that it had been obtained using coercion, a total lack of corroborating evidence, and despite the fact that it had been leaked to the press before the trial. So the confession is allowed to be submitted in Jesse's trial and also at Damien and Jason's trial. And when the defence say to Judge Burnett, like, why is this being allowed? It's already been leaked. It can't be a fair trial.

Judge Burnett's response is genuine. There's not a person around here who doesn't already know what's in there yeah that's the fucking point yeah so basically what you're saying is there's no point in not allowing it as evidence everybody already knows there's no way to like control but like mate but but but it's a court of law judge burnett is um not my favorite character let's just that. Doesn't fit in with my fantasy. But the problem he was left with, yes, everyone knows what's in the confession, but what's in there is lots of jarring discrepancies.

So Fogelman was left with the task of explaining those incredibly obvious problems away. And he said that Jesse was just confused and trying to minimise his role in the killings. Fogelman even called eight-year-old Aaron Hutchinson, Vicky's son, as a witness. The boy is now saying that he had actually witnessed the murders of the three boys when previously he just said he'd seen them get into someone else's car. And when shown pictures of Damien, Jason and Jesse, he even said, that's them.

And this was despite the fact that the neighbours said that they had seen Aaron in the trailer park where he lived at the time of the murders. And again, Fogelman explicitly knew that. He just picks and chooses. And the defence has lots of issues, you know, problems galore. So this was basically all the prosecution had. They had no real physical evidence linking Jesse to the crime at all. They just had his confession. There wasn't even really any circumstantial evidence. They just had the confession and eyewitness testimony, that's it.

And they also had eyewitness testimony that contradicted and eyewitness testimony that's it and they also had eyewitness testimony that contradicted the eyewitness testimony that was condemning of jesse so lots of problems and also like adult human people are being like no i an adult who can vote and buy vodka and a gun i'm saying that I saw this eight-year-old child at the place where he lives. But they're still like, no, but from the mouths of babes. Exactly.

That is very much a running theme of this episode. So yes, all they have is the confession. And if you remember, it was a confession full of fucking holes. The defense even presented, on behalf of Jessie, dozens of witnesses who testified that Jesse Miskelly was 40 miles away at a wrestling competition on the night of the murders. These people were people who were there at that wrestling competition. The defence even had a signed register from the wrestling hall which also showed Jesse's name

signed in on the night in question they're just like somebody else could have signed that somebody else could have done that but why and also it's like there is no hard evidence that is like this isn't enough to cause more than reasonable doubt there's nothing it's just there's all this which yes somebody else could have signed in but the bits that are like trying to be used to convict him are just as full of fucking holes and full of what ifs or buts as this is. So really, on the balance of things, he should have been found not guilty because there is nothing in here that's beyond reasonable doubt.

Oh no, not even close. Not even close. The problem was for the defence is that when they were doing things like getting the witnesses up to say that they were at the wrestling match that jesse was at the jurors just didn't take any notice of it just didn't take any notice of it in the documentary west of memphis the defense attorney actually says that when you looked in the jurors books after most of them hadn't even written it down so after just one day of deliberation, Jessie Miss Kelly, 17 year old Jessie Miss Kelly, was convicted of the first degree murder of Michael Moore and the second degree murders of

Stevie Branch and Christopher Byers. And of course, it was first degree for Michael Moore because he was the one that in the confession, Jessie said that he brought back when he ran away. And I just want to once again, because I think sometimes people forget this because they're used to seeing images of these three people, Damien, Jason and Jesse as adults. He was 17 and had the mental capacity of an eight year old. And Jesse Miss Kelly was sentenced to life in prison without parole. As he was being taken off to jail, Jesse confessed again, this time with a whole new but equally implausible story. He really was like a child just trying to say whatever he had to when he was scared and wanted to go home. But, of course, whether Jesse understood it or not, it was far too late.

Jesse had been told that he needed to testify against Damien and Jason. And if he didn't, the two other boys would get out and kill his girlfriend. Again, how, like all of this is bullshit, right? All of this is bullshit. But how Jesse's lawyer wasn't even able to negotiate for his client a deal, like a plea deal where he'll testify and then he'll serve no time he has this bullshit confession which is filled with holes he gets convicted in this sentence to life without the possibility of parole and they're still like and you need to testify because if you

don't they're going to get out and kill your girlfriend the level of abuse and manipulation is frankly just eye-watering. But Jesse did have a couple of people on his side. His dad and his step-mum told him not to lie. Because if he did, he would have to live with that lie for the rest of his life. And so Jesse withdrew the decision to testify against Jason and Damien. All this time, Jason and Damien had been in jail. Damien had tried to kill himself on multiple occasions.

And if you remember, his girlfriend by this point was pretty pregnant and he hadn't been allowed to see her. Jason Baldwin was actually at this point offered two secret plea deals. One that would have got him out in 10 years and one reportedly

that would have seen him walk free there and then if he just testified against Damien. Jason is in some ways kind of the forgotten of the West Memphis Three, I think. I think Jesse Miskelley, because of his confessions, because of how vulnerable he is, a lot of people are obviously very sympathetic towards him. Damien Eccles is definitely the most vocal and because of certain things that go on to happen,

definitely the most high profile. Jason, in my opinion, is the one that has the strongest, most unshakable moral code. And for a 16 year old, when he is confronted with the severity of this situation and they tell him you can leave today, you have to testify against your best friend.

