West Memphis Three — Unraveled Truths, Episode 1 | Satanic Panic, False Confessions & the Case That Won’t Die - Dark Dialogue: Unraveled Truths

Episode Transcript
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John (00:12):
You ever have one of those cases that's so big, so twisted, so rooted
into the culture of true crime thatyou almost don't know where to start?
That's the West Memphis three case for me.
And maybe now for Angela too, becauseshe just binge watched the entire
Paradise Loss series front to back,no breaks, emotional damage included.

(00:37):
Yep.
And came in hot with questions andtheories before she even hung her coat up.
So today.
We're doing something totally different.
No multi-part R, no Foleystructured breakdown.
No forensic deep dive.
Not yet.
This is just us talking.

(00:58):
I have researched this case for yearsand feel like I know it inside and
out, and Angela, who just took herown deep dive sitting down for a real
conversation, trying to make senseof a story that still punches the
air outta your chest 30 years later.
But for anyone listening who isn'tfully steeped in this case, let me

(01:21):
give you the quick essential history.
So today's conversation actuallyhas a floor underneath it.
So in May of 19 93, 3 8-year-oldboys, Stevie Branch, Michael
Moore, and Christopher Byers wentmissing in West Memphis, Arkansas.
The next day, their bodieswere found in a drainage ditch

(01:43):
in the Robin Hood Hills area.
They'd been stripped hogtied with theirown shoelaces and left in shallow water.
At the same time, police withlimited major crime experience
interpreted parts of the scene as.
Ritualistic and the investigationveered almost immediately

(02:03):
into Satanic panic territory.
And it didn't veer that way by accident.
A juvenile probation officer named JerryDriver had been fixated on a local team,
Damien Eckles, for years, not becauseof behavior connected to violence, but
because Damien dressed in black, likeheavy metal and showed an interest in

(02:26):
things, driver thought worked a cult.

Angela (02:29):
Oh, and a tattoos.

John (02:31):
Yeah.
And he had tattoos.
Yeah.
Yeah.
He had built a mental file on Damienlong before the murders ever happened.
So when the boys were found, driver wentstraight to the police with his suspect.
From that moment on, Damienwas locked in as the focus.
Jason Baldwin, age 16got pulled in with him.

(02:52):
And then there was Jesse, Ms. Kelly, 17years old, intellectually vulnerable,
who ended up getting a confession afterhours of largely unrecorded interrogation.
A confession full of errors andcontradictions that didn't line up with
the timeline at all, but that confessionbecame the backbone of the case.

(03:14):
No physical evidence tied to teens,Damien, Jason, or Jesse to the crime.
None.
And when DNA testing finally happenedyears later, none of their DNA appeared
on the victims or the ligatures either.
In fact, the only hair thatcould be associated with anyone
belonged to a victim's stepfatherand another man, neither of which

(03:39):
matched the West Memphis three.
But by then, the trials were over.
Jesse was convicted.
Damien and Jason wereconvicted in a joint trial.
Damien was sentenced to death.
Fast forward almost two decadesafter massive public pressure, new
forensic reviews, and countlessinvestigative revelations.

(04:00):
The three men took an offer plea in 2011,meaning the names in their innocence,
but legally acknowledged that thestate had enough evidence to convict.
They walked out of prisonafter 18 years behind bars,
but they were never exonerated.
Their names are still technicallytied to those murders, and

(04:23):
that's why this piece isn't over.
Not even close, because here weare in late 2025 and after years
of legal battles lost evidence andstate stonewalling, a judge finally
approved advanced DNA testing on keyitems, including those shoelaces.

(04:44):
And the evidence has now beenshipped to Bode Laboratories for
modern STR and touch DNA analysis.
This is the first real chancein decades to answer the
question everyone keeps asking.
If it wasn't them, who was it?
And that's what makes to be theright day for this conversation.

(05:06):
Angela watched Paradise lost and toldme that she has plenty of what ifs.
Why the hells, how did this ever happen?
What the hell And her theoryboard started going up fast.
And instead of saving it for a futureepisode, I figured why not just hit
record and talk about this talk like twopeople who live and breathe true crime,

(05:31):
but aren't trying to deliver a perfectlypolished deep dive that will come lighter.
And when we do it,we're gonna do it right.
But today it's just us, ourthoughts, our frustrations, our
theories, and our impressions.
Raw, unpolished, and probably alittle chaotic, just like the whole

(05:52):
freaking case has always been.
So, all right, Angela, what didyou walk away with after watching
the Paradise Lost Trilogy?

Angela (06:02):
I walked away with the amount of anger, almost exactly the
amount of anger that you promised me.

John (06:08):
Boy, this case will freaking piss you off, won't it?
Oh

Angela (06:10):
yeah.

John (06:11):
So questions that you walked away

Angela (06:14):
with.
Um, one of 'em, I might bejumping the gun here, but there is

John (06:19):
no gun.
I mean, we're the gun.
No.

Angela (06:21):
How does Sam, how did that woman get away with a
drive through police interview?

John (06:27):
Oh, Mr. Bojangles issue.

Angela (06:29):
Excuse me.
I'm calling it the, would youlike fires with that interview?

John (06:33):
How?
I've never even heard ofsome shit like that before.
Okay.
Have you?
No,

Angela (06:38):
but hey, hey.
She says, well, it wasn't the samejurisdiction as the boys being lost in.
Okay.
Okay.
There's still effing blood everywhere,so it's somebody's blood and it's
a case of something that you shouldprobably get outta your damn car.

(07:00):
I've never heard of anything like this.
I was so mad.
And she didn't get anypunishments or anything.
NI know.
No, not a slap on the head.
N maybe you should do better.
Some guy went the next dayand picked up some samples.

John (07:15):
Um, well, apparently, but then what happened to those?
You lost them?
Yeah.
Yeah.
They get lost.
So it's

Angela (07:22):
on

John (07:23):
me, judge.

Angela (07:24):
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
I mean, it wasn't even, I got some smacks,

John (07:28):
like to your, to your point, it wasn't even a case of where the
department came out and said shereally freaking dropped the ball.
This was a training issue.
Exactly.
We should what?
No, they should have addressed something.
They didn't do shit.

Angela (07:42):
Yeah.
Who does a drive up investigation?
Come on.
That manager, I would've beenlike, get your ass in here and
talk to me and collect this shit.

John (07:52):
I would've too, but I can't blame the manager like you call the cops and
they say, well, it's not important.
Who are you to say, yes, it is important.
I, I mean, it all falls on this shit,

Angela (08:04):
right, to say, yes, it is important, or get me a
different cop who will do his job.

John (08:08):
Oh, a hundred percent.
But I'm just saying theirultimate responsibility is
on the bed to drive through.
It's true.

Angela (08:15):
But Al also, they probably weren't as gutsy back in the eighties either.
Like people now would've beenlike, get your ass out here and
get, or I even want your badgenumber and I want somebody else.

John (08:24):
Well, and the other component to this that doesn't ever get talked
about, but as you well know, I amdiving deep, deep, deep into the
Jennings eight case, which happened inLouisiana where at least eight victims
but considerably more were killed.
And it comes out that law enforcementwas making drug busts and then taking

(08:49):
the drugs and selling them on the street.
Yeah, that's wonderful.
Okay, well, let me come full circle.
At this time, the West Memphis PoliceDepartment was under investigation
for exactly the same thing.
Oh, thank you.
My point being, if youhave a corrupt department,

Angela (09:09):
yeah.

John (09:09):
People are way less likely to go up against them
because bad shit happens to 'em.
Like what happened in, in the Jennings A.

Angela (09:17):
So B, why didn't they call somebody whose jurisdiction It was?

John (09:22):
Oh, it was her jurisdiction.
Okay.
It was absolutely her jurisdiction.
It was just another patrol zone.

Angela (09:30):
Oh, okay.

John (09:31):
So the excuse makes no, yeah.
Sense.
None.
It's just she was just a lazy,fat bitch that didn't want to
get out of her car and walk in.
I mean, this, the, the kind of laxadais old of police work that you
see in this case is Mindboggling.

Angela (09:52):
So the funny thing is, is I scream at true crime.
Like my family screams at football games,

John (09:57):
Uhhuh,

Angela (09:58):
and I'm legit yelling, get out of the car.
To the point where I'm prettysure my family was like, the
hell's going on back there.

John (10:07):
Yeah.
I mean, it's, it's insane.
Yeah.
So, okay, I, I'm with you on that one.
What else did you walk away with?

Angela (10:15):
I, I specifics?
Um hmm.
I am still torn because somepeople were saying turtles,

John (10:25):
right?
Yeah.

Angela (10:26):
Others were not saying turtles and somebody went out and purposely got bit.
So he could compare.

John (10:33):
Yes.

Angela (10:34):
Okay.
And that's dedication, that's gettingoutta your freaking car at the drive
through and talking to somebody.

John (10:40):
Absolutely.
Freaking literally.
And there's another, um, there'sanother really great documentary on
the case called The Forgotten WestMemphis three, which I think is
such a great name for a documentary.
Did I miss?
Apparently.
And because his point is, okay, so theWest Memphis three are the boys, but are

(11:03):
the boys that got put in prison for this.
But the forgotten West Memphis threeare the little boys that were murdered.
Yeah.
And then in that documentary, whichis very well done, he sits down with,
uh, some doctor, like a biologist.
I don't know.
Her expertise is like, um,aquatic wildlife in that area.

(11:25):
Okay.
And I mean, she lays it out likethere is absolutely no doubt, this is
100% turtle feeding on these bodies.

Angela (11:36):
Okay.
So it really wasn't, 'cause Ididn't ever land on Did they decide?

John (11:41):
Yeah.
I mean, I don't think officiallyit's ever been decided.
Okay.
But it's been decided.
Okay.
And then, and during that same,um, documentary, he took a couple
of chickens and tied ropes to 'emand threw 'em in at the place where
the pipe goes across the, okay.
Diversion ditch.
Where the bikes were found, where thebikes were found, and the freaking

(12:04):
turtles just annihilate these things.
There's nothing left but chickenbones in like a few minutes.
They, you could see the turtles justcome in from all over the place.
Of course, they're gonna dothat with human bodies as well.
And so I, I feel very confident insaying it's almost a hundred percent
certain that no boys were ever castrated.

(12:27):
It never happened.
Mm-hmm.
That was, that was turtle feeding.
And the vast majority of the damagedone to the bodies was turtle feeding.
The only injuries found that couldnot be linked to aquatic wildlife.
We'll say turtles is the headwinds.

(12:47):
Everything

Angela (12:48):
else.
So the bites on the head,look, human, not turtle,

John (12:51):
everything.
There's a possible human bitemark on the one boy's eye.
Mm-hmm.
I think it's Chris Byers.
I'm pretty sure Chris Byershad the bite mark on his eye.
Chris Byers definitely is the onethat was castrated, and I'm almost
positive that he was also the one.

Angela (13:08):
Okay.
So the one potentially

John (13:10):
bit,

Angela (13:10):
the one I'm thinking was very, very blonde.
So I think it was Steviethat had one above his eye.

John (13:18):
You might very, very w you might be right.
So what else?
I, I, what else comes to mind?
I, I don't.
Stir it up.

Angela (13:27):
I'm not sure.

John (13:28):
So where are you

Angela (13:29):
on, just

John (13:29):
out of the blue.
Where are you on theories?

Angela (13:32):
Oh, um, do you want me to just rip the bandaid off?

John (13:36):
Yeah, I mean, do you have multiple theories?
Do you have one theory?
Do you have

Angela (13:40):
I have

John (13:41):
different possibilities, but one that's leading the pack, I will

Angela (13:45):
tell you, like everyone else, when I started watching it, Mark
Byers was just driving me insane.
A

John (13:51):
hundred

Angela (13:51):
percent driving me insane.
Like, and I think I texted youand told you I'd, it was easier
to look at the crime scene photosthan it was to listen to that man.

John (13:59):
A hundred percent, yes.
Um, and I think it's ParadiseLost Two, where he goes out in
the woods and starts a fire.
Yes.
Does all this weird shit.
I mean, he's a weird guy.

Angela (14:11):
Yeah,

John (14:11):
yeah.
A hundred percent.

Angela (14:12):
So I watched another documentary and they're like, this is less wooded now.
And I was like, yeah.
'cause Mark Byers wentout there, burned it all.
Where have you been?

John (14:20):
I mean, if you look at the area now, there's no woods at all.
No.
Yeah.
Left.
It's completely gone.
But,

Angela (14:25):
but, and I know that he didn't burn at all, but it was the first thing
that came to mind is like, did you,you say he watched all three of 'em.
Mark, Mark Byers, ritualisticallyburned the woods down out here.
I

John (14:37):
mean, it was weird.
He, he's very weird.
Yes.
Very weird.
And I, I thought it was very weirdthat a parent would go back to several
times, multiple times back to thelocation where their son was murdered.
I found that very odd.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I found.
Oh, I would say 99.9% of theship mark buyers does very odd,

Angela (15:02):
very odd.
Even to the point whenhe is changing his tune.
I was like, do I believe you?
I don't know.

John (15:09):
And I have the luxury of investigating this case from every angle.
So I read, um, John Douglas's, take onMark Byers and John Douglas comes right
out and flat out says E of everybodyinvolved in this case, Mark Byers is
the one that is the most honest, themost open, I mean, and crazy and honest.

(15:35):
When, when John Douglass went andtalked to him, Mark Byers was like,
get the hell off of my property.
John Douglass finally was able to settlehim down and get to talking to him.
And then after, after he talked tohim, then Mark Byers was like, oh shit.

Angela (15:53):
Yeah.
Ding

John (15:53):
ding.
It was Terry Wayne Hobbs.

Angela (15:55):
Yeah.

John (15:56):
Well he was at that point, honest enough to then say publicly.
I was absolutely wrong.
I wrongfully accused these kids,and Terry Wayne Hobbs actually is
the one that killed my son, and Ifound that take from John Douglas.
Very interesting.
Mm-hmm.
Because he's a man that freakingreads people literally for a

(16:20):
living, that he will say that.
And

Angela (16:22):
he was reading people off paper, not just sitting with 'em and getting it.
Right.

John (16:25):
Right.
Yes.

Angela (16:26):
So that's hard to do.

