Echols is an author and mystic living New York with his wife, architect Lorri Davis. As more people learned about the case from Paradise Lost and the work of people like Bakken and Sauls, the phrase Free the West Memphis Three caught on as a slogan for progressive musicians and actors in the 1990s, up there with Save the Rainforest and Free Tibet. Eddie Vedder became an early leading voice, soon followed by the likes of Peter Jackson, Johnny Depp, and Natalie Maines from the band then known as the Dixie Chicks. Terry Lee Hobbs Obituary (1964 - 2021) | Auburndale, FL - Echovita So advocacy and diligence become tantamount, because most people in a similar situation to the one he was in dont have the benefit of filmmakers and musicians fighting on their behalf. Terry Lee Hobbs (1964-2021) - Find a Grave Memorial People would drive by and yell at us, Theyre going to burn in hell, Sauls says. I just checked again and HE IS STILL MISSING. After ending his first marriage, he wed Pamela Hicks Branch in 1986, when her son Stevie was almost 2 years old. Baldwins attorneys even avoided putting him on the witness stand or mounting much of a defense, believing the burden was on the state. After new DNA evidence was discovered, the West Memphis Three were released from prison in August 2011 by agreeing to an Alford plea, which allowed him to proclaim their innocence while admitting the prosecution had enough evidence to convict him. Hobbs has never wavered in his conviction that justice was served the first time around. I said, Im going to send some kids down there., Those kids turned out to be Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky, the young documentarians who had recently completed the acclaimed Brothers Keeper, a film chronicling a death and the resulting trial in a small upstate New York village. Last year, I noticed that Terry went missing. Theres no smoking gun. While thats cooled from the days of concerts in the shadows of the Arkansas Supreme Court building, the documentaries still live on HBO Max, where they pull in new viewers to this day. So, how much is Terry Hobbs worth at the age of 50 years old? But inside, he was just another prisonerBaldwin didnt know who he could trust. Dec 13th, 2021. Echols tweeted, New technology and evidence in science would now allow us to test DNA in amounts so small that it would have been previously impossible. In February, Netflix released Berlingers Crime Scene: The Vanishing at the Cecil Hotel, a docuseries that looked at the 2013 death of Elisa Lam, a Canadian student who died while vacationing in Los Angeles. Damion Echols, Jason Baldwin, and Jessie Misskelley were convicted of murdering the children in 1994. Berlinger says that he counts Errol Morriss The Thin Blue Line as one of his greatest influences, not just for the innovations Morris brought to the documentary genre, but also because it helped free Randall Dale Adams from a sentence for the murder of a Texas police officer that he did not commit. But its closing moments point to how the filmmakers felt: that a horrific tragedy had just been compounded by a monumental miscarriage of justice. But they werent just voices in the growing choir calling for the West Memphis Threes releasethey were leading the movement. While Berlinger says that the work of people like Bakken and Sauls was more impressive than that of any celebrity, its undeniable that the famous and influential brought a megaphone and funding mechanism to this case that most never get. La Mirada, California. Terry Hobbs Memphis 32, 14-Jun, Superior Funeral Home-Hollywood. Terry Hobbs Obituary (1959 - 2021) | Sweetwater, Texas - Echovita . Well theres been a lot of things that happened over the years. He says his dad and Berlinger werent seeking notorietydocumentaries certainly werent a means to get rich or famous in those days. And yet Hobbs was not interviewed at all in the months after the crimes. $10,000 reward for new information leading to a missing man - WJHG However, under pressure, leading questions, and scare tactics, Misskelley wove a contradictory story that first placed him at the crime scene as an eyewitness to the murders and then as an active participant. When we were driving in the car a lot, wed play a lot of the Metallica album Master of Puppets, says Alex Sinofsky, who became a doctor instead of getting behind the camera himself. Evidence in West Memphis Three case missing or destroyed - Action News 5 He also lost the defamation case because of his violent past. Critics were effusive in their praise and stunned by the footageparticularly Roger Ebert, who wrote in a four-star review that at the end of the film I was unconvinced of their guilt. The film won Emmy and Peabody awards to go with more than a dozen other nominations. That type of support made observers question the verdicts perhaps more so than any rock star who shouted Echolss name into a mic because of an HBO documentary. - The West Memphis 3: Free (2012) . Case Details. Oxygen Insider is your all-access pass to never-before-seen content, free digital evidence kits, and much more. He responded proudly, 11.. People have come out of the woodwork and said this and this and people have done things and a lot of them are wrong, said Hobbs. Few celebrities at the time did as much as Henry Rollins, however. In November, Judge David Burnett, who had presided over the trial, was elected to the state senate. La Verne, California. They were naked and hog-tied with their own shoelaces, and showed signs of blunt force trauma and mutilation, the latter of which may have been the work of wild animals, reported