And he says no, because he said that would be a lie and it's not right. him you can leave today you have to testify against your best friend and he says no because he said that would be a lie and it's not right and he also said that his mother had raised him better than that so jason and damien's trial kicked off on the 28th of february 1994 and from the start the prosecution went hard on the occult angle even though vogelman had been saying to people outside of the case that these were not satanic murders they were just murders and i really think that fogelman is like he's not a stupid guy he's like gary glitch or he knows that this isn't satanic i don't think he believes that

for a second and i'm not saying people haven't killed people saying that they're doing it for satan and i'm sure fogelman knows that but he i don't think he believes that that's what this is and i think he'd be too embarrassed to say that to other people outside of this town and outside of this case who maybe aren't swept up in yeah yeah there's some of the hysteria that came along with it so he's like no I know obviously it's not satanic but in the courtroom this is where we're talking about the manipulation he knows what he's doing and he's happy to lie to these people and play on their biggest fears in order to get the result that he wants and that's exactly what he's doing and he's happy to lie to these people and play on their biggest fears in order to get the result that he wants and that's exactly what he does at trial he doubles down on statements damien had made during his many police interviews saying really stupid goth kid shit like everyone

holds demonic forces inside them and that three the number of boys killed was a sacred number in the wicker religion which i don't even think it is i think it's seven it's the number it's all just such a fucking load of nonsense they even brought up the fact that damien liked to read stephen king books lock him away brian ridge the detective testified that this particular fact about Damien was strange. Stephen King wasn't like an obscure author in 1994. It was probably the height of his fame, to be honest. International bestseller. The Shining would have come out.

Everyone knows who Stephen King is. They made it sound like he was reading some, like, fucking complete, like, on the fringes of literary sense, like, occultist book. It's fucking Stephen King Jesus Christ and the prosecution even got former detective turned a cult expert Dr Dale Griffiths to take the stand Griffiths made the case that the boys murders were absolutely big word to be using in court ritualistic he claimed that it had all of the trappings of such killings, like the 5th of May, the night of the murders,

happened to be a full moon. Well, it didn't happen to be a full moon. It was a full moon because it's satanic! And when Dale Griffiths was asked by Damien's defence attorney, Val Price, is 8 a factor because that's a witch's number? What's the significance of eight?

And eight is of course referring to the boy's ages. Griffiths replies, in Crowley's work, he discusses that sex before eight or you lose the magical power. I'm sure Crowley did say fucking crazy shit like that. But to this, Val Price said price said quote sex before eight or lose magical power okay so if the victims were all eight years old then wouldn't it be sex before eight because they're already eight and you just said crowley's was sex before eight or lose magical power to which dale griffiths dr dale griffiths says quote did, Did I say eight? I'm sorry, I meant eight or before. Oh, take me home. Take Dale home, he's drunk.

Somebody help me. Yeah, man. Sir Fogelman even claimed that Damien's love of wearing black was a contributing factor because they found 11 black t-shirts in his room. If somebody went into my wardrobe and the thing that was going to convict me of a triple child murder was how many black items of clothing they found in there well i'd be dead by now yeah i'd be fine so i'd be executed long ago they also said that in damien's house they found books about witchcraft that he'd been reading like a particular book called never

on a broomstick which i looked up and it seems fascinating it's all about the history of witchcraft and its evolution through the years sounds great that's what i'm saying damien is an interesting if not kind of wanky kid at this point fogerman also pointed to damien and jason's fondness for metallica and marilynon. Of course we were going to get there. We were going to get to the point that somebody pointed the finger at all of this being down to music. And apparently, according to Fogelman, all of these things pointed to the fact that Damien was a Satanist and that he had murdered these children for their blood. Sure. Okay, Fogelman. Like, this is what he has. This is what he has this is what he has it's not even a

character assassination is it maybe it is you know at some points in history at some parts of the country or whatever but like he's like he wears black he reads books i don't think are okay and he listens to music i don't like please someone explain someone explain to me. 90s, please explain to me how the fuck any of this is evidence. What is it? It's just not. It's just not. And it only gets worse.

Next up was Dr. Frank Peretti, the deputy medical examiner who carried out the post-mortems. Something particularly peculiar about the medical examiner's office in Arkansas is that they are not independent they are in fact an arm of the prosecution what in the fucking fuck is going on arkansas i don't know if this is still the case this was the case then i don't know if it's

still the case but what the fuck i know the fucking crime lab is run by the prosecution god oh and also in arkansas the deputy medical examiner doesn't even need to be bar certified which dr paretti if that is his real name wasn't uh it's not that he didn't try he just consistently failed time and time again yeah i think you're allowed to try three times i think you're allowed to try because it was in western memphis i think you're allowed to do five okay and he failed three so he had two more in the bag like kim kardashian with the baby bar um and uh so he had two more attempts but maybe he just he's like i don't need this well my paycheck's the same yeah he was just like for personal reasons i'm not going to my personal reasons being that i'm too thick apparently so

so at trial dr frank paretti took the stand and painted a picture of a bona fide ritualistic murder and agreed that wounds found on the body of chris Byers were consistent with the serrated portion of the knife that had been found in the leg behind Jason Baldwin's home. He also said that the knife wounds to Chris's genitals were inflicted anti-mortem, stating that eight-year-old Chris's scrotum was cut off and his penis had been skinned while he was still alive. And considering the fact that he did not have the scrotum or the penis to say what even happened to them is a bold statement. Fogelman then took the lake knife and tore a grapefruit apart in front of the jury, presumably to show them the damage that it could have done to the boys privates needless to say everyone in the courtroom was completely horrified and this is the thing as

well with this case there's a lot of like um slight of hand and by which i mean let's distract everybody with the absolute sheer horror of this case Three boys found in this kind of situation, like it doesn't get much darker, right? Small town, three eight-year-old boys found murdered in the local woods. Serious signs of sexual mutilation and a possible satanic angle. What's scarier than that? And they use that to distract everybody so that everyone's quite blinkered and not really thinking rationally. He's a showman. He's a showman and he has a lot more up his sleeve. The boys' bodies showed a lot of injuries specifically around their genitals, their faces and their ears in particular.