John (16:28):
Yeah.
And he was, uh, so LoriDamien's wife mm-hmm.
Brought, um, John Douglas in beforethe boys were released and everything.
Right.
She was able to get John Douglas to comein and review the case and everything.
So

Angela (16:47):
yeah.
Who would've thought this storywould have an interesting little
love story involved in it too?

John (16:52):
Right.
Well, it's so funny because, um, thebook that, the book that John Douglas
talks about this in is his book Lawand Disorder, where he covers this
and it's so freaking funny becausewhen he starts out with Lori's
conversation, he says, immediatelywhen I'm talking to her, I'm thinking
this is an intelligent, well-educatedwoman who is blah, blah, blah.

(17:16):
And then she says, I marriedDamien while he was in prison.
And John Douglas was like, well,excuse me, maybe she's articulate and
well written, but she's a nut job.

Angela (17:27):
She lost her mind.

John (17:29):
And he goes on to explain that, yeah, all these women that marry
these freaking lunatics are nut jobs.
And so his, uh, his original take onher was, she's another freaking lunatic.
And then as

Angela (17:42):
enough that she didn't tell her family for four years.
Y

John (17:45):
yeah.

Angela (17:46):
So ask her to say something.

John (17:49):
But then he, he actually accepted the case.
Yeah.
With down, met with her, did allthis stuff, and when he left.
He left with a completely death.
There's genuine death,different view of Lori.
She's not a nutcase.
She fell in love with an innocent man.
Mm-hmm.
And you know, 'cause like he said,the vast majority of these women

(18:09):
want a relationship where they don'tactually have to have a relationship.
They're significant.
Other is gonna be locked awayfor the rest of their lives.
They know that whatbetter way to trust them.
Right.
But with Lori, it wassomething totally different.
It was actual authentic.
She fell in love with this kid.
Yeah.
You know?

Angela (18:27):
Well, and they talked for how long?
Like over a year and everything before?

John (18:33):
Oh yeah.
I don't remember exactly, but,um, I mean it was, I think
it was, it was a significant

Angela (18:38):
amount of time.
It wasn't just, oh, firstmeeting, let's get married next.

John (18:41):
Oh hell no.
I mean it was, I think thatthey corresponded for like over
a year before she ever moved.
Yeah.
From New York down there.
Yeah.
And then I think there was another periodof time after she had moved that, you
know, they were still kind of courtingand stuff before they ever got married.
Yeah.
So, and they're still married to this day.
Oh yeah.
Which is, you know, crazy.

(19:01):
And I mean it awesome.
It means, it

Angela (19:03):
means something,

John (19:04):
right.
Yeah.

Angela (19:05):
So, but my ultimate, when I got, when all was said and
done and I consumed as much as Icould that day, which was a lot.

John (19:15):
Well, if you watched all three Paradise Loss in one day, that's a lot.

Angela (19:20):
Yeah.

John (19:20):
Because they're not short freaking,

Angela (19:22):
I watched them all in one day and.
The Investigation Discovery documentary.

John (19:29):
Oh, you watched that one as well.

Angela (19:30):
And several podcasts.
You what?
It was the West Memphis three day

John (19:37):
that this case does that to you.
My world.
The whole day.
Yeah.
It does that

Angela (19:42):
at the end.
And I don't know how farfetchedthis is, but, and I can't let it go.
I think Terry did it and I thinkthe Bojangles guy did it with him.

John (19:53):
Oh, that's an interesting take.
That's one I had heard of.

Angela (19:56):
Terry hired him so he could be gone occasionally.
'cause Okay, so the boys had toknow what everybody's saying is the
boys had to be comfortable 'causethere was wrangling three boys.
Right.
Okay.
So they would know Terry.
One of them would be scared of Terrybecause didn't Terry wasn't Terry abusive?

John (20:15):
Oh, a hundred percent.
So yes,

Angela (20:17):
they might not have wanted to go, but they were scared
enough and they knew him to go,

John (20:23):
okay,

Angela (20:23):
Terry needs the alibi.
So he's going back andforth, stupidest alibi ever.
Let's go play guitar insteadof go looking for our kid.
But anyway, he needed the alibi.
So he is going back and forth,making sure he's seen in places.
And the Bojangles guy finishesthe terrible doings that, I
don't wanna say out loud, butI'm sure we have to eventually.

John (20:44):
Yeah.
I mean, he murdered the boys.

Angela (20:45):
Yeah.

John (20:46):
So

Angela (20:46):
that's my take on it.
And Terry ended up cleaning rooms thathe never would've helped with doing.
Uh.

John (20:55):
Well, yeah, I mean, he was cleaning, he was seen cleaning the house and doing
laundry, which is something that he never,never had never been seen doing before.
Yeah.
So, um, but yeah, that's superin, that's super interesting
because that is my theory.
I've never, I've neverheard that theory before.
Um, personally I don't think thatBojangles fits into the story whatsoever

Angela (21:23):
when you think another random bloody dude did
something no one heard about.
There's bodies out therewe don't know about.

John (21:29):
Well, the big problem with the Bojangles case is that we
don't know whose blood it was.
True.
And so it could have been his own blood.
He apparently had a cast on his arm.
That's true.
Um, and so

Angela (21:46):
just the timeline and the coincidental this I am struggling with.

John (21:51):
Well, and I think that that has been the problem with, you know, the
whole Bojangles situation all along is.
You know, it's, it's an unbelievable,pretty much unbelievable timing issue.
Right.

Angela (22:10):
Well,
and this, this

John (22:11):
happens to

Angela (22:11):
be, how do you let 'em sit in there for an hour
before you call the police?
No, you call the police the second.
You can't get the door open.

John (22:18):
Well, I mean, I, I did find that whole thing pretty freaking strange
because he's in the women's bathroom.

Angela (22:26):
Yeah.

John (22:28):
You know, so you have a, how you doing dude?
You have a man in the women's bathroom and

Angela (22:33):
you can't get him out.
Right.
He came in bloodied and muddiedis what a quote I kept hearing.

John (22:41):
Yeah.
Covered in mud and covered in blood

Angela (22:45):
and you're just gonna wait until he decides to
emerge to call law enforcement.
I would have them there the second,I couldn't get 'em out myself,

John (22:54):
but from what I understand, they did call, but bitch just
took her sweet damn time.

Angela (23:01):
Oh, really?

John (23:02):
Getting up there.

Angela (23:03):
One of the docs said that, the documentary said that they called
after he left 'cause they foundwhat he had and then they called.

John (23:11):
I can't be, um, a hundred percent certain about that.
I can't say for sure.

Angela (23:17):
Well, I know a lot of documentaries say different
things too, so that's why Iconsumed a whole bunch of 'em.

John (23:22):
Right.
Yeah.
Because you get, you can stop

Angela (23:23):
at one.

John (23:24):
No, you get different stories for sure.
Yeah.
Every, from everybody.
So.
So you think that Bojangles was workingwith, Terry is involved in this?
Yes.
I'm looking for,

Angela (23:37):
I think Terry was trying to get rid of the kid and needed help and
the other kids were collateral damage.

John (23:44):
So what do you think was the motive?

Angela (23:47):
Well, so later on he's accused of, excuse me, molesting his daughter.

John (23:54):
Correct.

Angela (23:55):
I think that the child would've gotten in the way of that.
Maybe caught them, maybe knew something.
Okay.
Um, maybe mom was paying moreattention to the kid than him.
I think he just seems like thetype of guy that's like, I don't

(24:16):
want all these kids around.
Something happened and he's gotta go.

John (24:19):
Okay.
Um, I can't find it, but there'sactually a, a deposition.
I don't know if it's a deposition,but So an interview with the
daughter talking about No.
Oh, okay.
No, because I can see that, um,a guy that says that is what
happened is he was he sold drugs.

Angela (24:41):
Terry?

John (24:41):
No, this guy.
Okay.
I can't think of his name,but he sold drugs and so.
These four guys show up.
Terry, Wayne Hobbs, David Jacoby, andthen these two other younger kids,
younger guys, they showed up at his house.
The two younger ones came over to himto buy the marijuana, which he thought
was strange because Terry boughtmarijuana from him on a regular basis.

(25:04):
And then he saw David Jacoby and TerryWayne Hobbes making out in the truck.
Oh, really?
While he was talking to, well,

Angela (25:14):
what he touched on then, in any of the things I watched,

John (25:16):
and then what one of the kids that bought the pot from him later confessed
to him was that after they bought thepot, the all four got back into the truck.
They went driving around for whateverreason, they took the service road by
the Blue Beacon car or Blue Beacon TruckWash pulled down by Robin Hood Woods.

(25:39):
They got out.
Um, Terry and David talked thesetwo younger boys into wrestling,
which then wrestling ended in sexualcontact between all four of them.
Mm-hmm.
While they were involved inwhatever this sexual contact was.
Three little boys come upand they're watching them.

(26:01):
Terry Wayne Hobbes recognizes them,recognizes these three little boys.
Yeah.
And he knows that this is going toend his marriage, destroy his life.
And so he says, get 'em.
All of them.
Run and capture the boys.
David Jacoby kills one.
Terry Wayne Hobbs kills.
I think the other two, and again,I can't find this, but I have it.

(26:26):
I've

Angela (26:27):
never heard, I never heard this one on all the stuff I watched.
I never heard.

John (26:31):
Yeah.
It's out there.
I mean, it is an official legal,

Angela (26:35):
now I'm upset and I have to go look more,

John (26:38):
and so, but I have a hard time with that.
I have a, I don't thinkDavid Jacoby was involved.
I think Terry Wayne Hos did it all byhis lonesome, and I think the Bojangles
character was just a coincidence.

Angela (26:54):
I think you have to watch me take a line and a half of this apart

John (26:57):
you, that's your crocheting because you were busy talking and,

Angela (27:02):
no, this I, this wasn't even sitting here.
I just found the problem with doingstuff like this is sometimes you have
to get completely to the other row, ordepending on the pattern, just quick
crochet, interjection here two rowslater before you realize hyper stop.

John (27:19):
That sucks.

Angela (27:20):
Yeah.
I messed up.
I have to take some of it apartwhile we're chatting here.
That was, I fuel the fire.

John (27:28):
So, um, another, another thing that, that came up in the forgotten West Memphis
three documentary was that this youngblack kid was, he was older than the three
boys, but he was pretty young at the time.
He was like three or four years older.
I think that, I think he saidthat he was like middle school

(27:51):
age and they were second graders.
And he, if his story is true andaccurate, he would've been the
last person to see the three boys.
And he said the three boys had sleepingbags and were headed into the woods
and said they were going camping

Angela (28:11):
because one of them said they were running away.

John (28:13):
Christopher Byers said, went to a boy's house without the other two, around
three 30 and said, I'm running away.
My dad just spanked me again.
And Mark Byers does admit that he did.
Spank him for riding a, a skateboard inthe street earlier that afternoon, shortly

(28:35):
after, shortly after school at some point.
Mm-hmm.
He gave him a swat on thebutt for riding a skateboard.
His skateboard in the street.

Angela (28:43):
Yeah.

John (28:43):
And then this other boy said that Christopher Byers showed up by
himself and said, I'm running away.
My dad just, you know, spanked me again.
Yeah.
And then this other boy claims that hesaw them just before the entrance to
Robinhood Hills with sleeping bags sayingthat they were headed into the woods.

Angela (29:04):
Okay.

John (29:05):
Camping now I've never heard that before.
That's the only placethat I've ever heard that.
And I don't know anythingabout any sleeping bags.
Yeah.
Their clothes were found, obviouslytied to sticks and pushed into mud.
And pushed into the mud.
Yeah.
Another thing I have a huge freakingproblem with is why were their

(29:25):
bodies taken outta the water?

Angela (29:27):
I mean by the people who found him.

John (29:29):
Yes.

Angela (29:30):
Maybe they thought they were preserving evidence.

John (29:33):
That's absolutely contrary to preserving evidence.

Angela (29:37):
Well, that's what I said.
Maybe they thought

John (29:39):
maybe they're absolute dipshits.

Angela (29:42):
Or ass hats.
You haven't said that yet.

John (29:44):
Because what should have been done is the water should have been drained.
Which it, it eventuallywas, was it eventually was.
Yeah.
But it basically just grabbed theboys and threw 'em up on the bank.
If you have any doubt aboutthat, go view paradise loss.
'cause unfortunately, it'sall there for you to see.
And instead, they should haveleft the boys exactly the way that

(30:06):
they were and drained the water sothat they could have seen exactly
the, the position of the bodies.
Mm-hmm.
Exactly how they were left.
All of that stuff was lost becausethese dumb asses grabbed the boys
and pulled 'em up outta the water.
I mean, at that point, the boys are dead.
Yeah.
They've been underwater for hours.

(30:26):
You can't fix 'em.
No.
And so any investigator knows thatif there's no lifesaving measures
to take, you are, then you stopand it becomes a crime scene.
And you treat it as that.
Right.
But they didn't.
They pulled all the sticks up and,and one thing that gets missed in
the Paradise Lost in every otherdocumentary, I don't think I've ever

(30:49):
seen this on a documentary, but thesticks used in court, the ones that
they brought in and analyzed in aninvestigator went back out to Robin Hood,
woods like two months after the fact.
Right.
And grabbed these sticksto bring in for court.

Angela (31:05):
So, A, they might not be the same ones B, they're degraded.
I mean, first of all,see, they're contaminated.

John (31:12):
They're almost certainly not the same ones.
It's a, it's a, the woods,it's full of sticks.
Yeah.
How the hell do youknow what stick was it?
Yeah.
Yeah.
You can't possibly know.
It should been

Angela (31:23):
bagged that day.

John (31:24):
Of course.
It should have been.
Who knows the kind of evidencethat would've been on those sticks?
We'll never know because we don't evenknow if we've got the right damn sticks.
We probably don't.
And then the whole finding the knife.
Yeah.
And the, I mean, that's one of the dumbestfreaking things I've ever seen in my life.
It seemed a little too special.

(31:45):
Yeah.
And that, and,

Angela (31:46):
and speaking of knife things that blow your mind, who gives a
knife as a gift to documentarianswhen your child was killed by a knife?

John (31:58):
Yeah.
He's a freaking weirdo.
There's no doubt about that.
He is an absolute whack job.
I don't think he's guilty at all.
I don't think

Angela (32:06):
so either.
But what the hell?

John (32:08):
But he's off.
Don't

Angela (32:10):
want anything to do with knives, if that's especially so soon.
But give it as a gift.