the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette newspaper. This article was updated after publication to add more context about the honorariums paid to the families of the victims and the West Memphis Three and also to correct the time frame in which Berlinger and Sinofsky informed HBO about the changing scope of the documentary. According to Devil's Knot author Mara Leveritt, the investigation of the murders was divided along three lines. A native of Winter Haven, born December 21, 1964, Terry . The sneaker ligatures in which Terry Hobbs' DNA was found in," Soury said . In the years since the trial, John Mark Byers, adoptive father of Christopher Byers, and Pamela Hobbs, mother of Stevie Branch, became vocal supporters of the West Memphis Three. The nonprofits work hasnt always been easyfundraising is hard, and because hes a convicted felon, hes unable to visit clients in prison or discuss pleasbut its been essential for him as he strives to live the words by 14th-century Persian poet Hafez that he keeps as an email signature: The small man builds cages for everyone he knows / While the sage, who has to duck his head when the moon is low / Keeps dropping keys all night long for the beautiful rowdy prisoners. Baldwin says hes learned that justice isnt a computer programthat you can input all the evidence and testimony and still get the wrong results. Pam Hobbs divorced Terry Hobbs in 2004 and has reversed her position on the West Memphis Three's guilt. West Memphis is pretty much like a second Salem," Echols stated in the 1996 documentary Paradise Lost: The Murders at Robin Hood Hills. During Misskelley's trial, Hutcheson testified that she had attended an "an occult Satanic meeting" she referred to as an "esbat." In 2007, new DNA and physical evidence arose that seemed to further distance the West Memphis Three from the murders. Certain that, under what he felt were ridiculous circumstances, Echols' confidence and, on occasion, flippant attitude during the trial was often misinterpreted as evidence of his coldness toward the victims and their families. Now, evidence from the case of the West Memphis Three is either missing or destroyed. Although Damein Echols had a teenager's typical disdain for authority, he nevertheless trusted that the system would work in his favor. To send flowers or plant a tree in memory of Terry Hobbs, visit the Tribute Store. A hair found on one of the ligatures to bind the boys, however, was found to be consistent with the DNA of Hobbs, according to court documents obtained by Oxygen.com. Terry Hobbs is absolutely terrible. What a story it is. He is from USA. This is the true story of the West Memphis Three murders. He just didnt know it would take another 14 years to happen. Armchair detectives of today, I think a lot of them dabble in conspiracy theory, Berlinger says. In West Memphis, Hobbs worked as an ice cream delivery man and Hicks worked at a restaurant. Then youd try to find it, and it didnt exist, because when we went out to discussion groups, no one knew about the case yet., After learning that the teens were still in prison, Bakken, Sauls, and Pashley decided to make full use of the budding technological revolution. It had been a long fight to clear their names, and the odds seemed better than ever. The idea of the average citizen becoming embroiled in a criminal investigation isnt far-fetched in 2021, decades removed from the launch of WM3.org. Despite an offer of a reduced sentence, Misskelley ultimately recanted his statements and refused to testify against Echols and Baldwin. ", According to Devil's Knot, a week after the discovery of the bodies, Detective Don Bray interviewed Vicki Hutcheson, a truckstop employee. I think I introduced my dad to it because that was not his normal genre., Three Metallica songsOrion, Welcome Home (Sanitarium), and Call of Ktuluwould play throughout the documentary. He began his career in the plumbing business at a very young age, workingfor his . What has never been definitively answered, however, is who committed the 1993 murders, and The Forgotten West Memphis Three, premiering Saturday, March 28 at 8/7c on Oxygen, reexamines the case and key theories. "I'd like to see this put to rest. As the appeals processes stretched across several years and the buzz of the initial film faded, the directors began looking for ways to keep the story alive. eyewitness evidence surfaced 16 years later. (2 weeks at #1, on for 19 weeks!) The next to be found was Stevie Branch, quickly followed by Christopher Byers. Terry Hobbs | 2:21-BK-21177 | Court Records - UniCourt Stevie Branch, Michael Moore, and Christopher Byers were best friends. Damien Echols, Jessie Misskelly and Jason Baldwin were originally convicted of the killings and released from prison in 2011 after making a deal with prosecutors. Echols, who prosecutors argued was the ringleader, was sentenced to death. There are no events scheduled. Example video title will go here for this video. The idea of the average citizen becoming embroiled in a criminal investigation isn't far-fetched in 2021, . Theyve had several victories, including the case of Daniel Villegas, who was acquitted of capital murder in 2018 after a 25-year legal saga. The evolution of how the teens were perceivedon behalf of both the filmmakers and even part of the defense teamis captured on camera early as Stidham and his colleagues began to consider whether Misskelleys confession had been coerced. I deeply admire that and I thought it was worthy of putting on film.. every single person in my class was either . He said Boxful of Nightmares is his memoirs unedited.