And Peretti theorised that their ears had been brutalised during forced oral sex. There were also multi-line scratches on the boys' bodies. Peretti claimed that these had, without a doubt, been created by a serrated knife being dragged along their skin, inflicting shallow scratch marks. Peretti also told jurors that the autopsies revealed that both Stevie Branch and Michael Moore had suffered massive blows to their heads

and that Michael's lungs were filled with water. So that means he was alive when he was thrown in the ditch and he drowned. Upon cross-examination, the defence lawyers did, however, get Peretti to acknowledge that many of the descriptions of the murder offered by Jesse in his confession were not confirmed by his medical findings. Especially because there was no evidence that any of the boys had been strangled, raped or tied up with any sort of rope. Though again we cannot stress enough just how much the word of a professional doctor slash scientist, even one that isn't board

certified, telling the jury these horrendous things would have had on their mindset. Can you imagine the medical examiner in the stand telling you that this boy's penis was skinned while he was still alive? You were just going to believe it. Even though, as we'll go on to see, that these issues that we've pointed out, that the defence pointed out, are just a mere scratch on the surface of the major, major issues with Peretti's findings. But speaking of major issues, another witness for the prosecution was a 16-year-old named Michael Carson. And I think Michael Carson might be

one of my favourite characters in this entire saga. Not positively, I just mean as an entertaining... He is that. Cameo. He is that. He is like, if they were going to make the movie of this and i know they have that reese witherspoon colin really yeah reese witherspoon plays pam branch right stevie branch's mom and i don't know who colin first place i haven't

watched it but it's called the devil's knot after the book that was written on this case okay right right right yeah no haven't seen haven't seen it um i don't think it's got a hugely great uh imdb rating not that that's ever taught me before because as we've all heard i have watched book of shadows blair witch part two but uh michael carson would be played by like shaggy from scooby-doo shaggy is a 16 year old no no okay just checking though he is very much uh it wasn't me Scooby-Doo. Shaggy as a 16-year-old. No, no. Okay, just checking. Though he is very much a, it wasn't me.

So Carson had been a juvie inmate with Michael Baldwin before the trial. And he is pretty much as far away from reliable as one could get. He had an incredibly hardcore drug habit, and he was about to graduate from juvie to big man prison for several counts of burglary. Apparently he had known about Jason Baldwin's involvement in the killings for about five months but he had only now just decided to come forward and it's odd that his guilty conscience was so perfectly aligned with the timing of his move to adult prison. But maybe I'm being too quick to judge. I don't know. Let's hear him out.

He told me how he dismembered the kid. He sucked the blood from the penis and the scrotal and put the balls in his mouth. So we pile on top of this, the likes of Vicky Hutchinson taking the stand to recount her Coven Party story, much of the testimony was absolutely unhinged. And crucially, not at all corroborated by hard evidence. I re-watched Icarus the other day, the blood doping documentary. And there's someone from theic commission is saying these are extraordinary claims and you need to back them up with extraordinary evidence and that's what does not happen here no the stakes don't get much higher triple child capital murder i would expect i mean obviously the standard for a criminal trial is meant to be incredibly high that's the point

but for a crime like this where the death penalty high. That's the point. But for a crime like this where the death penalty is on the table, what the fuck is going on? Let's leave the ridiculous prosecution witnesses to one side for a moment. Damien Eccles did not help himself at trial either. He sat there often laughing, blowing kisses and generally taking the piss out of the entire situation. During the trial for a triple child murder for which you are the prime suspect, this is not a particularly good look. No, he didn't ingratiate himself to the jury. No. I can see a world in which I'm not saying that this is a logical thing to think.

Where you'd be like, well, I didn't do it. So like if I'm sat here looking mor morose that makes me look more guilty yeah I can understand that logic and also just a general feeling of like this isn't going to happen the jury are not going to be this stupid to fall for this and I'm not saying the jury were I'm saying they were lied to and manipulated throughout and the judge was incredibly biased and generally people who ascribe to the idea that Damien is innocent chalk this behaviour up to him being a stupid teenager who didn't believe that he could be convicted of a crime he hadn't committed. Which we agree with, but he definitely does not help himself.

And for a country still reeling from the grotesque Night Stalker trial with Richard Ramirez's batshit weird pentagram drawing behaviour, Damien's demeanor was quite tough to look past. He was hip hop's biggest mogul, the man who redefined fame, fortune and the music industry. The first male rapper to be honored on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, Sean Diddy Combs. Diddy built an empire and lived a life most people only dream about. Everybody know ain't no party like a Diddy party, so. Yeah, that's what's up. But just as quickly as his empire rose, it came crashing down.

Today I'm announcing the unsealing of a three-count indictment, charging Sean Combs with racketeering conspiracy, sex trafficking, interstate transportation for prostitution. I was f***ed up. I hit rock bottom, but I made no excuses. I'm disgusted. I'm so sorry. Until you're wearing an orange jumpsuit, it's not real. Now it's real. From his meteoric rise to his shocking fall from grace,

from law and crime, this is The Rise and Fall of Diddy. Listen to The Rise and Fall of Diddy exclusively with Wondery Plus. Harvard is the oldest and richest university in America. But when a social media-fueled fight over Harvard and its new president broke out last fall, that was no protection. Claudian Gay is now gone.

We've exposed the DEI regime and there's much more to come. This is The Harvard Plan, a special series from the Boston Globe and WNYC's On The Media. To listen, subscribe to On The Media wherever you get your podcasts. And Fogelman doubled down again.

At every opportunity, he brought it back to Satanism. Even saying in his closing statement, Can you understand why someone would do that to three eight-year-old boys? It can't be anything but satanic. That doesn't even make sense. Of course it doesn't. Because as we all know, as Deputy Prosecutor John Fogelman well knows,

there are plenty of reasons someone would do that kind of thing to three boys. In the early days of the investigation Fogelman even looked into veterans who had returned from Vietnam when he heard that prisoner of war camps had tied them up in the same way that Stevie Michael and Christopher had been tied up. So he knows full well there are other reasons why people would do this. But he's speaking to the people in that jury like they're idiots. And again, it's emotional manipulation of a case this big. And again, look, he is there to prosecute. He's going to say whatever needs to be said.