John (32:15):
Well, yeah.
And then he went on and, and like.
Held a gun on two boys and made'em fight or some weird shirt.
It was a fair

Angela (32:22):
fight.

John (32:23):
Yeah.
I mean, the guy's a weirdo.
There is no doubt about that.
But, you know, and thenthe, the, the hole lying

Angela (32:30):
about his teeth, the, uh, teeth were done before the boys were lost.
Well, and let's look at all yourinterviews, dude, because you
didn't shut your mouth at all.

John (32:40):
Yeah, I don't know.
I don't know when hehad his teeth removed.
I know that

Angela (32:43):
96.

John (32:45):
Um, and I don't think, well, I don't believe that Mark
Byers had anything to do with it.
Oh,

Angela (32:50):
I know.
I'm just saying, why are youlying about your damn teeth?
How, how are you tellingus I got my teeth pulled?
They were pulled beforethe boys were missing.
But you did all those interviewsand clearly you do not have
dentures in those interviews.

John (33:07):
I don't know if he does or not.

Angela (33:08):
No, he didn't.
A hundred percent didn't.

John (33:10):
I don't know.
I mean, 'cause I know that I see him ininterviews that I know for a fact he had
dentures and I can't tell the difference.

Angela (33:17):
And who, who makes dentures that crooked missing teeth that come on.
They would've made him better than that,

John (33:22):
I guess.
They never paid that much attention.

Angela (33:25):
I had to, I had to, and I rewound even because he's, when he
says to the, um, west Memphis threefree, the free, the three people
that made the Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.
One there.
Okay.
So who was telling them?
They were asking him?
Would you submit to bite mark testing?
And he pulls his teeth out of his face,

John (33:43):
right?
Yep, I remember that.
Okay.

Angela (33:45):
So they were like, well, when did that happen?
And he goes, that was their, that wasdone before the voice went missing.
No, no, no, dude, I wentback, watched your interviews.
You have messed up teeth before this.
And somebody else was pissed offenough about it that went and

(34:06):
found the oral surgeon that pulledhim and it was done in 96 or 97.

John (34:10):
But, so what's your point?
Do you, do you think he's guilty?

Angela (34:14):
Not of something.
I mean, I don't understand why lieif he's not guilty of something.

John (34:21):
So do you think so you think Mark Byers is involved in the killing too?
I,

Angela (34:26):
I can't say no.
A hundred percent.
I,

John (34:29):
I can almost say a hundred percent.
No,

Angela (34:32):
I think he's, he's guilty of something.

John (34:35):
Well, I mean that's, yeah.
Very well might be, but because doyou know how unbelievably rare it
would be to have two all stepdads,random stepdads involved in killing
their, I mean, their sons in that way,

Angela (34:51):
but this whole, this whole case screams what?
Yeah, not add that to the mix.
I don't, I just wanna know whyyou're lying about your teeth, dude.

John (35:00):
Well, I wanna know why he is the only parent that was interviewed

Angela (35:05):
on the second ones.
The rest of 'em were in the first movie.

John (35:10):
No.
Not a single parent was ever officiallyinterviewed other than Mark Byers.
Legally in a Yes.
Gotcha.
As they're a suspect in, in the case.
Gotcha.
When everybody knows, I don'tthink you have to be any sort
of John Douglas to know Yeah.
That when a child is murdered,the most likely suspects are

(35:34):
always the people closest to 'em.
It's not just a child.
Especially when mom says, oh, I'm on tv.
Yeah.
I mean, when anybody's murdered,your, your first instinct is it's
it's likely somebody close to 'em.
You, your investigators always,always, always work from Yeah.
Inside out.

(35:54):
Yeah.
But Terry Wayne Hobbes was neverinterviewed until much, much later.
And I think that interview's on oneof the Paradise Lost documentaries.
Yeah.
And it's a freaking joke.
He's there for like It's the last one.

Angela (36:07):
Yeah.

John (36:07):
30, 45 minutes or so.
And they ask him a few questionsand they're like, well,
thanks a lot for coming in.
No, I mean, he was not interviewed asthough he was a suspect in any way.
And he's the only, him andMark Byers are the only parents
that were ever interviewed.

Angela (36:23):
Yeah.

John (36:24):
And do I think that any of the rest of the parents are involved?
No.
No, but I find it very weird.
Then the investigation didn'tunfold the way homicide
investigations always should unfold.

Angela (36:39):
And the, excuse me, the neighbors of the other boys
weren't interviewed either.
Oh, the, the neighborhood wasnot canvased because you Oh.
That one neighbor was waiting.
She was like, I saw himyelling at them to get home.
Yeah.
They didn't come talk to me.

John (36:55):
Well, nobody in, I think it's the Mayfair apartments that were right there.

Angela (37:00):
Yeah.

John (37:01):
None of those people the, they did not canvas.
Mm-hmm.
The neighborhood.
Another, it's usually, didyou hear something weird?
Have you, well, I mean,every investigation mm-hmm.
Begins with a canvas of everybody,everybody that you can possibly talk to.
And everyone in those Mayfairapartments should have been interviewed

(37:21):
because they look white down at thepipe where they freaking crossed
the, crossed the diversion canal.

Angela (37:29):
I will say, just seeing the, like the crime scene pictures,
I had only seen those, so I wasexpecting way out in no man's land.
Right.
And then I watched, I was telling you,I watched the, um, documentary where the
documentarian was showing us, the placeshe took us to, what Bojangles is now,

(37:52):
what used to be Bojangles, which is alsoboarded up, it's just not tore down.
Right.
Showed us the truck wash, showed usthe area, and showed us the school.
Where the little memorial isand then went and put little
toy cars on all their graves.

(38:12):
And I was like, this is a lot closerto civilization than those, just those
pictures show because they, oh shit.
They look like it could be out.

John (38:20):
It's a little an hour drive.
Yeah, it's a little sliver of woods inbetween a major housing development on the
edge of which is the Mayfair apartments.
And then behind that isbasically middle income.
Mm-hmm.
Housing.
Housing development.
Just a suburban neighborhood.
Yeah.
Where their school is is right in thatlittle neighborhood and everything.

(38:43):
Um, let's see.
I think it's, uh, well, I know that thebuyers and two of the boys lived like
right across the street from the school.

Angela (38:53):
I think it was Byers and more.

John (38:55):
I think you're right too.
And then Stevie lived quite a waysdown south in the neighborhood.
But anyway, and then.
On the other side, to yourpoint, is Interstate 10.
Mm-hmm.
Running right on the other side of that.
And then on the one side is theBlue Beacon car wash, and then
there was a big truck stop mm-hmm.
Right there.
And on the other side was a wheat field.

(39:16):
So it's just little, a littletiny patch of woods that I
think it was a half an acre.
Mm-hmm.
Half an acre of woods.
Yeah.

Angela (39:24):
That slapped me in the face hard.
'cause I, I went in just having seenthe pictures and I was like, you mean to
tell me that this was right in the middleof all the things They didn't drive for
like an hour to get to this wooded area?
No.
Alright.

John (39:37):
But I do find it very interesting that, and I did the math, I, I mapped
it all out and everything and it isroughly six miles from the trailer
park where Damien and Jason lived.
Okay.
It's roughly six miles fromthere down to Robinhood Hills.

(40:00):
So it, when I first started researchingthis case, or first heard about this case.
I mean, when I first heard about thiscase, it was back in the late nineties,

Angela (40:09):
back in the day.
Yeah.

John (40:10):
Uh, because I watched Paradise Lost on VHS years and years and years ago.
And so when I first heard aboutthis, and you know, you form
this mental image in your head ofhow everything looks and mm-hmm.
Everything.
And I was thinking that, I wasthinking that Jesse, or I mean that,
um, Jason and Damien lived rightthere too, right near the Yeah.

(40:33):
The woods.
It would've been like, you know,these kids from this neighborhood come
to the woods, these kids from thisneighborhood come to the woods and
they happen to meet there and whatever.
Oh, so much.
In reality, it's like six miles from Yeah.
The, the trailer park.
'cause they didn't even live in,it wasn't even technically West
Memphis where Damien and Jason lived.

(40:55):
I think the town is likeMenard or something like that.
Yeah, that sounds right.
And it's north of all of this.
And Damien didn't drive, he didn't havea driver's license and so he walked
everywhere in his scared ass trench coat.
Right.
And so there we're supposedto believe that an 18-year-old

(41:16):
kid walked six freaking miles.
Yeah.
To this tiny little patch of do.
And bro, yeah.
I mean, it just is ludicrous.
It's such a dumb ass theory.
And then I, well, I mean as faras dumb ass theories go, this
case is full of dumb ass theories.

Angela (41:36):
Yeah.
It's not lacking at all.

John (41:38):
And that freaking judge should be tried and prosecuted for
the way that he handled this case

Angela (41:45):
and how, why did it kept being him.

John (41:48):
That's just how it works.
That's how the justice systemworks over and over and over again.
You don't get mixed up.
'cause it always goes back to theoriginal trial judge always goes
back to the original trial judge.

Angela (41:59):
But that's part of appeal is to try it differently.
To show better.

John (42:06):
Oh, I

Angela (42:06):
know.
Meh.
Okay, now I'm just making noises.

John (42:09):
I mean, I, I understand the logic of it because the original
trial judge is gonna know thecase better than anybody else.
But the problem that I havewith this particular case is
the trial was absolutely unfair.
I don't think, yeah.
Anybody that really looks at this casecan see that these boys had a fair trial.

Angela (42:30):
Mm-hmm.

John (42:31):
And it came out later that the jury most certainly used
Jesse's confession, the liberations.
Yep.
And you know, for the listenersthat aren't familiar with the case.
Jesse recanted his testimony orhis confession and refused to
testify against Damien and Jason.

(42:51):
Therefore, the confession was notallowed to be used in their trial

Angela (42:56):
because, and I quote, I refuse to tell the lie the second time.

John (43:00):
Right.
Yeah.
And so what do you, what do youthink about the whole confession?

Angela (43:06):
I am livid that it was 12 hours of interrogation and
only 45 minutes are recorded.

John (43:15):
Yeah.

Angela (43:15):
Mm-hmm.

John (43:17):
And even in what is recorded, we can see Jesse originally says
that he got to the woods aboutnine o'clock and then noon.
Both times children are in school andthen, then the cop is like, so you got
there and the boys were outta school?

Angela (43:35):
Oh yeah.
They were skipping.

John (43:38):
He's like, excuse me, the boys were skipping.
And then the cop is like,

Angela (43:41):
8-year-old boys are skipping

John (43:43):
and then the cop is like, so you got there around five?
Jesse just got donesaying that I was there.
And then the cop is like, oh, so yougot there about five you're saying?
And Jesse's like, yeah.
Yeah, it was like five.
And then the cop's like, or was it,you had said it was like seven or
eight, like the sun was going downand Jesse's like, let's confuse

Angela (44:02):
you as

John (44:02):
much as we can.
Oh, oh yeah.
It was seven or eight.
So I mean, almost a 12 hourswing from nine in the morning
to seven or eight in the evening.

Angela (44:14):
And who, who doesn't check Jason's story of that?
He was wrestling bro.
Doesn't check that.

John (44:21):
Jesse's, uh, it was Jesse's, I thought was Jason

Angela (44:23):
that was

John (44:23):
wrestling?
No, it was Jesse that was wrestlingand all of those kids testified.
Yeah.
And they said it couldn't have been himbecause he was with us multiple kids.
I think like eight or nine kids testified.
Yeah.
And the jurors just, theyjust totally ignored it.

Angela (44:41):
Whatever.
Yeah.
These kids are Pam off inpixie sticks or something.

John (44:46):
But I mean, these kids were railroaded by this judge.
Mm-hmm.
I mean, you definitely by theprosecutor wrote by everybody.
Yeah.
But the judge is the one that's supposedto be the guardrail against that shit.
And he would not let thedefense call any experts.
That would refute the Yeah.

(45:07):
Quote unquote expert who got hisdegree from a mail order catalog.
I

Angela (45:12):
love him, by the way.
I Oh, PhD as well.
It's on, its, it's on its way in the mail.

John (45:17):
Yeah.
Well, I have three.
Yeah.
Yeah.

Angela (45:20):
Got it.
Beat me.
Interesting.
Don't you John?
You just gotta be got one up Me.

John (45:24):
Interestingly, that college quote unquote, that he got his degree from was
shut down by the state of California.
Really?
Oh, yeah.
In like the year 2000, I think.
How did you

Angela (45:35):
learn?

John (45:35):
Because it was a phony freaking, it was just a diploma factory is all it was.
You pay him money and they printed outyour little certificate and set it off.
It's the

Angela (45:45):
same place that lady got her cops license from.

John (45:49):
Right.
But this dumbass, I mean Oh, it definitelyhas the trappings of OC Cultism.

Angela (45:56):
Yes.
Because they wore black, they paintedtheir black, their hair black.
Okay.
Painted their hair black.
He's 17 years later in jail.
His hair's still black.
They're not painting it for him.

John (46:06):
And then you say, oh yeah, well they, they take
the blood home and drink it.
Not, and bathe in it.
And so somehow they bledthese boys of all their blood.
Yeah.
And there's not verycleanly, not a drop of blood.
Anywhere at the scene.
They were the first Dexter, theywere the first something, because

(46:29):
I'm telling you what that is notpossible in the middle of the woods.
Yeah.
At night.
But I, you know, one thing thatJohn Douglas pointed out, which I
thought was brilliant, of course,I think John Douglas is brilliant.
So I, I really put a lot of faith in.
I feel

Angela (46:44):
like you would fanboy out hard if you could meet John Douglas.

John (46:48):
Oh yeah.
Big time.
I mean, the dude is like, comeon, John, reach out to us.
He's the only one left alive.
Yeah.
Um, except the doctor, Dr. Ann.
I can't think of her.

Angela (46:59):
The real doctor.

John (47:01):
Yeah.
She's, I'm

Angela (47:02):
sorry.

John (47:02):
So it was facetious.
Now it was Robert Rest.
Have you ever watched Mindhunter?
Mm-hmm.
The, the series?
Mm-hmm.
So John Douglas is, I mean, they do aterrible job of portraying the people.
It's totally fictional, but, um, he's, theHolden holding forward is John Douglas.
Okay.
And then what's the other guy's name?