But this case with this evidence should never have got as far as a trial. So some of you might be thinking, if Fogelman was open to the idea that this could have been something else, if he was telling people outside of the courtroom that he didn't really think this was satanic, why did he go for such a crazy narrative like Satanism? Well, it's because they had nothing else. They had no other motive, no other reasoning and no other evidence. And I think that the police had to find some suspect, right? They had to get the town off their back. They had to get the pressure to

ease. And the reason Fogelman does this is because, as we'll go on to see, he has a lot to gain, potentially, politically speaking. So he has to stick to this angle. Because in the US, DAs have to be elected. And I think closing a case like the West Memphis Three, closing a case of these three murdered children and putting away somebody who could be such a figure of derision, like Damien Eccles, I think he thought this is going to do wonders for my political career. And he was quite happy to throw three teenagers

under the bus for multiple child murder to climb the political ladder. But to climb up that slippery, slidey, greasy pole, Fogelman needed a conviction. And after just four and a half hours of deliberation, which for a triple homicide is staggering, for capital child murder as well, so death penalty case, a conviction is exactly what he got. Damien and Jason were both found guilty of the murders of all three boys. Damien was sentenced to death by lethal injection and Jason was sentenced to life without the possibility of parole. Jason cried. Damien showed no emotion. Soon after their convictions, the appeals began. But the decisions against all three were upheld.

But this was just the beginning. Because while this had been a huge case in Arkansas, there hadn't been much publicity around the convictions elsewhere. Until 1996, when our good friend Joe berlinger made the documentary paradise lost the child murders at robin hood hills this documentary and the subsequent series uh certainly had their issues i've watched a few interviews of joe berlinger talking about it and he's like i thought i was making a documentary about a satanic murder and then the more time i spent on it i realized that they didn't do it and then it became this like runaway thing that it was never really supposed to be anyway the series

and the documentary have big problems uh there's a lot of finger pointing at people within the west memphis community and that finger pointing happens based on not much more evidence than what had convicted the boys which is what the documentary is fighting against in the first place so it feels like a bit of a weird thing to do and also not needed it's weird because i'm like what was the point of the documentary if the point of the documentary was just to say that these guys hadn't done it which is what i think it's trying to say then maybe the point they were trying to make wasn't that they were convicted with poor evidence even though that is the crux of the entire case so i find it weird because they really

do railroad christopher byers's stepdad john mark byers especially in paradise lost part two and i kind of can't help but feel like really but we'll come back to this uh later in the episode for now let's stick with the documentaries because what they did do was get the case of the West Memphis Three, that of Damien, Jason and Jesse, a whole hell of a lot of worldwide attention. The documentaries also led a woman named Laurie Davis to write to and fall in love with Damien Eccles while he was in prison. The two became pen pals and actually married in 1999 and Laurie would become Damien's biggest advocate, spending all of her time and money from then on fighting to have the West Memphis Three, as they were now known, freed. In 2002,

the book The Devil's Knot by Mara Leverett also was released, again very much pointing at a devastating miscarriage of justice having occurred. And soon, Laurie began receiving letters and emails from all over the world, from thousands of people convinced that the West Memphis Three had been wrongly convicted. And celebrities, including the likes of Johnny Depp, Eddie Vedder, who's the lead singer for Pearl Jam, and Natalie Maines of the Dixie Chicks, got in touch. And then, in 2005, Laurie received an email from director Peter Jackson and his wife Fran.

Jackson actually donated $10 million to Damien's appeal fund, and he and his wife spent years working with Laurie to try and free them. And this money was used to hire PIs, DNA testing experts, independent medical examiners and even the FBI's OG profiler John Douglas. John at first profiled the murders as lust murders based on the original autopsies done by Dr. Peretti. But the appeals team weren't totally convinced by Peretti's findings and had Vincent DiMaio re-examine the situation. DiMaio, world-renowned forensic pathologist, was in fact the very man that Peretti kept referring to at trial. Peretti even waved De Maio's book around while he was in the

stand. De Maio reviewed the initial autopsies and concluded that while they had in fact been done well, the analysis and interpretation of the findings were terrible. Wouldn't that just ruin your life? Your idol being like, it's like when Ricky Gervais interviews his like comedic hero, and I can't remember the guy's name, but he does thiservais interviews his like comedic hero and I can't remember the guy's name but he does this interview with him and his comedic hero that he's talked about for years looks him in the face and he's like you're not funny Ricky you're just a dick oh no yeah that is very much the situation that's happening here because Peretti when he's waving the book around of Vincent de Maio's in the in the stand if you watch rest of Memphis it's because

he's saying I know Vincent de Maio like we're friends and you watch Western Memphis, it's because he's saying, I know Vincent de Mayo, like we're friends and he's the best of the best and I've read this book and I've trained with him and that's how I know what I'm talking about. And then Vincent de Mayo's like,

this is terrible work. Terrible work. According to de Mayo, the injuries to the boy's bodies, like the scratches, missing chunks and genital mutilation and facial injuries

were all done post-mortem, after death, not before, and not by people, by animals. Not, as Peretti had testified, as torture while the boys had still been alive. It turns out that the creek that the boys' bodies had been found in was absolutely overrun with turtles. Which, living here in England, you never think of being a possibility. But in Arkansas, obviously, a different kettle of turtles. And actually, there were so many turtles in this particular part of the creek that the locals called it Turtle City. And in May, these reptiles are apparently at their most hungry, and they typically go for the soft and or sticky out bits of any body that they come across. So if you need it spelling out for you, the scrotum, penis, nose and ears are both of those things. and that is where the boys' bodies had sustained most of their damage.

And when it came to the alleged serrated knife marks, they also seemed to match wounds created by a turtle's mouth or a turtle's claws. A far cry from Peretti's sexual mutilation and forced oral sex while being pulled by the ears theory. Yeah. And I do have to say, just in the interest of balance, that Vincent de Maio does say things that also I don't agree with or I don't think are any sort of like rational evidence. He says things like, and this is me paraphrasing, but basically like, why would somebody do these kind of shallow scratches on a body, especially because they seem to have also been done post-mortem?

He's like, why would anybody do that? Because Peretti very much messes up a fundamental thing. He can't even tell the difference between if it was done post-mortem or anti-mortem, which obviously completely changes the profile of the type of killer and the type of murder you're looking at. Is it a sadistic torture murder or is it animals you know and it would really influence the investigation whether you get that right or wrong and vincent de mayo basically says like i can't understand why anybody would have created these scratches on a on a body after death because he's right that they are post-mortem that i have to call you out on vincent de mayo because are we really going to pretend like product killers don't exist who like to fuck about with the body after death? That is a thing.

We know that's a thing. So to say that they couldn't have been done by a killer post-mortem is not, in my opinion, something that holds water. But I do agree that I do think it was the turtles. I am extremely convinced by the turtle theory. And if you are not, please go and watch West of Memphis. Because some utter maniac. The guy's a maniac. Picks up.

The turtle's fucking huge too. And he lets this turtle bite him on the arm for ages. It makes me cringe so much. So he can show the camera what a turtle bite looks like. And to be fair, that turtle bite looked exactly like the marks. Exactly. Exactly like it. I'd never seen a turtle bite before, but now I will never forget.

It's kind of like an iron. Yes. What I was thinking was like if you left an iron on something too long and you had the outline of the iron. Exactly. Make a mark on the clothes. That's what it looked like. And they are all over the boys. They just are.

I was entirely convinced by that. Absolutely. And I think that that is the case. That is most likely what has happened. So anyway, like we're saying, I do think that the difference between what DeMaio comes up with and what Peretti found, like the fact that whether these injuries that occurred post-mortem or anti-mortem, etc.,

make a huge difference in determining the motive of the killings. Like it took it from being a sexually motivated lust triple murder to being something more muted. And secondly, this difference between what the two medical examiners found is also so key because there is no doubt in my mind that the savage injuries to the boys and the way in which they were explained in court by Peretti who talked about you know the boys penises being skinned while they were still alive etc there's no way that that didn't totally terrify and blinker many people on the jury that day from being able to think rationally. Absolutely.

So based on this new evaluation, OG profiler from the FBI, John Douglas, changed his profile. He no longer now believed that these were lust murders and he profiled them to be personal cause homicides. So what he's basically saying, it's likely that these murders were committed by a person that the children knew, one that was already in their lives, one that the police had probably already interviewed. And he also said that it was likely that only one of the boys was probably the intended victim.

And the other two had simply been collateral damage because they had all been together. Douglas also pointed out that the killer didn't need to hide the boys' bodies, right? If we go with the idea that the boys were killed in the woods, though there isn't hard evidence for that let's go with it if he had killed them in there they would have taken a long time to be found he could have fled in that time if he's a stranger why would you bother taking the time to tie the boys up dump their bodies into the ditch and dump their bikes into the ditch when you could have just run off and never been seen again. It really does scream to it being somebody who was trying to prolong as possible the discovery of the bodies.

And that only makes sense if you say it's somebody who was a part of the community. Mm-hmm. And also now this new examination by Vincent de Maio also points to the fact that there was nothing sexual about the murders. Yes. The boys were found naked and that's the only thing that really suggests that it's sexual but there is no way the bodies were too damaged and the bodies have been in the water too long to be able to tell if there was any sexual interference but the missing genitals etc can easily be explained by other things so it doesn't seem anymore especially there is no hard evidence to point to the fact that they were raped it doesn't seem anymore that

they were obviously sexual and it also kind of points the fact that there's nothing satanic about it yeah so really the point that you're left with after Vincent de Mayo's sort of look into this is that these murders were more ordinary than people had first thought. Horrific, yes, absolutely, but no doubt more ordinary. Then, in 2003, Vicky Hutchinson crops up again and confessed that she had lied about absolutely everything. Everything she had told the police and everything she had testified in court the decade before had been a total sack of shit. She said at a deposition

that she had been coached and compelled to cooperate because of a fear that her son Aaron would be taken away from her. She also does just say, I was just a big liar. Yeah, and that's, yep, that's what she is. Aaron, if you remember, also

spoke to the police and testified at trial, despite being an actual child. According to Vicky, the entire episode really messed him up. It would, wouldn't it? Yeah, because he'd be 18 by this point, by 2003. And it was because of the guilt of that, that now she was coming forward to come clean. Michael Carson also admitted that he'd lied and confessed that he had heard all the details he spilled in court from a counsellor at Juvie. After all of this, the defence team decided to move on to the DNA.

Technology had improved massively in 10 years, so maybe the answer was there. And so in 2007, DNA from the crime scene was retested and none of it was a match. Not for Damien, not for Jason and not for Jessie Miss Kelly either. There was a hair found in a knot of one of the ligatures binding Michael Moore and again it was not a match for any of the West Memphis Three. And obviously, like we've said, the bodies weren't discovered immediately and there had been rain and so you could say that a lot of the forensics are sort of weakened by that anyway,

but the hair that they discovered was inside the tightened knot. It's kind of the best place to find one if you're a forensic person. Exactly. I'm not saying it's foolproof because it could have still been transferred there some other way it could have been on michael moore's body like there's so many other ways it could have got there but it is better than everything else they did have and after the dna didn't match any of the west memphis three many of the parents of the victims came forward to say that they no longer believed that Damien, Jason and Jesse had killed their sons. It's a big thing to do. It's a huge thing to do and that's

why you know what we said at the end of the last episode this wasn't just a town of people who were out like brain dead looking for any sort of just like mob justice they really wanted to find the answer to who had done this and I think for Pam Branch and the others to come forward and say that they didn't think they'd done it anymore, I think was huge, especially Mark Byers, Christopher Byers' stepdad. He, after the Paradise Lost documentary had come out, became like numero uno suspect in like the public sphere, right? His life was ruined essentially by that documentary coming out. And he could have so easily just continued to point the finger at the boys.