(47:23):
Tinton or something like that?
It's not, it's not one that Iwatched a lot, so I can't, that's
supposed to be Robert Wrestler.
And then Dr. Ann Burgess isportrayed as the lesbian woman, which
none, none of that's true either.
Not in real life.
So the characters are completelymade up, but that's who
they're supposed to represent.

(47:44):
Oh, okay.
And so John Douglas is holdingforward and he's the all gung-ho one.
He wasn't, I mean, he wasdefinitely the three real people.
Did really start behavioral analysis.
They are the, the foundersof it, John Douglas.
Really?
John Douglas and Robert Wrestlerreally did travel around and, and

(48:07):
they did the road school thing.
That's all true.
Okay.
And then they did travel around andtalk to different serial killers and
tried to build a behavioral profileand they, you know, they fought against
the bureaucracy of the FBI and JohnDouglas will say flat out, we pretty
much had to wait for j Edgar Hoover todie before we could make any headway

(48:29):
in any of this shit, you know, but hewasn't this loose cannon that was having
random sex and acting like an asshole.
I mean, he was married, he hadchildren during the whole time.
Mm-hmm.
I mean, it's all a bunch of crap.
But my point is that they are thefoundation of behavioral analysis.

(48:49):
Robert Wrestler and John Douglasare the ones that did all this.
And so he's been doing this shit forever.
Robert Wrestler passed away.
Insert sound lock quote here.
Exactly.
So, Robert Wrestler passed away,so you know he's not available.
Um, Roy Hazelwood cameout a little bit later.

(49:12):
He passed away.
He's not available.
So the only one left is John Douglas.
That and, and Dr. Ann Burgess, who are.
Foundational members to all of this who'vebeen at this for this freaking long.
It's just so easy

Angela (49:27):
to try to meet them too, huh?

John (49:29):
Yeah, you have to, you can't even reach out to John Douglas.
You reach out to his publicist.
It used to be his attorney,now it's his publicist.
Um, Dr. Ann Burges, I believeis still teaching Oh, nice.
At one of the universities.
But, um, but my point is that they'vebeen at this so long and he's actually the

(49:51):
guy that talked to Ed Kemper, Ted Bundy.
I mean the list just Ed Geen, according tothe show, I think he did talk to Ed Geen.
I can't, I can't remember if he did ornot, but I know he talked to Manson.
I know he talked to, um,ed Kemper multiple times.
Mm-hmm.
Um, I know he talkedto like Richard Speck.

(50:12):
I mean, the list justgoes on and on and on.

Angela (50:15):
Supposedly he talked to Geen and that's why he talked to Spec.

John (50:21):
That might be the case.
I have idea.
And that's

Angela (50:23):
how the, he was profiling Bundy.
That's how he knew Bundywas gonna go to Florida.
I don't know how much truth that is.
That's just what I. I

John (50:34):
don't think there's any truth

Angela (50:36):
to that.
He's like, stop spellinglies on the podcast.

John (50:42):
I'm pretty positive.
That's what I have heard.
I'm pretty positive that I read in one ofhis books and I can, I can easily research
it and, um, answer the question, but I'malmost positive that, um, 'cause he, he
did, um, he met with, who's the guy thatwrote Red Dragon in Silence of the Lambs?

Angela (51:02):
Stephen King.

John (51:03):
No.
Um, anyway, um, he, he cameand met with John Douglas and
Pappy's Brain and everything.
And you're correct.
FBI profiler John Douglas interviewedEd Geen, but described it as
quote, not much of an interview.
Yeah, because Gein was too psychotic.

Angela (51:23):
Well, so what, like ge uh, Geck was infatuated with Gein
and ge and he was writing to Geen.
So Geen reached out and said,

John (51:32):
Robin

Angela (51:34):
Geck?
No, no, no.
What was that?
Richard?

John (51:36):
Richard Speck.

Angela (51:37):
Richard Speck.
Thank you.
You got me.
See, I told you somethings get filed in there.
Sometimes they're not right.

John (51:45):
Oh, you're fine.

Angela (51:46):
But we work together and we can come to the conclusion.
Anyway, he supposedly idolized Keen.

John (51:53):
Oh, okay.

Angela (51:54):
And so he wrote to him saying, you know, this is what I've done.
This is what I've done.
This is.
But this is what so and so is gonna do.
And Geen supposedly had a epiphanyof good person vibes, I don't know,
and wanted to do something right.
And told them that Bundy wasgonna do this in Florida.

John (52:15):
I don't think there's any truth to that.
Okay.
Um, like I just read, um, John Douglassaid it wasn't much of an interview
because Ed Geen was psychotic.
Yeah.
Um, ed Kemper, it made him take his meds.
You're not thinking of Ed Kemper, are you?
Mm-hmm.
Because I do think that Ed Kemper, wellI know for a fact that Ed Kemper was very
instrumental in, in helping find otherserial killers, and then so was Ted Bundy

(52:40):
after he was finally caught imprisoned?
Yeah.
And Robert Wrestler's actually theone that interviewed Ted Bundy.

Angela (52:47):
Well, my brain is bringing that back because they both, um,
Richard and Ed Geen both had athing for wearing the skin becoming.
A woman, am I totallymissing the mark here?
I love the face you're giving me.

John (53:02):
I don't remember that about Richard Speck, but maybe, maybe.
But where I started all of thisat was in explaining John Douglas.
Yeah, I

Angela (53:12):
totally got off the subject

John (53:13):
is because Douglas says that he's almost a hundred percent certain
that the killer was somebody alone,that they were from the neighborhood.
And he says that because whythrow the bikes in in the
river if you're a stranger?

Angela (53:30):
Mm-hmm.

John (53:31):
So like he said, somebody came up, they crossed that same pipe, went into the
woods, killed the boys, came back and knewthat those bikes would be evidence, threw
those bikes in, and then went back home.
Which points to obviously somebodyfrom that neighborhood area.

(53:52):
What I think happened, and I think thatJohn Douglas is the one that that said
this, I'm not coming up with this, so it'snot my thing, but what I think happened
is the boys were up playing in the woods.
Terry Hobbs came up there,or somebody came up there
and started to get after him.

(54:13):
Chris Byers was known as being kindof a little smart mouth and definitely
would've been like, you are not my dad.
You can't tell me what to do.
Mm-hmm.
Pissed off whoever it was.
They.
Reacted by smacking him or whateverhappened accidentally killing Chris
Byers for being a little smart mouthand then had to get rid of the other

(54:37):
two because they just witnessed it.
Mm-hmm.
That's, I'm pretty sure thatthat's what Douglass said.
I think it makes perfect sense to me.
Um, that's the main reason that I cameto the conclusion that the Bojangles
thing had nothing to do with it.
Gotcha.
Because if you're a completestranger, why throw the bikes in?

(54:59):
Why go back and throw thebikes in the drainage ditch?
It doesn't make any sense.
You would just get the hell out ofthere because the bikes aren't gonna
point to you and the other thing,

Angela (55:10):
but the bikes are gonna point to, there's somebody there if he's trying to
hide that there was somebody there to be,if he just wanted it to look like no one
was ever there, bike's, bodies, nothing.

John (55:22):
But a stranger wouldn't do that.
Somebody that knew the boys would do that.
But

Angela (55:27):
I would think anybody trying to cover up any kind of a crime would be
like, throw the bikes in the water too.
Let's throw everything in the water.

John (55:34):
No.
Get in the wind.
No.
I mean, what, what his, what history, whatcrime history shows us is that hiding the
bodies is an act typically of somebodyclose to the victim because they need
more time before the bodies are found.
A stranger in this situation would'vekilled the boys and headed straight

(55:55):
out to the truck stop, for instance.
And then as soon as you cross that littlebit of a field and get to the truck
stop, you have pliable deniability.
Oh yeah.
I was never in those woods.
I, and why would anybody even suspect you

Angela (56:09):
burger and be on your way?
Yep.

John (56:10):
I don't think a stranger would've put the boys in the water.
I definitely don't think astranger would've hid the clothes
the way that they were hidden.
Yeah.
I don't understand.
That's freaking weird.
It's all about making these boys disappearto either make sure they're never found,
or at least buy enough time to create analibi so that you can say, I don't know.

(56:36):
For instance, I was withDavid Jacoby all night long.
Hmm.
Playing guitar.
I was never, I was never there.
And I have a witness forthe whole time period.
And as long as you can keep thoseboys from being found for long enough,
you're able to create an alibi.
Something.
Only somebody that knew'em would need to do.
Right.
A stranger.

(56:56):
Okay.
They're just gonna take off.
Those boys would be left laying in theexact position that they were killed in.
That's, that's my take on it.

Angela (57:05):
I also entertained for a, a small portion, and I'm not sure if I'm
done with it yet, that they were killedsomewhere else and taken out there.

John (57:13):
I, I know a lot of people believe that.
I don't, um, I think that,

Angela (57:20):
I just wanna know where all the blood is then.
Like, where, where is it?

John (57:24):
I don't think that there was much blood.

Angela (57:27):
I mean, his skull was crushed.
Dude, there's gotta bemore blood than there was.

John (57:31):
Yeah.
I mean if you, if he whacked himon the head, um, and yeah, head
wounds do bleed profusely, but he,he also had a full head of hair,
which is gonna soak a lot of that.
You hit somebody on the head and throw'em in the water, the blood is gone.
It's all washing away in the water.

Angela (57:51):
They had one guy there though, saying even if you had a, a hose
when it directly at it, it wouldn'thave gotten rid of all the blood.

John (57:59):
Yeah, I know they've, they've said that the investigators also said that
the boys, after they killed them, threwwater from the creek up onto the banks
and washed all the blood off of there.
But I think that that assumesthat they knocked him in the head
and then they laid there for anextended period of time bleeding.

Angela (58:20):
Okay.

John (58:21):
If they didn't, instead just going straight into the water right then
the blood is all gone from the water.
Um, the biggest problem that I havewith killing them somewhere else and
then bringing them there is logistics.
How do you pull it off?

Angela (58:37):
I mean, I wanna know why Cherry was cleaning when he never does.
Maybe he had them there

John (58:44):
and killed them at the house.
Yeah.
And then took 'em up there.
Yeah.
I mean, maybe I can't say that that'san impossibility, but then, uh, what's
the, how do you explain the bindings?
Those ones, that's stilla, that's a tough one.
Tied your shoelaces.
Yeah.
Kind of hawk tied, I mean,in a very, very unusual way.

Angela (59:08):
And all the knots were different.
Right.

John (59:10):
I don't think I've ever heard that.

Angela (59:12):
I feel like I heard all the knots were different to, and
they thought it was to make it looklike it was more than one person.

John (59:18):
YI mean, you could be right.
I don't know about that,but what's the point of it?
I know.
It's, it's one of the mostunusual ways I've ever seen
anybody, any victim tied up.
I've never seen that before.
Of course, I'm not a homicideinvestigator, but it's
not like traditional hog.
Isn't

Angela (59:37):
that one of your PhDs that's coming in the mail?

John (59:39):
Oh, yeah, it is for sure.
But you know, like traditional hogtying is tying the feet together,
tying the hands together and thentying the hands to, to the feet.
Yeah.
These boys were tied like right handto right foot hand, left hand to
left foot, which would've still leftthem mobile like they would've been

(01:00:03):
in an awkward, awkward arm crawl.
Yeah.
They would've been in an awkwardposition, but they could still
move because their feet couldmove independently of each other.
Mm-hmm.
The only place I've ever seenanything tied in this way is some
animals, when you kill 'em, youknow, like hogs for instance.
Mm-hmm.
You tie their feet together like thatand you can wear 'em like a backpack.

(01:00:26):
Yeah.
And carry 'em owl, you know,as a, as kinda as a backpack.
So perhaps that's howthey were carried back in.
I don't know.
It's a theory that I've had is it wouldexplain why you would tie 'em in that way,
because then you could, I mean, as, asgrotesque and as terrible as it sounds,
you could essentially kinda wear 'em asa backpack and carry 'em back in there.

Angela (01:00:50):
Anybody who does this is grotesque already, so wearing them
as a backpack is not shocking.

John (01:00:55):
So I believe that, um, I believe Paradise Loss
covers the assault from Terry.
We Hobbes on the neighbor, correct.
Oh.
I'm pretty sure it comes out in thedeposition when he tried to sue.
Yeah.
Natalie Maines and,

Angela (01:01:11):
yes.

John (01:01:11):
And got his ass handed to him.
But yes.
Where the

Angela (01:01:16):
theft, the thievery from the No, that was the buyers.
Nevermind.

John (01:01:21):
No, Terry, we Hobbes a neighbor heard him beating the shit out of his
wife, I believe, and she come over andwas said something to the effect of like,
if you ever touch them again, I'm callingthe cops, or something to that effect.
And then later she was like, I thinkgetting out of the shower and Terry

(01:01:41):
Wayne Hobbes just like grabbed her.
He came in her house.
Oh yeah.
Grabbed her, like grabbedher breasts and stuff.
Mm-hmm.
And then she was like,get the hell outta here.
Yes.
And ended up leaving.
But I mean, that is a sexual assault.
Like the man without anydoubt is a violent criminal.

Angela (01:02:02):
Mm-hmm.

John (01:02:03):
I don't think that, I mean, he shot his brother-in-law.
I, yeah.
There's no, in no world can yousay that this is not a violent man.

Angela (01:02:11):
Yeah.

John (01:02:12):
So he definitely fits a profile of somebody that
could do something like this.
I think the, I think the boys were100% killed by somebody they knew.
For the reasons that I've already said.
I think that it's, again, for reasonsI already stated, I think it's
unbelievably likely they were killedby somebody very close to them.

(01:02:37):
Somebody in a position of authority.
Mm-hmm.
That could, because it's not thatdifficult to control three eight year olds
if you are in a position of authority.

Angela (01:02:48):
Yeah.

John (01:02:48):
Teachers do.
That's already scared of 30of them every freaking day.
Parents of multiple kids.
I mean, you know, I was, shit, my kidsused to have like friends sleepover
and stuff like that, and I'd have,I don't know, five or six, eight
year olds running around and I couldcontrol all five or six of 'em because
I'm in a position of authority.

Angela (01:03:07):
Yeah.

John (01:03:07):
I think it'd be very easy for one of their parents to control them
to the point that mm-hmm They'reable to, you know, I don't know.
I could, I could see 'em making themtake their clothes off and tying
themselves up and I think you're right.
Especially if it

Angela (01:03:22):
was under the guise of like, to get 'em there.
Maybe something fun, we're gonna go.