They were fucking convicted of this in a court of law. But after this DNA results came out, he also said, I don't think they did it anymore. Why would you do that? Because then it's like, well, then maybe you did it. Yeah, right. So yeah, despite all of these changes of heart happening amongst the people that you would least expect it, the parents of the victims,

there was still one person that this new DNA evidence failed to convince. Judge Burnett. And in 2008, he again refused a new trial, all for the old verdicts to be overturned, for any of the West Memphis Three. He hadn't even wanted to hear the new evidence. Can you say that as a judge? She's like, nah, I'm not interested actually. I mean, I guess the Home Office do it all the time here. Yeah, he was just like, no, I don't think you've got enough.

Oh, but you haven't looked at it. I don't need to. I just, you can't have enough. And why would he be doing this? Well, perhaps Judge Burnett's run for Senate was the cause of his selective judicial blindness because it's not going to look great for senate run if you're like oh i sent three children to prison 10 years more than 10 years ago by this point well more than 10 years 13 14 years ago

on piss poor evidence he's got to stand by it i'm not defending him but in his. He's got to stand by it. I'm not defending him, but in his mind, he's got to stand by it. So whatever it was, attorneys for all three men, because they were men by this point, because they've been in prison for so fucking long, appealed to the Arkansas Supreme Court. And the problem here is because, you know, they've been in prison now since 1993, 1994. This was Damien's last chance for an appeal. Unlike Jesse and Jason, he was on death row. So time really was of the essence for Damien. But that wasn't all. Damien really did have it the worst out of the three of them in prison.

None of the men obviously had a good time. But Damien, who served his time at vana supermax spent 10 of his 18 years in prison in solitary confinement that is cruel and unusual i would argue barbaric 10 years in solitary confinement and damien's uh since written a book called life after death and in that he talks about the impact of his time in prison and you know you don't need me to break it down for you he was in prison as a child rapist and multiple child murderer so of course he was regularly beaten by the guards and the other prisoners and the solitary confinement itself had a catastrophic psychological

emotional and physical impact on him he says in like a an interview that i watched with him that he has to wear sunglasses all the time because of how long he spent in the dark that he just can't not wear them and the brain damage i mean it is just like it boggles the mind that this kind of thing still happens and by by that, I mean not that children are convicted with no evidence, but that we put people in solitary confinement for a decade. Do you know, I actually, when I was reading into this, I was trying to understand, you know, the ramifications of solitary confinement on a person,

emotionally and psychologically speaking. And it was then that I discovered the person who was spent in history ever, as far as we know, the longest time in solitary confinement. Would you like to guess how long he was in prison? Solitary confinement. 56 years. 44. 44 years.

And it was, of course, Albert Woodfox. He was incarcerated in 1965 in Louisiana State Penitentiary on armed robbery charges and he spent 44 years in solitary confinement. Unbelievable. So coming back to the West Memphis Three. The appeals with Judge Burnett are not working. They've gone to the Arkansas Supreme Court and finally in November 2010 the Supreme Court ruled that the West Memphis Three would be allowed to present all of the new In August 2011, the defence attorneys for Damien, Jesse and Jason all requested that they just be allowed to get on with the new trials, skipping all of the pre-trial hearings and stuff. This was their chance, it had to be now,

because finally, Judge Burnett was off the case. Earlier in 2011, he'd become the Democratic member of the Arkansas State Senate, representing District 22, so he doesn't care anymore. He's off. He's off. Hundreds of thousands of postcards of support flooded in. It really felt like this was it. Everyone thought that the state would overturn the convictions or at least make an offer, especially after how damning the Supreme Court had been about Burnett's behaviour. But the state of Arkansas refused to make an offer. Arkansas was just not ready to admit that the West Memphis Three had been wrongfully convicted

and they were not going to give them a new trial either. If they did that, it would shine an enormous light on their total lack of evidence, in what was now a much higher profile case than it had been all the way back in 93. And so, they offered Jesse, Jason and Damien two options. One, stay in prison. Or in Damien's case, be executed. Or take the Alford plea. Now the Alford plea is something we've definitely discussed before on Red Handed.

It's a very odd anomaly in US law. It's essentially a guilty plea in which the defendant still maintains their innocence and doesn't admit to the criminal act of which they're being accused, but they admit that the prosecution has sufficient evidence to convict them by persuading a judge or jury beyond a reasonable doubt that they are guilty. And so they agree to be treated as guilty. So they're like, fine, I'm pleading guilty but i didn't actually do it but i know that you've got enough evidence that will probably convict me and typically what people say is and it's what the west memphis three say is i didn't do it but

i'm being advised by my legal counsel that this is in my best interest and the benefit for a defendant of accepting this sort of plea is of course that it might reduce their sentence because they're seen to at least be somewhat cooperating. In this case the state of Arkansas said that if Jesse, Jason and Damien took the Alfred plea they would be released immediately on time served. By this point they've been in prison for 18 years. That is longer than Jesse and Jason had been alive when they had gone into prison. So they've spent most of their lives in prison by this point, which just blows my mind. So when this offer was made, Damien accepted it. Jesse accepted it. But Jason refused. He wanted everyone to

recognise that he was totally innocent. And with an Alford plea, he would be pleading guilty. The problem was that Jason had to accept the Alford plea so that they could all get out. The state of Arkansas made it very clear the offer only stood as long as all three of them took the plea. And so, to save his best friend's life and to get them all out of prison, Jason Baldwin reluctantly took the plea. And so, to save his best friend's life and to get them all out of prison, Jason Baldwin reluctantly took the plea. You know in Poop Show when Jez is like,