John (01:03:27):
Yeah.
Or they just walk in there.
Yeah.
What I think is the most likely is I thinkthat somebody went into those woods and.
The boys weren't supposed to be there.
And that was then the whole neighborhood.
All the parents were didn't want theirkids playing there because it was used
by transients and drug dealers and stuff.

(01:03:48):
Mm-hmm.
Because that, that truck stop andthe interstate was right there.
So it's a great place fortransient to camp and Yeah.
All of that.
So parents didn't liketheir kids being there.
I think that one of the parents mostlikely went in there looking for the boys
and they found them in there and they werepissed off because they were somewhere
where they weren't supposed to be.
Mm-hmm.

(01:04:08):
And things went bad and that's,that's how things ended up.
But what I was gonna say is, you areright when you said that the knots were
different because one of the theoriesis that whoever it was made, like one
boy tie up the neck, one boy tie up theother boy and so and more was the boy.

(01:04:29):
Well they were all boyscouts, weren't they?
All of them were Boy Scouts.
But more was more into it like Yeah.
Um, I'm pretty sure that Michael Moorewas the one that wore his uniform.
Even when they, on uns Nons scoutingdays and was wearing his uniform
that day, supposedly went andchanged into it right after school.

Angela (01:04:49):
Mm-hmm.

John (01:04:50):
Right.
Yep.
But, you know, that's kindof how I see this now.
This new DNA evidence.
We've gotta talk about that because Yeah,

Angela (01:04:59):
bring it on.
That's going to more than I do.

John (01:05:03):
Well, I really, I don't know a lot.
I know that.
Um, oh, what is that?
Vacuum?
The new, oh my gosh, I

Angela (01:05:10):
just watched that today.
Mm. You know when mybrain said, remember this?
'cause he is gonna ask you about it.
Gone.

John (01:05:18):
Well, let me look right quick.
'cause um, MVAC,

Angela (01:05:22):
thank you.
Why was that so hard to remember?

John (01:05:25):
So I know that they're going to use the MVAC on multiple pieces of evidence.
I don't know what piece, I knowthat the shoelaces got sent, but I
think for what, for whatever reason,the number 10 sticks in my mind.
10 pieces of evidence were sent.

Angela (01:05:45):
You'd being able to look stuff up on the fly while
we're talking's fun, isn't it?

John (01:05:48):
It's pretty handy.
Yeah.
So.
Yeah, I don't know.
I'd have to read extensivelyto figure it out.
But I'm, I think, I mean, multiplepieces of evidence, I do have to say,
I guess I gotta throw this out there,but I'm operating off the assumption
that you're in the same place as me.
That the three devil worshipershad absolutely freaking
nothing to do with this.

(01:06:09):
Which is how, that's how I feel.
That's a fair statement.
I mean, I don't know of almost anybodyat this point that doesn't think that.
Yeah.
I don't know how the mors,

Angela (01:06:20):
oh, I do

John (01:06:21):
that judge and that sheriff.
Oh yeah.
The freaking prosecutor.
What?
I can't think of his name,but that it should the

Angela (01:06:28):
sheriff or something.
He still thinks that it's them.

John (01:06:33):
Oh yeah.
The, the, the piece isshit, law enforcement.
But as far as like normal people, TerryWayne Hobbs is the only one I know
for certain says that they did it.
Um, Pam, and I think her, Ithink her new name is Davis.
I'm pretty positive it's Davis.
'cause she divorced that piece of shit.

Angela (01:06:53):
Mm-hmm.

John (01:06:54):
And she doesn't almost immediately

Angela (01:06:56):
moved in with her

John (01:06:56):
parents.
Yeah.
It was a little bit while after this,but essentially Terry Wayne Hobbs was
like, you just need to get over it.
Mm-hmm.
And

Angela (01:07:05):
hence another reason why I feel like he's just trying to get rid
of the kid to get him out of the way.

John (01:07:10):
Well, I don't.
I don't think it was onany of the paradise loss.
But, um, Pam would later saythat he was extremely jealous
of her relationship with Yep.
And with Stevie.
And that, um, a couple weeks beforethe murder, Stevie had asked Pam to

(01:07:30):
please leave Terry because he lovedthe girl who was his biologically,
but he didn't love Stevie, who wasnot his biologically he was adopted.
And I also know that it is tothe extent that Pam had Terry's
name removed from Stevie'sheadstone, so she thinks he did it.

Angela (01:07:52):
Mm-hmm.

John (01:07:53):
And I don't know about the Moors.
I don't know where they fall on it all.
I know that.
Pretty quiet.
Yeah.
You don't hear anything from 'em.
I know that they had all kinds ofdrinking problems and that she was
arrested at least once for DUI and stuff.
But as far as being in the publiceye, I have seen nothing from them.
Yeah.
For pretty much since far from

Angela (01:08:14):
those

John (01:08:14):
documentaries.
Yeah.
I think only the first one.

Angela (01:08:18):
Oh yeah.
'cause Mark was the onlyone that was in the rest.

John (01:08:20):
Well, Terry Wayne Hobbs was in the others too, but, and I think
Pam was too, but the Moores, I don'tthink were in any of the rest of 'em.
Mm-hmm.
They were, and you know, as far aslike, he goes as a suspect, he's out
because he was, he wasn't in town.
He was an over the road truck driver.
And he was out of townwhen the boys were killed.

(01:08:42):
So he's not a suspect.
Yeah, he can be.

Angela (01:08:44):
Yeah.

John (01:08:44):
He wasn't there.
That's proven.

Angela (01:08:46):
And I know you can't base on feelings, but Hi.
My gut feeling from him wasthat he was the only dad that
actually really loved him.
Like, okay, Mark May have loved thembecause he was spouting off and going
crazy, but his love didn't feel right.
But the mores felt more like theirpain was more palpable as real

(01:09:10):
pain, if that is making any sense.
It doesn't look to melike in your, no, I didn't

John (01:09:15):
know what you're saying, but you're talking, you're
speaking only about the fathers.
Yeah.

Angela (01:09:19):
Well, yeah.
Of the three fathers,

John (01:09:21):
yes.
Yeah, because I would say likePam Hobbes, I mean, her pain was,

Angela (01:09:27):
oh yeah.
Was she like

John (01:09:28):
screaming and freaking passed out and I mean, just rips your heart out.
Um,

Angela (01:09:33):
but then she's excited to be on TV and she's showing how
she's wearing his Boy Scout uniform

John (01:09:39):
and she's acting.
Was she

Angela (01:09:41):
jerk?
Like, I don't know.
No.
I

John (01:09:43):
think is honestly, and I can't say this, it's only speculation,
but I'm, I would say that I'm 95%certain that the doctors put her on.
Something

Angela (01:09:54):
SSRI to

John (01:09:56):
something to settle her down because that was shortly after the murders
and she, she was an absolute wreck.
I mean, you can see it.
Yeah.
When she learns that her son is dead.
I mean, that is not an act that is as rawan emotion as you can catch on camera.
That was real.
Yeah.
And then I think that they probablyhad to shoot her up with all kinds

(01:10:20):
of shit for her to even be able tofunction because she acts drunk.

Angela (01:10:26):
Yeah.
I'm pretty sure the same mo,

John (01:10:27):
she's like putting his little, um, boy Scout, um,
scarf on her head and acting.
Yeah.
Little weird and stuff.
I think that that's what we, we saw.
But

Angela (01:10:36):
you just say, it made me think, are you in on this just
a little bit like Munchen type.

John (01:10:41):
I, I went through that.
I went through that with hertoo because it was so bizarre.
And then I was like, okay, this,that would messed up sense if she's
heavily medicated to deal with this.
That would make a lot of sense.
And then when you see her inlater interviews, and she's very
intimately involved in the ForgottenWest Memphis three documentary.

(01:11:05):
Okay.
And she's, I mean, it wasdone not that long ago.
I think it was done in like2015 or something like that.
So I watched somethingthat was done in 2020.
So she was, you know.
Way older and everything.
Mm-hmm.
And you know, she's like,I just want answers.
Don't I deserve that?

Angela (01:11:25):
Yeah.

John (01:11:25):
And you can see that she's still in a tremendous amount
of pain all these years later.
So I think that was absolutely legitimate.
Um, the Moores, I think that was,but I gotta say for both Mark and
his wife, and I can't think ofher name off the top of my head,
Melissa, she's a freaking weirdo too.

(01:11:47):
I'm sorry.
But yeah, the way she actedwas very bizarre to me.
It was bizarre.
It was very bizarre.

Angela (01:11:55):
Passed away.
And it's undetermined.

John (01:11:58):
I think she OD'ed.

Angela (01:11:59):
You do?

John (01:11:59):
Yeah.
Okay.
I really do.
I believe she OD'ed.
I think it was an accidental overdose.
I think Mark Byers is a freaking weirdo,but I don't think he's a bad human being.
Right.
I really don't.
Um, in the forgotten West Memphisthree, they actually interview
his oldest or his older son.
Well, stepson Marks.

(01:12:20):
Yeah.
Um, stepson.
But it would've beenChristopher's older brother.
And he's like under shadow and everything.
'cause he doesn't want his identity.
Hell yeah.
'cause he is like, I just want,I don't wanna, I don't want
this to be my entire life.
You know, and you know,he talks about Mark and.

(01:12:41):
He doesn't say that he wasabusive or anything like that.
He just wasn't the best dad.
It didn't sound like, you know?
Yeah.
But I don't think that hewas like a, an evil man.
I really don't.
I think he's a dipshit for sure.
I think that he, he gets himself intothese issues with law enforcement,

(01:13:04):
like when they stole the furniturefrom the neighbors and Yeah.
You know, he is been in prison.
He's been a drug informant.
He's been,

Angela (01:13:11):
did he ever have that tumor removed?

John (01:13:14):
I, I don't know about it.
Yeah.
And I don't know why

Angela (01:13:17):
I care, but he's still

John (01:13:18):
alive.
I know that from JohnDouglas' description, he's
bigger than I thought he was.
He's massive.
Douglas said he is sixfive, so he's a huge man.
Yeah.
And he is a total freaking weirdo,but I don't think he's a killer.
I, I really do not believe he's a killer.
Yeah.
The mores I've already addressed, theonly person out of the entire bunch that.

(01:13:45):
I think has displayed violenttendencies is Terry Wayne Hobbs.

Angela (01:13:50):
Mm-hmm.

John (01:13:51):
We know, like I said, that he sexually assaulted a neighbor and
then his daughter came out and said,so, well, not really that poor girl.
She says that, I don't know.
I think that's the paradise lost whenshe says, am I the only 19-year-old
that has no memory of her childhood?
Like she's not come out and said she.

(01:14:13):
You can tell that she wonders,but it's like, it's gone.
Yeah.
From her memory, the way that sheacts and her significant struggles,
obviously with substance abuse,I think are key indicators.

Angela (01:14:28):
Wasn't there an outcry witness though that she told
somebody he used to mess with her?

John (01:14:33):
Um, Pam's sister did say that Pam's sister made that claim in court.
That's in, that's in the court record.
I think during that depositionis where that's at for the,
um, Natalie Main's lawsuit.
Okay.
I think is where that came out.
Where Pam's sister said that hesexually molested the daughter.

(01:14:56):
Um, I think it's, I, I, forme, it's very believable.
Mm-hmm.
That, I mean, he sexuallyassaulted the neighbor.
I think that's unequivocal.
There was a police report on it.
I think that it absolutely happened.
Yeah.
Um, the, the neighbor also testifiedthat it definitely did happen,
and she was very believable.

(01:15:17):
She, she was not like awhack job, you could tell.
Right.
She was very well spoken.
She seemed like a very smart lady.
And she just said itexactly what happened.
And if you're gonna make up a story aboutyour neighbor sexually assaulting you,
you're, they're gonna finish the job.
They're gonna rape you.

Angela (01:15:36):
Yeah.

John (01:15:37):
She just said that he showed up in her house, grabbed her breasts, and
when she started yelling at him, he left.
That's not a made up story.
You don't, why would youmake up shit like that?
You know?
So I think that it's verylikely that that did happen.
Um, you'd make it holdmore weight than that.
Of course.
Why not?
If you're making it up.
Yeah.
Why not make it up really good.

(01:15:58):
So any other outlyingquestions or just like what?
I mean, the one thing that I. Havea hard time with, in all of the, um,
in all of the documentaries, prettymuch a hundred percent of them.
The only places that I ever see thistalked about are in the book Devil's

(01:16:20):
Not, which I You haven't read, right?
No.
Is a really, really freaking good bookabout this case and, um, in John Douglas,
in his writings and stuff about this case,and that is this freaking piece of shit,
probation officer Jerry Driver who, um,nobody talks about how much he harassed

(01:16:43):
Damien before any of this happened.
For years he had been harassing Damien.
He sent him to mental institutions.
Yeah.
Had him locked up.
And then the parents actually movedin and Damien had a terrible life too.
He, he, uh, when they moved into thetrailer park, he said for the first

(01:17:06):
time in his life, he didn't feelpoor moving into a trailer park.
Yeah.
Because he could have ashower anytime he wanted to.
I mean, what does that tell youabout the life that this kid had?

Angela (01:17:17):
Yeah.

John (01:17:18):
Like he feels like he's moving into a mansion when
he moves into a trailer park.
Like he, this kid had a terriblefreaking childhood and at one time.
His parents were in Oregon.
He didn't want to be in Oregon, so hecame back to West Memphis and went to the
high school to try to sign up for school.

(01:17:39):
And the high school said, you can'tsign up for school without a parent.
So he left and Jerry Driver came andarrested him for, geez, for truancy,
for, for not living with his parents?
No.
And then sending backinto the mental hospital.
This went on for years.
Jerry Driver absolutely harassed DamianKels for years and years and years.

(01:18:05):
And then it's rumor, but I've heardit said that when they pulled the
boys out of the water, somebody onthe scene said he finally did it.
He finally did it.
Damien Eccles finallykilled her, but over that

Angela (01:18:21):
too.
Yeah.

John (01:18:22):
And that would've been Jerry Driver, I'm sure.
It would've been Jerry Driver becausehe was convinced that, and he said, I
was searching for Lucifer everywhere.
Jerry Driver said that he was absolutelyconvinced about this nonsensical
freaking satanism shit that wasgoing on in West Memphis, Arkansas.

(01:18:46):
Yeah, and this is like the peakof the Satanic panic of the early,
the late eighties and early 1990s.
And these boys were swept up in it.
And I think it says, the other thing Iwanted to talk about is it's unbelievable
to me that the prosecuting attorneyon the Alfred plea, and I can't

(01:19:08):
think of the freaking douche bag'sname, but I don't like them either.
Yeah.
Because.
He actually said in a pressconference that we had to basically
get rid of this because thoseboys were gonna get a new trial.
We weren't gonna get, we weren'tgonna be able to convict them.
So the state of Arkansas was gonnahave to pay millions of dollars for

(01:19:29):
wrong wrongfully, convicting them.
So I had to accept the alpha queen sothat the state wouldn't have to pay.
That's like coming out and saying,we know that we jelled these boys
for 18 years wrongfully, but wedon't wanna have to pay for that.
So we had to come up with something.

Angela (01:19:48):
When you said, do you wanna know something else that'll
piss you off, is that what it was?
Or was there something elsebecause that pissed you off?
I don't know.

John (01:19:55):
There's so much,

Angela (01:19:56):
it's like, 'cause you don't wanna pay wrongful.

John (01:19:58):
Yeah.
What, and I mean, I gotta believethere are people shitting in
their britches right now over thisnew DNA evidence being tested.
There are, if they come back and I don'tmess up, if them boys are exonerated,
they are gonna be able to sue the shit.
Yeah.
Out of the state of Arkansas.

(01:20:18):
And I think they should.
And I think that they shouldname the judge personally.
I think they should name theprosecuting attorney that Sheriff,
personally, the freaking investigatorshould be named personally.
That, and you know that asshole,I can't think of his name,
but he's the one that's like.
How strong of a case on a scale ofone to 10, how strong of vicarious?

(01:20:40):
That's Gwinnet.
That's not his name.

Angela (01:20:43):
Oh, I think it is.

John (01:20:44):
It's something like that, but it's not that

Angela (01:20:47):
Gnet.
Gwinnett, that last name.

John (01:20:49):
Che.
Gary Gich Gill.
Yeah.
So what's Gwyneth then?
I have no idea.
I don't think I've heard that name.

Angela (01:20:55):
All right.

John (01:20:57):
But yeah, Gary Haw and he is like, it's an 1111.
And when you, he

Angela (01:21:02):
did later say I was cocky when I said that.

John (01:21:05):
Yeah.
I might have overstated, butyou know, an 11 on what exactly.
Yeah.
You have no evidence, no physicalevidence whatsoever at that time?
Absolutely none.
Because they, we have,they just arrested them.
They had the confession.
That was it.

Angela (01:21:23):
Yeah.
We have the badgeredconfession out of Ms. Kelly,

John (01:21:28):
and then the judge allowing the freaking prosecutor to use a grapefruit to
show how the knife would leave wounds andthe, they don't show it in, I don't think
they show it in any of the documentaries,but the defense strenuously objected to
that and said, um, grapefruits are not.

(01:21:52):
They scientifically used to imitate, andthe judge was like, I'm gonna allow it.
I'll allow it, whatever.
And the insane idea that somebody isgoing to use the back edge of a knife.
Yeah.
And like, scratch some.
That's not, people don't do that shit.
Not ever do they never, it's gonnahalf-ass this murder, you know?

(01:22:15):
I mean, it, it is so insane to me.
And then, um, Jesse's or, uh, Jason's momtestified that she threw that knife in the
lake over a year before the murders Yeah.
Took place.
And I mean, it's just,this case is so insane.

(01:22:37):
It's probably one of the mostegregious cases of mis prosecutor,
prosecutorial misconduct I've everheard of, at least in the modern world.
I, I, I, I think that the prosecutor,the investigators, I think they
knew these boys didn't do it.

(01:22:59):
Mm-hmm.
I, I think they actually knew thatthey were railroading innocent kids.
I know that sometimes investigatorsget like tunnel vision and Yeah.
And they really feellike this is the killer.
And I don't think that was the case here.

(01:23:20):
I think that they honestlyrailroaded these kids on purpose,
and that's a travesty of justice

Angela (01:23:28):
because that guy wanted Damien Knuckles so damn bad.

John (01:23:31):
And this bunch of freaking incompetent lunatics had to solve the
murder of three 8-year-old boys, and theywere absolutely incompetent to do so.
So they had to get somebody.
Yeah,

Angela (01:23:47):
and they actually said that too.
The town was looking atus to close this case.
Right?

John (01:23:52):
Yeah.
I don't know.
Yeah.
All

Angela (01:23:54):
towns look at our law enforcement to close scary cases, but
we would like them closed correctly.

John (01:24:00):
A hundred percent.
Yeah.
I don't freaking want nobody goingto jail when they're innocent.

Angela (01:24:07):
Mm-hmm.

John (01:24:07):
You know, and I think that Jason's perspective on the offered plea,
if there was any doubt in anybody'smind, him being like, kiss my ass.
I am not doing this.
I will die in prisonbefore I say I did this.
So no, you loved Damien so much.

(01:24:27):
And the falling out that they'vehad has been, it's just tragic.
It's Oh,

Angela (01:24:31):
they have since then?

John (01:24:32):
Yeah.

Angela (01:24:33):
Oh, I haven't gone too far into now,

John (01:24:36):
apparently.
And I don't know any of this, soit's not an accusation, it's just
what I've read that Lori and Damienpretty much took over all of the
money that was raised from everything.
And Jason is pretty much completelydestitute from what I understand.
He's moved back to Arkansas.

(01:24:56):
Jesse never left.
Never left, yeah.
Um, he's still living in Arkansas andhe has nothing to do with freaking
anybody in the forgotten West Memphis.
Three.
The investigator visits a place and he'slike, we can't bring the cameras in here.
Jesse will not haveanything to do with it.
And you can hear Jessewon't even come out.

(01:25:16):
He's like in a room.
He's like in a room at the end ofthe hall with the door shut and
you can hear the investigator belike, Hey Jesse, it's so and so.
And I just, I wanted your permission totest this DNA and Jesse's like, I don't
care what you do, that's fine with me.
Get outta my house.
He wants nothing to do with any of this.
He just wants to live his life.

(01:25:37):
Yeah.
And he's, and he's doing, so he's back,he's went right back to West Memphis.
I think he lives withhis dad or couch surface.
Oh my goodness.
Couch surfs or something.
Did

Angela (01:25:49):
his dad leave that other wife that That bitch, yeah.

John (01:25:53):
No, but she was rich.

Angela (01:25:55):
Oh my.
We were like, uh, yeah, we don't like her.
'cause he was like, if he'sinnocent, and she goes, no,

John (01:26:02):
well, no.
Is what the argument was.
And I could see where she was comingfrom, but she was like, if he did
this, we won't give him a nickel.
And then Jesse Senior waslike, oh yes, we will fun.
And she's like, oh no, we'regonna have a problem about this.
And I'm, and I'm thinking when I'mwatching that, I'm like, if this bitch
will fight with him on camera like this.

(01:26:24):
Oh yeah.
I cannot even imagine what she's like.
Yeah.
In private.

Angela (01:26:28):
And then they made specific to pan on her when they were
singing the Happy, when the happy

John (01:26:35):
birthday.
She was all snarling and bitchy.
Yeah.
Yeah.
She was freaking something else.

Angela (01:26:40):
She is gotta go.

John (01:26:42):
Yes.
She's something else.
But, but yeah, I don't, I don't know.
I wanted to get something out becausethe DNA has been sent off and I
think it's really exciting time.

Angela (01:26:52):
Yeah.
Like a prelude to, Hey, we're gonnaget to talk about more of this.

John (01:26:56):
Yeah.
Yeah.
And this case is gonna beextraordinarily difficult to cover.
I mean, yeah.
It is such a massive case and.
I mean, we've talked aboutthis with other cases, like the
Moore Murray case and stuff.
When there's so much information,you don't know what mm-hmm.
To include and not include.

(01:27:16):
Yeah.
And Moore Murray is a freakingdrop in the bucket compared to
the West Memphis three case.
I, I mean this, what an importance.

Angela (01:27:26):
But in

John (01:27:26):
no Ian quantity.
Yeah.
Well, in quantity of, of what's out there.

Angela (01:27:31):
I just wanted to make sure that we made that

John (01:27:33):
clear.
A hundred percent.
Yeah.
But no, as far as like, you know, truecrime wasn't really popular in 1993.
Paradise Lost is the first, thefirst that I'm aware of where
the cameras were actually onscene during the original trial.
I think they Yeah.

(01:27:53):
Were groundbreaking.

Angela (01:27:54):
Yeah.

John (01:27:55):
In that, and they were band to the second

Angela (01:27:57):
one.

John (01:27:58):
And I think that, so from 1993, you start having this evidence, but
then you get like Harry Rowlands, JohnnyDepp, the Dixie Chicks, freaking Eddie
Veder, Metallica, all of these peopleand, and all of this money flowing in.

(01:28:18):
And then the, um, the couple from NewZealand, um, I can't think of their name,
but they became very, very much involved.
And I think they're the ones that didthe Second and Third Paradise lost.
But he's like, he was like thedirector of Lord of the Rings.

Angela (01:28:36):
Oh yeah.
Okay.

John (01:28:38):
And so, I mean, you're talking to like big, big, big
huge Hollywood hitters, you know?
I mean, and Johnny Depp was intimatelyinvolved in west of Memphis.
The, another movie I Did youwatch it West of Memphis?
No.
Yeah, so it's a movie that he wasin very involved in producing.

Angela (01:28:57):
See, and that's what I was thinking, that he
was involved in something.
But when I got done with The ParadiseLost, other people were like, Johnny got
involved because he watched Paradise Lost.
And I was like, okay, sowhich one did he help fund?
'cause I knew that he helped,

John (01:29:12):
it was west of Memphis.
Okay.
Yeah.
And it was years after Paradise Lost.
Okay.
Yeah.
Um, it was after find one, itwas after they were, after the
Alfred Plea was, was accepted.
Oh, okay.
Actually.
So, um, I'll have to go find that,

Angela (01:29:28):
because there are pictures of him and Damien all over the place.
Like

John (01:29:31):
Oh yeah.
Him, um, Eddie Veter visitedDamien in prison multiple times.
You know, I don't know, I don'tknow to what degree Metallica
was involved, but mm-hmm.
And they

Angela (01:29:43):
soundtrack the whole thing.

John (01:29:45):
Well, that's, that's where I was going with that is, sorry, for those
of you that are not huge Metallicafans like me, you might not realize
this, but Metallica does not lettheir music be used for anything.
Know nothing.
They never have.
They probably never will.
You'll never hear a freakingMetallica song on a commercial.

(01:30:05):
You'll never hear aMetallica song on anything.
Part of the reason for that isbecause they were blackballed
by MTV, and so they were like,screw it, we'll do it our own way.
And everybody can just f off.
And so they don't ever let their musicbe used for anything to, so to watch
a movie where the entire soundtrack isMetallica, the entire soundtrack is huge.

(01:30:28):
I mean, is huge.

Angela (01:30:28):
Sometimes they singing a lot.

John (01:30:30):
Yeah.
And so, and I don't know, I knowthat they, that they donated
money to the cause and stuff.
They obviously, but

Angela (01:30:38):
do you have a concert?

John (01:30:39):
Sorry, I keep interrupting you.
Harry Rollins, um, orchestrated a hugeconcert with all kinds of different,
um, bands and, and stuff like that.
Performing.
Yeah.
Yeah.
For, and if you don't know, he'sthe lead singer of, um, black Flag.
And.
He wa he's also, he's also an actor.
He's been in several different movies.

(01:30:59):
But um, you know, Hollywood justreally jumped in with these kids
and they're the reason hands down.
Mm-hmm.
People like Eddie Veter, Natalie Maines,Johnny Depp, Matt and those kind of people
getting involved are the only reason thatthese boys are out the state of Arkansas.
They figured that they were gonnausher these kids off to prison.

Angela (01:31:23):
It would be quiet.
Ever since

John (01:31:24):
Danien would be put to death, the other two would die in prison
and nothing would ever happen Andhad had HBO not made Paradise lost.
That's exactly what would've happened.
Yeah.
That's exactly what would've happened.
And you know, when you get toresearching some of these cases,

(01:31:44):
like I said, I'm freaking up to myears in the Jennings eight case right
now and I'm going to be for a while.
That's a lot.
'cause you're a tall dude.
Yeah, well I'm way overmy head on this one.
And then, you know how that tiesinto the Boys on the Tracks killing,
which has also happened in Arkansas.
And the corruption in these policedepartments across well and across

(01:32:10):
the southern states is reallywhere it got out of hand and.
I don't know.
You, you just realize like you havethis sense that the justice system
works, and I don't If it's used howit should, then it does, it will work.
But you know, when you havesomebody like this judge, it's Judge

(01:32:34):
Barnett, this the piece of shit.
I, I think he's a senator now.
I know he was elected to, tothe Senate, thank God, David

Angela (01:32:41):
Barnett.

John (01:32:41):
Right?
Yeah.
But when you have a judge like Barnettwho has his thumb on the scale, and
he's gonna make it come out the waythat he wants it to come out regardless.
Mm-hmm.
Then, well, that's not how ourjustice system was designed.
And it's gonna fail every time.
And so this, this case and others like itis what causes this paradox in my brain

(01:33:07):
when talking about the death penalty.
Like, you know, you're talking about apiece of shit like Dale Wayne Eaton, and
I'm like, fry him off, throw the switch.
But then you, if you're at a placewhere an innocent man in 1993, and then
I think that the, they were finallyreleased in what, 2000 and something?
11,

Angela (01:33:27):
10.
11

John (01:33:28):
2000.
Yeah.
Something like that.
Then, I mean, that's not very long ago.
And we have a boy.
On death row, who is, Ithink unequivocally innocent.
I, I, I don't know that anybody canmake an intelligent argument that
these boys were involved in any way.
I think almost everybody outsideof, like you said, Arkansas

(01:33:51):
government and law enforcement Yeah.
Comes out and says, Z boys are innocent.
Like this is a very clear cut case ofan innocent man being put on death row.
And there's multiple cases.
It's not the only one.
And there's been multiple peopleput to death that were innocent.
Yeah.
It really does.
It's, it's, like I said, it's thisparadox in my brain, like I want to

(01:34:14):
support and believe in the death penalty.
And I want people like Dale, WayneEaton and Ted Bundy, like, it's, it's
a relief to me to know Ted Bundy isnot on the face of this earth anymore.
He was eliminated because he was so evil.
He didn't belong in, in this society.