I can't believe you wouldn't join the resistance with me. Jason would join the resistance. Yes. I fucking love Jason Baldwin. I'm like, what a man and what a teenager he was of principle. And I honestly can't say I would be brave enough. I would like to think, but I wouldn't be brave enough to make the kind of decisions he made

to not testify against Damien 18 years before. And then now to be like, I don't want to take this plea because we're saying that we're guilty. And I just, I really rate him. I was thinking about that this morning as I cycled my way through East London. And obviously it's, you can't, you can't say

what you would do in that position because you've never been in that position but I was thinking say I'm Jason and I do testify against Damien and then Damien dies because of what I said could I live with that don't think so no but um as a 16 year old to think through the think through the ramifications of your actions like that in itself are uh oh i mean it's incredibly noble yeah yeah because i'd just be like oh well what's going to get me out of this situation now and he doesn't do that no he doesn't because he is amazing and he also he's so like eloquent about it in west of memphis he's talking to his friend about it because the reality is that he could have done the same thing 18 years ago and he could have

walked then and he doesn't because Damien is his best friend and even 18 years in prison as a child rapist and murderer didn't make him be like okay I'm just gonna change my mind on this and get out he only does it because the other two are like please and he only does it because Damien's on death row because I think if damien wasn't on death row he would have been like no we need to continue fighting for freedom fighting to have these convictions overturned and finally on the 19th of august 2011 jesse jason and damien all walked out of the courtroom as free men they were still convicted child killers, but they were free. And they walked out to crowds of people cheering for them, in place of the mobs who had been screaming

for their blood 18 years before. And while it may be a win, or as the judge put it, as close to justice as the system would allow, the sad thing is that those truly responsible for the murders of Stevie, Christopher and Michael can all breathe a sigh of relief because they are now basically untouchable. Since Damien, Jesse and Jason technically pleaded guilty, the possibility of civil action against the state has been removed, which was no doubt another key reason why Arkansas wanted the Alford plea rather than a new trial. But it also means that the real killer is safe from any further investigation or prosecution because the case is closed.

Case closed. We got the people. We got the people. We were right all along. Those kids we put away for 18 years were guilty. They admitted it. And also, like you said,

very important that those three can't turn around and sue the fucking shit out of them now there are so many more issues with this case that we could have gone into but we just didn't have time honestly this would have just turned into like a podcast that we never stopped talking about the west memphis three so we had to draw a line somewhere but i think think the key thing is, even though we have missed things out, what's clear is that from what we've presented, we don't think that Damien, Jesse and Jason killed those boys. A lot of people still do think that they did.

And you can say absolutely that a lot of what we've presented in their defence is not hard evidence either. But if they had had a proper defence at trial and a less biased judge and fewer people involved with such lofty political ambitions, I think you would certainly say that all of the stuff we've presented so far would have introduced more than reasonable doubt.

So while I'm not saying it's a slam dunk what we've presented, it definitely would have made them not be found guilty. And if that had been the case, then three teenagers wouldn't have spent nearly two decades in prison. And Stevie, Michael and Christopher, as well as their families, wouldn't be condemned to never, ever, ever getting justice. Since their release, the West Memphis Three have been fighting to prove their innocence. In 2012, the fibre evidence that had been used to convict them was deemed to actually be not microscopically similar, whatever that means, to fibre samples collected

from the homes of Jason Baldwin and Damien Eccles. And Damien and the defence team are still trying to get new DNA tests done on the evidence. But the police have claimed that there was a fire in which all of the state's evidence was destroyed it is astonishing how often that happens isn't it yeah it's it's like magic but when the team dug deeper they found that there had only been one fire in a public building in arkansas for years and it wasn't somewhere that evidence was kept no it was like where they kept chlorine tanks oh good i mean you don't want to fire there either but but damien is uh still going uh and as recently as june 2022 so just the other month more dna tests have once again been denied they're just like no no which is like how that i mean i'm assuming that there must be some sort of private

dna testing you can i'm not talking about like 23 and me but like i'm sure damien knows better but i guess they need to get access to it of course sorry so it's kind of like when we root of evil for example where they know there's that envelope there that's been licked by his dad and they won't give him the envelope so he can do d testing. So yes this is a massive fucking shit show of a case but I think the saddest thing of this case other than of course the six boys being denied justice is as Damien says in West of Memphis. None of this was a mistake. It wasn't an oversight. It was done by people who knew what they were doing was wrong. They did it to make a name for themselves and they figured that fuck these kids, they're poor white trash and no one will give a fuck. And I do think that that is the worst thing. Oh absolutely. It's not done by Fogelman or Glitcher

or people like that thinking that they're actually doing the right thing, thinking that they're actually convicting the right people. They're people who knew the case was so weak, everything was botched. Glitchell actively ignored witnesses who disputed his weak evidence. They knew what they were doing. They just didn't give a fuck because it was all about how this could benefit them. And they didn't think anyone would notice or care. Exactly. Because when this happened outside of Arkansas, yeah, people didn't know about this case it was only after these celebrities got involved it was only well let's be fair firstly it was the documentaries that were made for all of their issues the documentaries did shine a huge light on this case the book that

was written by mara leverett absolutely and the celebrities getting involved if people like chuck d and henry rollings hadn't got involved they did like a benefit concert for the West Memphis Three in 2000 and then released like an album compilation album all of the proceeds of the sales going towards um the defense fund and the reason they all said that they did it because there are miscarriages of justice constantly but obviously this was horrific but they all did it because they said that they could see themselves in the boys that had been convicted. And I think that Fogelman, Glitchell, Burnett, everybody who was involved in convicting these boys didn't understand the backlash they were going to receive. And I think that's a great thing. so maybe by this point in the episode you're wondering well if it wasn't Damian Jesse and Jason

who else could have killed Stevie Michael and Christopher well unfortunately the answer is so many people like we said earlier in the last episode there is an incredibly busy interstate that runs right by Robin Hood Hills and there's even a truck stop cafe nearby that all of the kids knew not to go anywhere near it was full of like fucking weirdo on the road types like literally these murders could have been committed by some sort of crazy opportunistic stranger who just rolled up and killed the boys then i do think disposing of the bodies and hiding the bikes makes less sense, but it could have happened. John Mark Byers, Christopher's stepdad, was a police informant for the drug squad,