(01:34:35):
I can get on board with that, butthen there's the question of, and
for me personally, if we executeone innocent person that's too many.
Mm-hmm.
Like we, that cannot happen.
We like, there's no takebacks.

Angela (01:34:52):
Yeah.
With the death penalty, youcannot unring that bell.

John (01:34:55):
And there have been multiple people put to death that later.
We're exonerated and proventhat they were not guilty.
Damien Eccles would havebeen one, certainly would.
He would've been put to death and then allof this shit would've later come out and
we'd be like, oh my God, what did we do?
So, I don't know, I that's, that'snot an easy answer for that for me.

(01:35:18):
No.
But anything else thatyou wanna talk about?
Something else

Angela (01:35:22):
A second ago I was gonna ask you, and I can't remember what it was,

John (01:35:27):
what'd you think of David Jacoby?
Because one of Jacoby's hairswas also identified at the scene.

Angela (01:35:33):
See, I don't think he stood out enough to me because I
don't even really remember him.
I only re really remember him as the,well, he was with me for a while and
then he left and we played guitarand then he was like, oh, you should
go change and get a a flashlight.
I'm gonna go change and get aflashlight and we'll go look.

John (01:35:51):
So I'm almost positive that this is in one of the paradise lots
where John Douglas is talking toDavid Jacoby and they have like the.
Diorama of Robin HILs and stuffin front of him, and Jacoby just
starts bawling because he hadseen Stevie Abused by Terry Hobbs.

Angela (01:36:11):
Huh?
I don't remember that.

John (01:36:12):
It could have, I've, I've watched everything there is on this freaking case,
so it might not have been one of those, itmight have been west of Memphis, actually.

Angela (01:36:21):
I also am the type that I need to watch things twice, and then
I'm like, okay, I picked that up, so

John (01:36:27):
I'm pretty sure you would've remembered it.
I bet it's in west of Memphis.
I think it's in west ofMemphis, but, well, I'm

Angela (01:36:32):
gonna go find that one.
I don't know about tonight, but,but else was I gonna ask you though,

John (01:36:37):
but you know, I think that John Douglas feels like
Jacobi is absolutely innocent.
There is that weird statement that Iwas telling you about from the guy where
there's like the homosexual stuff goingon and Jacoby's making out, and I've
heard that with Terry Wayne Hobbes,and I don't think anybody's heard that.
It's not on any documentarythat I'm aware of.
I only know it because I found it and readit and I was like, holy shit, this is new.

(01:37:02):
Yeah, I never heard of this one before,but I, I just don't believe that
this, that this case has, and I'lluse Griffith's, his word against him.
I don't believe that thishas the trappings of a murder
committed by four people.
Yeah.
I think this is a singleoffender homicide.
I really, really think this, I knowsingle offender homicide, it's very rare.

(01:37:26):
Very rare that.
Multiple people wouldcommit a crime like this,

Angela (01:37:32):
then I, I need to know who the Bojangles man is and what I
don't think you're ever gonna know.
Uh, that wasn't my question though.
What the hell was I gonna ask

John (01:37:42):
you?
So you really should watch the forgottenWest Memphis three because he gets a
guy that was like ex British SpecialForces and brings him to the crime scene.
And then this guy has to make his wayto bo to Bojangles to see if it was

(01:38:03):
even possible to do it in the amount oftime it would've had to been done in.

Angela (01:38:07):
Yeah.
But things are geo geography'sa little different now.
Like there's fences thatweren't there before and

John (01:38:13):
Yeah.
But their, the whole, youjust have to watch it.
Their whole take is, if you justmurdered three boys, you're gonna stick
down close to the diversion canal andnot be up where people can see you.
So this guy makes his way all theway down there and everything.
He swims the diversion canalbecause he had to have crossed it.
And when he comes out on theother side, he's completely clean.

(01:38:34):
There's no mud because going across thecanal washed all the mud off of him.
Mm-hmm.
And so they were like, there's no possibleway that this guy came up this way.
So how he got all freakingcovered in mud and shit?
Who knows?
And.
You know, I mean, this is amajor freaking interstate.

(01:38:56):
Interstate 10 is a major, major, themajor interstate that goes across the
southern part of the United States, youknow, and so it has all kinds of freaking
transient and shit like that on it.
The truck stop was right acrossthe, the diversion canal.

(01:39:17):
Mm-hmm.
So I think that it's at least plausiblethat this guy got the shit kicked out
of him or something like that, and madehis weight a bojangles and went in there
to try to freaking get the bleeding tostop and everything because there's no
evidence that the blood I, there's, wehave no clue who the blood belongs to.

(01:39:38):
But yeah, we don't knowthat it belongs to the boys.
But the other problem that I have withthat is in order for the Bojangles guy to
have killed them, he had to have killedthem right there in Robinhood Hills.
And if he was covered inblood, where the hell else is?
Where's the rest of the blood?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Because he is not gonna get coveredhead to toe in freaking blood and

(01:40:01):
then there's no blood at the scene.
Right.
I just think it's an odd coincidence,but that's my, that's my opinion.
Very coincidental.

Angela (01:40:11):
It happens.

John (01:40:12):
It does happen.
I mean, weird shithappens all the time and.
Having lived near an interstate, amajor interstate, I I 25 down near
Denver, you see some of the strangestfreaking people at those truck
stops and shit on the interstates.
Like all kinds of weirdoscongregate in those areas.

(01:40:32):
So I don't know if it's thatunusual really, that something
like that would happen.
I just, that it happened atthe, on the same night they did
show that he had plenty of time.
I think it took that guy 17 minutes toget from the crime scene to Bojangles.
I mean, it, it's a mile away.
So it's not like it's very far at all.

(01:40:54):
It's definitely possible,but I don't know.
I don't know.
I think that, of course, I've saidin my opinion multiple times, I
think it was somebody the boys knew.
I think it had to be.

Angela (01:41:03):
Mm-hmm.

John (01:41:04):
And I think it was only one person, you know, I can't,
it's, it's so unbelievably rarethat a group of people would kill
8-year-old boys in this fashion.
I've never heard of anything like it.
I know that, you know, we'vecovered the Chicago Ripper crew,
which is a, a major outlier.

(01:41:25):
Yeah.
Where a group was, you know, kind ofritualistically killing women in Chicago.
We know of pairs.
There's been several pairs Yeah.
That have, that have killed like this.
But this doesn't strikeme as a serial crime.
This strikes me as a crime of anger.

(01:41:46):
Somebody got really pissed off andit got outta hand, and then they had
to get rid of a couple witnesses.
You think it has all the earmarks of that?
I don't see, obviously, I see absolutelyzero ritualistic elements to this.
I think that's so insane.
It doesn't leave.
You can't hardly even bringthat in the conversation.
And although the boys werestripped, I don't see any sexual

(01:42:09):
component to this crime either.
I think that it was 100% angerthat just somebody lashed out.
I think that from all of thedescriptions, even Mark Byers will
say this, that Christopher Byerswould've been the one that would've
been like, I ain't listening to you.
You're not my dad.

(01:42:29):
Mm-hmm.
I think that's very likely what happened.
Somebody smacked him.
Maybe he fell and hit his heador something like that, and.
And then you do have to ask, the otherquestion is, I have, I don't think
the amount of faith that I have inthese investigators, I don't believe
you could fit in a thimble like

Angela (01:42:49):
mm-hmm.

John (01:42:50):
I had zero faith.
Like I said, they went two months later,they're like, oh shit, the sticks.
Maybe we should have kept thoseand they, they go back out and
gather up a couple, like you'retalking about dip shits that Yeah.
Took the bodies out of the water,didn't process the crime scene
at all like they should have.

(01:43:13):
And those are the ones that aretelling us there was no blood anywhere.
Yeah.
For all I know one of the boys, I mean,there's a tree, there was a tree out there
that had a big old bonk of like skulltissue and hair and blood and shit on it.
And they just didn't see it.
'cause they're dumb as shit.
Yeah.

(01:43:33):
I mean, if we, if this was like a reallywell investigated crime and everything, I
think you could say with confidence therewas no blood found at the scene with this
bunch of freaking clowns running the show.
I mean, this is a bunch of moronsthat say, oh yeah, it was definitely
a tic and it was ritualistic.
And I've,

Angela (01:43:55):
and it's okay to take a statement through a drive up window, right.

John (01:43:59):
I mean, you're talking about this, this bunch of dip shit.
Certain ones.
I know she has troublesleeping every night.
I don't think she gives a shit.
I don't think any of thesepeople have a hard time sleeping.
'cause they think, they thinkwhat they did was right.
Disgusting.
But, so I don't know that therewas no blood at the scene.

(01:44:19):
Yeah, I know there wasn'tlike copious amounts of blood
because it would've been seen.
But yeah.
I also have to say that I'm a hunter.
I've hunted my entire life.
Mm-hmm.
I have followed blood trails ofanimals that were bleeding heavily.

Angela (01:44:38):
Mm-hmm.

John (01:44:39):
And you really gotta search, like it falls on the
ground and it almost disappears.
Right now they have those speciallights that are, that illuminate.
Yeah.
It illuminates blood.
But you know, at the time, if we'renot talking about like a body being
drained of blood and these boys werenot, no, there's no evidence of that.

(01:45:03):
We're talking about, you know, astandard head wound bleed in the woods
and nothing saying that it had to haveoccurred right at the Bank of the Crick.
It could have been, you know.
25 yards away.

Angela (01:45:20):
Mm-hmm.

John (01:45:20):
I'm not con, I am at, not at all convinced that this bunch of dip shits
thoroughly searched that entire woods.
Yeah.
I've never heard asingle, I don't, I don't.
I'm almost a hundred percent certainthat there was never a grid search done
of this tiny little half acre patch ofwoods, which absolutely blows my mind.

(01:45:44):
Yeah.
Because before the boys were found, andespecially after the boys were found,
there should have been a grid search done.
Mm-hmm.
Of those entire woods.
Yep.
Now, if you're talking about a huge500 acre patch, then you do a grid
search for, I don't know, a hundredyards every direction, whatever.

(01:46:06):
Mm-hmm.
You know, and, and you do a gridsearch of that 'cause you're looking
for evidence that might be there.
Maybe somebody was running from the sceneand drop their wallet, who the hell knows?
Right.
But I don't think it ever happened.
I've never heard any discussion of it.
I've read all kinds of the police reportsand the documents surrounding this case.

(01:46:28):
I've never heard anybody talk about it.
So unless we know for a fact thatthose boys were killed, right.
Where they were found, and I don'tmean back at somebody's house, I mean,
they could have easily been killed.
10, 15, 20 yards back into the woods andtaken to the water to dispose of, which

(01:46:50):
makes perfectly logical sense to me.

Angela (01:46:53):
Well, and two of 'em didn't complete death until drowning.
Right.

John (01:46:59):
All three of the boys drowned.

Angela (01:47:02):
Okay.
I heard one didn't.

John (01:47:04):
All three of the boys drowned.
Okay.
Yeah.
And that's made extremely clear in theforgotten West Memphis three because he
takes the autopsy reports to a medicalexaminer and has her review everything.
And she confirms that the cause of deathis, she agrees the cause of death for
all three boys was drowning because ofthe frothy material found in their lungs.

(01:47:28):
Okay.
And then she also says that everywound, other than the head wounds,
looks to her like it was postmortem.
She doesn't, she doesn't think thatany of the ritualistic injuries Yeah.
Were antimortem.
Okay.
So, so all three of the boys were alivewhen they were thrown in the water.

(01:47:49):
And, you know, I mean, I think it'svery reasonable to assume you've just
killed these three boys in the woods.
Now we gotta get rid of the body.
Where, where does it make most sense?
Oh, we can put it in the water.
Mm-hmm.
And if that's, if you gotta carrythree little boys, three little
8-year-old boys, 10, 15, 20, 50 yards.

(01:48:10):
That's not a huge undertaking andyou're in the woods under the cover
of the woods, so it's not like you,you wouldn't do something like that.
So when all the conversation isabout there's no blood there.
There's no blood there.
We only know for a fact that there'sno blood on the banks of that creek.

Angela (01:48:27):
Yeah.

John (01:48:28):
We don't know that there was no pools of blood in Robinhood in the
whole Robinhood Hills Forester area.
True, true.
So, I don't know, but it'sa, it's an insane case.
Very much.
And I think what I was gettingto a little bit earlier is I want
to do a deep dive into this case.
I think it, it would be responsiblefor us to wait now until we find out

(01:48:52):
what happens with the DNA N results.

Angela (01:48:54):
Yeah.

John (01:48:55):
And then, um, you know, when I was talking about it before and
got sidetracked is, you know, likethe, that's probably my fault.
I, no, it wasn't, I don't think.
But you know, like the more andMurray case had a lot of information.
I talked about that duringthe case and this case, and
it's a baby compared to this.
Like this case is so enormous.

(01:49:16):
There's been multiple three,well, no four major motion
pictures made about this case.
You know, well, no, five'cause devil's not, is.
Have you watched that one?
No.
So Devil's Not Is, uh,is a movie about it.
It's not a documentary,it's a movie about the case.
It's based on the book Devil's Not, whichis a freaking really, really good book.

(01:49:41):
But, so five major motion pictures made onthis, and then I, I couldn't even begin to
guess how many podcasts and, and Oh man.
Lower budget documentaries.
And then you have, like I said, the,the forgotten West Memphis three.
That's a three part special.
Mm-hmm.

(01:50:01):
You said there was an ID mystery.
Yeah.
And I'm sure I've seen that.
But, um, I mean, so you're talkingabout so much information and
there's been so many FOIA requestssubmitted for this, and so much
information now is out in the public.
Like I said, you can, you can pullup all kinds of court records.

(01:50:22):
Then you have the whole lawsuitbetween Terry Hobbs and Natalie Maines.
Yeah.
That and that whole deposition, whichbrought out all kinds of new shit.
And so it's like.
Trying to drink from a fire hose.
There's mm-hmm.
So much information andyou're like, son of a bitch.
This is gonna be like a75 part freaking series.