so it could have been a retaliation murder, and Christopher could have been the only intended victim. But this was never really looked into by police. And then we have Mr Bojangles, who is not coming back to dance. So there was a restaurant in town called Bojangles, and on the night of the murders, a mysterious black man turned up, covered in blood and mud. Apparently, according to the Bojangles restaurant employees, he cleaned himself up, and then he left. A hair belonging to a black man was found at the crime scene,

but no DNA was saved at the restaurant to compare it to. And it is, I mean, it is a pretty weird thing. Yeah, it could be something, could be nothing. It's one of those. Multiple people did report seeing him, but obviously at that point you're not going to be like, excuse me, sir, what are you doing? You're just going to let this guy fucking do what he needs to do and then leave as quickly as possible nobody even knew that the boys were missing at this point so finally let's come to the most popular theory among those who know this case was it a parent of one of the boys

and like we said it usually is apparent when children get murdered but um yeah let's talk about it. Because if you watch any of the main documentaries on this case that we have mentioned, so Paradise Lost or West of Memphis, you will see that these documentaries absolutely present this as the prevailing theory. Paradise Lost goes very much after Mark John Byers, who was Christopher's stepdad. And in my opinion, they totally fucking railroaded him. He's a weird guy. I'm not going to pretend fucking railroaded him he's a weird guy i'm not

gonna pretend like mark byers is not a weird guy he is and he loves the camera and he is very dramatic and very theatrical and he draws a lot of attention to himself again that's what damien did that didn't make him guilty either so west of memphis on the other hand, which was made by Peter Jackson, went after Terry Hobbs, who is, of course, Stevie Branch's stepdad. And look, maybe one of them is right. Maybe they are. Like we said, we know typically when kids are killed, it's usually a parent. But I find it hard not to be smacked in the face with the hypocrisy of everything in West of Memphis and Paradise Lost, particularly West of Memphis regarding Terry Hobbs.

Jackson interprets and presents evidence very much to fit his theory. Like the fact that the hair found in the knot at the crime scene that we mentioned earlier was deemed by the people that he got to test it to be not inconsistent to terry hobbs that sounds very similar to microscopically similar yeah to me and actually when you look into it it's like what it could have belonged to 1.5 of the population so it's not a match is it it's not a definitive match and in west of memphis they also have random people come forward to say things like they heard terry hobbs confessing in a basement to his brother that he had in fact yeah it's the hobbs family secret the hobbs family secret exactly that he had killed these boys etc etc

honestly it's almost farcical at points the lack of total awareness that those making the documentary seem to have like the lack of insight awareness that those making the documentary seem to have like the lack of insight they seem to have about how they're doing to Terry Hobbs exactly what the state of Arkansas did to Damian, Jason and Jesse. Now look I don't want to tear Peter Jackson apart because he helped the West Memphis Three immensely. He worked at it for years and he used a hell of a lot of his own money. Whether you're rich or not that hell of a lot of his own money whether you're rich or not that's still a lot of money to be donating to a person that you don't even know but that documentary west of memphis while i would say you should definitely go watch it has its issues and just

be aware of those issues when you're watching it so i think we can just leave this episode of red handed by saying that we just don't have enough information to be making accusations at anyone in particular on this podcast. I'm not going to sit here and say Terry Hobbs did it. Do I think Terry Hobbs is a good person? No. Do I think he killed those kids? I don't fucking know. Yeah, I don't know.

When you watch West of Memphis like I did for the first time, I was like, oh my God, he fucking did it. Then I was like, that's what those jurors did. That's how those jurors felt. I mean, would I leave him alone with my child no no um but I probably also wouldn't have left 18 year old Damien Eccles alone with my child either no 100 no absolutely not exactly so I think it's it's just hard not to feel that anyone who does make accusations about it being Terry Hobbs or mark byers etc at this point it's hard not to feel like they've entirely missed the entire point of this case which is you need more evidence yeah yeah so that's it guys that is the two-parter there you go asking thou shalt receive you shall um my mouth is so dry but we did it we. We did it. We did it. We did it. You did it.

I hope you guys enjoyed this. It was, it's a really important case. I'm glad that you picked it. I'm glad that we've covered it. And yeah, enjoy it because you did the good work of getting us to gold at the listener's choice. Thank you very much. And we will see you. I feel like we've seen you every fucking day this week.

We're everywhere. We're everywhere. We live in your brain holes. So we'll see you next week. For more things. For more stuff. That we also do. Bye bye bye. Bye. Hi, I'm Lindsay Graham, the host of Wondery Show American

Scandal. We bring to life some of the biggest controversies in US history. Presidential lies, environmental disasters, corporate fraud. In our latest series, NASA embarks on an ambitious program to reinvent space exploration with the launch of its first reusable vehicle, the Space Shuttle. And in 1985, they announced they're sending teacher Krista McAuliffe into space aboard the Space Shuttle Challenger, along with six other astronauts. But less than two minutes after liftoff, the Challenger explodes. And in the tragedy's aftermath, investigators uncover a series of preventable failures by NASA and its contractors that led to the disaster. Follow American Scandal on the Wondery app or wherever you get your

podcasts. Experience all episodes ad-free and be the first to binge the newest season only on Wondery Plus. You can join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. Start your free trial today. I'm Jake Warren, and in our first season of Finding, I set out on a very personal quest to find the woman who saved my mom's life. You can listen to Finding Natasha right now exclusively on Wondery Plus. In season two, I found myself caught up in a new journey to help someone I've never even met. But a couple of years ago, I came across a social media post by a person named Loti. It read in part, Three years ago today that I attempted to jump off this bridge, but this wasn't my time to go. A gentleman named Andy saved my life.

I still haven't found him. This is a story that I came across purely by chance but it instantly moved me and it's taken me to a place where I've had to consider some deeper issues around mental health. This is season two of Finding and this time, if all goes to plan, we'll be finding Andy.

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