(01:50:43):
How do I start, where do I end?
What's happening?
Yes.
How do I not include everything?
But yeah, you can't include everythingbecause the listeners are gonna get tired
of, we're just gonna have to be Yeah.
The West Memphis three podcast for a year.
I mean, well, some podcasts do that.
They do.
Yeah.
But, so I don't know, I don'tknow what the answer is.

(01:51:03):
I know we'll be covering the case because,because I've researched it for so long
and I'm passionate about the case.
It's a case we definitely are gonna cover.
I gotta figure out how, and I don'tthink I want to cover it and now
until the DNA evidence is back.
Because that could be months.
It it could be, yeah.

(01:51:23):
I mean, it goes so muchfaster now than it could, but

Angela (01:51:27):
if they wanted to,

John (01:51:29):
well, it's in a private lab.
Okay.
So it's not, the state of Arkansasis not processing it, it, it
has been sent to a private lab.
So they'll go through, I, Idon't think it'll take that long.
And what it's gonnashow who the hell knows.

Angela (01:51:44):
Yeah.

John (01:51:45):
I don't know how the evidence has been handled over the last what.
25, like 30 years.
We

Angela (01:51:52):
should take a look at key players that are still alive
now that this information isout and what are they doing?
Are they scurrying?
Are they
Yeah.
Sitting back.
Are they comfortable?
We need to take a look at that.

John (01:52:06):
Yeah.
If I was to guess, and this is justmy opinion, Terry Wayne Hobbs is
shitting his britches right now.
Yeah.

Angela (01:52:13):
We should watch him.
Yeah.
How, how do we watch him?
Let's find Terry Wayne Hobbs.

John (01:52:18):
Yeah.
I don't know where he is at these days.
I really don't.
I, he's still alive.
He's still around.
Um, you know, Mark Byers is still alive.
He's remarried to Oh,

Angela (01:52:28):
really?

John (01:52:29):
Yeah.
Yeah.
From what I understand to apretty, a pretty good woman.
Uh, John keeps him grounded.
Yeah.
I mean, John, John Douglas had a lot ofgood stuff to say about her and Okay.
And really, he had a lot of goodstuff to say about Mark Byers,
which speaks volumes because Yeah.
You know, I mean, if, if hefelt Mark Byers was a creepy

(01:52:49):
bastard, he would say so.
Yeah.
So he's just

Angela (01:52:53):
off though there,

John (01:52:55):
he's a freaking weirdo.
There is no doubt about that.
He's a weirdo.

Angela (01:52:58):
Sorry, he's just off.
I, we're all off in our own ways,but most of us don't spout it in the
forest in front of a documentary team.

John (01:53:09):
Right.

Angela (01:53:10):
So,

John (01:53:10):
but you know, I mean, uh, where a lot of my hope is at is that.
We're able to get answers inthis case while Mark Byers,
the Moores and Pam Davis.
I think I'm, I'm almost positive.
I was feeling like you're

Angela (01:53:28):
right too.

John (01:53:29):
Is Pam Davis while they're still alive Yeah.
I want to give them, I, I'm,personally I can't, but I want
them to have the answer Yeah.
To what happened to their baby boys

Angela (01:53:42):
mm-hmm.

John (01:53:43):
Before they die, you know?

Angela (01:53:45):
Yeah.

John (01:53:45):
And I think that every parent that, I

Angela (01:53:48):
mean, Melissa knows now, but she had to die to do it, so.

John (01:53:51):
Right.
Yeah.
And I think every parent thatloses a child, that's like
their, their one big hope is thatthey'll, they'll have an answer.
Mm-hmm.
You know, before they go.
So, I don't know.
I, the, uh, are you familiar, we talkeda little bit about the Bardstown cases,
you know that Crystal Rogers, they

Angela (01:54:12):
Oh, yeah.

John (01:54:13):
Okay.
Brooks, yeah.
You know, that he was convictedand all that kinda shit.
But the only reason I brought that upis because I was thinking about Terry,
her dad, who I think was murdered.

Angela (01:54:24):
Yeah.
Oh, yeah.

John (01:54:24):
But I don't know.
Did you know that his sister disappeared?

Angela (01:54:29):
No.

John (01:54:29):
Yeah, his sister disappeared.
So, and then the Russell's aunt?
Correct.
Okay.
They searched for her for yearsand years and years and years.
Finally found her body well.
Her dad said that they got enoughback to fit in a cigar box.
Well, because her husbandburned her and buried her.

(01:54:52):
And then So completely separate.
Creepo.
Totally unrelated.
Wonderful.
And we're talking years andyears and that and years before,
what are the freaking odds?
And then his daughter, the same thing.
And then him, he was absolutely murdered.
I have no doubt about that.
Oh yeah.
He

Angela (01:55:11):
knew too much.
He was in the

John (01:55:12):
wrong place and Yep.
And like the, the sheriff's deputy,I dunno where he fits in, but I
think he's involved, not involved.
I think that he was killed bythe same group of shitheads.
I don't know, it's just,that's another freaking case.
But, but yeah, I mean, I don't knowwhy I brought that up, but you know,
they just, that was very recent.

(01:55:34):
Mm-hmm.
That they finally convictedthat son of a bitch, you know?
And then I hope that not only didthe parents in the West Memphis
three kids get the answers thatthey need, I want the son of a bitch
that did it, no matter who it is.
If it's not Terry fine, Idon't have an ax to Ryan.

(01:55:54):
I don't give a shit who it is.
It doesn't have to be Terry.
We just wanna know who, and I wantthe son of a bitch to be alive so
that he can go to freaking prison and.
Have all the terribleshit happened to him.
Yeah.
That happened to the innocentboys that were put in prison
because their life was terrible.
Yeah.
During, in prison.
I mean they, you know, both Jesse'snever really come out and talked at all.

(01:56:18):
Both Jason and Damien have talkedabout being raped and being, having
the shit kicked out of them timeand time and time again because
they were child killers and Yeah.
I mean it was not, Damion

Angela (01:56:31):
was not taking care of medically for anything that
actually needed medical assistance.
'cause they were justgonna kill him anyway.

John (01:56:39):
Yeah.
Medically, Damian really suffered hiseyesight was really bad and I think he has
like all lifelong medical problems mm-hmm.
That stem from his time in prison.
Yeah.
Um, yeah.
'Angela: cause they were just gonna kill him anyway, so why take care of him.
Right.
And I mean, you know, prisons by nature.

Angela (01:56:58):
Well, and I get that if it's legit, but when it's
not, it's so heartbreaking.

John (01:57:03):
It is.
Yeah.
And I mean, I'm not sayingthat it, it is okay.
I'm just saying that by nature, prisonsdon't have top-notch medical care.
No.
You know, and then.
I don't know.
It's a tragic freaking story.
It's one that I hope we aregetting some answers to soon.
Um, I know that I've kind of beenpushing you to watch Paradise Loss

(01:57:24):
for a while, so I was excited that

Angela (01:57:28):
I texted him.
I'm, I'm watching the one.
What?
Yes, you are.

John (01:57:33):
I had no idea that you were gonna about three hours later, still watching

Angela (01:57:37):
them.

John (01:57:38):
But it's a, it is one of those where once you watch, when
you like go, you can't stop.
No.
You just gotta, you gotta keep going.
You gotta keep going.

Angela (01:57:46):
It helped that it was on the HBO platform and it just said,
upcoming, do you wanna watch or stop?
And I was like, whatever.

John (01:57:54):
Yep, let's

Angela (01:57:55):
keep going.
If they're gonna showit, I'm gonna watch it.

John (01:57:57):
So, well the, um, forgotten West.
Memphis three is on Amazon Prime.
I know.
Um, and west of Memphis is,but you might have to buy it.
I'm not sure on that one.
I own all of them on Amazon, so Inever really know where I'm bought.
Yeah, yeah.

(01:58:17):
I've watched them all.
I, at least once a year,I do the whole thing.
I watch all of 'em.
At least I, I just get this West Memphiskick at least once a year and I go through
all the stuff I can freaking consume onthe West Memphis Street all over again.
Even though I, I knowmost of it all by heart.

(01:58:38):
That is

Angela (01:58:38):
my post Thanksgiving was.

John (01:58:40):
Yeah.
Well that's a good one.
Hinging West Memphis stuff.
And so for any of the listeners outthere that love True Crime and somehow
don't know about this case, yeah.
Um, there's a lot of great informationand if you're more of a reader,
devil's Not, is a phenomenalread, really, really great book.
Um, and it really dives into dam's Oh.

(01:59:03):
The movie first.
'cause it always pisses me offif I will do go the other way.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And the movie, the movie cuts off a lotof what I was gonna say Devils not does.
And that is the history of beingin Ankles before all of this.
Okay.
And the shit that Jerry Driverput back before all of that.

(01:59:24):
And.
John Douglas talks a little bitabout it, but devil's not really
goes deep into setting the scene withthis piece of shit, just harassing
this kid for years beforehand.
So

Angela (01:59:40):
plus, while I'm up to my eyeballs in crochet projects that
I brought upon myself, reading isnot a thing that I can do, but I can
watch a movie while I'm doing it.

John (01:59:54):
So this is true, but Devil's not, is available on audio.

Angela (01:59:58):
Somebody, well, sometimes I don't like their voices.
I'll have to findsomebody to read it to me.

John (02:00:03):
Yeah.
I can't remember who does, who does?
Um, the audible version of Devil's not.
But it was good.
It was good.
And the guy that does all the JohnDouglas books on Audible, I don't know
who he is, but he's the same narratorfor all the John Douglas books.
That's the way it should be.
He's really good.

Angela (02:00:21):
You start with one, you should just record 'em all with the same person.

John (02:00:25):
Yeah.
Especially when you're as prolificof a writer as John Douglas is
because there are so freaking many.
Mm-hmm.
I mean, God, I don't even knowhow many books he's written.
I've read several of 'em, but, uh,there's tons left that I need to read.
So,

Angela (02:00:41):
you know what else?
I'm just gonna sidetrack just a tiny bitwhile this is just a conversation episode

John (02:00:47):
that's allowed,

Angela (02:00:48):
um, it has absolutely nothing to do with West, west Memphis.
Three.

John (02:00:53):
Okay.

Angela (02:00:54):
But we are gonna have to do an update on chance.

John (02:01:00):
A hundred percent.
We are, yeah.
I was waiting.
Yeah.
Um, to see, and you know, if, if youdon't know what Angela's talking about,
we covered Inglebert on an episode.
His remains were recently found.
Mm-hmm.
Were recently identified using DNA.
Mm-hmm.
And it was an accident.

Angela (02:01:22):
Yeah.
They're rolling it as a, a fall.
A fall accident.
Yeah.

John (02:01:26):
And I gotta say, when they, when they originally found, um, it's
kind of funny because I go to physicaltherapy and all the physical therapists
there are like, oh, John's here.
Now we gotta talk about true crime shit.
I love that.
And so, um, do

Angela (02:01:39):
they listen?
Do you say Some

John (02:01:41):
of them do, do you need to say hi to them?
Come on.
Well, if they're listening, hi to all myphysical therapist friends, but, you know,
and they were like, uh, what do you think?
I think, I think the in-laws murdered him.
And I'm like,

Angela (02:01:53):
I thought so too, for the longest time.

John (02:01:54):
And I said, you know, when I saw where the body was found, I
immediately said, this is an accidentI thought struck by lightning.
He was out there.
We know it was storming that night.
Yeah.
I immediately just thought hewas probably struck by lightning.
Um, that turns out I was wrong.
But I also thought.
Didn't somebody say theyalready looked there?

(02:02:16):
I don't know.
I don't believe that the,that they searched there.
I mean, the search for him was extensive,but he walked along freaking ways.
He walked from gearing to Scott's bluff.
Yeah.
And that where his body was found soundslike he was trying to walk to Torrington.
Why he was where he was is a hugemystery because yeah, he would've had

(02:02:40):
to have swam, swam across a canal toaccess the area that he was found in.
So it's odd, but it's less odd thanthe idea that somebody is going to
backpack a 26-year-old male body upthere because they can't drive to it.

(02:03:02):
Yeah.
So they would literally would've had tohave carried and he was not a little kid.
Well,

Angela (02:03:07):
and if he swam across something he, I mean, there are animals up there.
He could have been tryingto get away from something

John (02:03:14):
he could have, I think.
I don't know why he did what he did, buthe never, he was walking to Torrington.
He made that very clear.
He was walking to Torringtonand I said it in his episode,
I could relate to this kid.
I was this kid.
Mm-hmm.
When I was 25, 26 years old,I was a freaking hot head.

(02:03:34):
And if I got pissed off enough, Iwould've said, I will walk to Torrington,
which I think is 37 miles away and.
I would've freaking took off and byGod I would've made it to Torrington.
Yeah.
Or I would've been found.
Yeah.
You know, after I'd beenmissing for years and dead.
But I think the most logical, eventhough it's hard to believe, the most

(02:03:57):
logical conclusion, is the one thatthe cops came to, that he was trying to
climb something to get to Torrington.
He fell and either laid there and died.
Or died.
And as a result of the, immediatelyas a result of the fall, I
haven't heard anything about that.

(02:04:18):
Um, I hope immediately, oh God, me too.
My heart goes out to the family.
I'm glad that they finally have hisroutines and they can lay him to rest and

Angela (02:04:29):
that little boy

John (02:04:31):
and yeah.
And I gotta say, my heart breaksfor his wife and her family because.
I thought they did, didso something for years.
Yeah.
You know, when I, when we coveredthe case, I was pretty clear
that I didn't think it was them.
I thought it was probably most likelythat he was picked up by like drug
dealers or some shit like that.

(02:04:52):
Mm-hmm.
I didn't think that it was likely thathis body was still laying out there.
I was obviously totally wrong,but I didn't think he would make
it all the way to Scott's block.
I

Angela (02:05:01):
know.

John (02:05:01):
So I was talking more about the gearing area, but he made it a long ways.
You did.
Um, but my point is, thesepeople ha have had their names
run through the mud for years.
Yeah.
And like the West Memphis Street, theywere wrongfully accused of crying.
Yeah.
That they did not commit.

(02:05:22):
And it's a tragedy.
It, it's a real tragedy.
My heart goes out to everybodyinvolved in that case.
Mm-hmm.
I just think it's, it's just terribly sadand I'm glad that they have answers, but
they don't have their son, their husband,their daddy back, and they never will.

(02:05:44):
And it's just a tragedyall the way around.
Yeah.
But yeah.
Um, yeah, there's, there's that update.
I was thinking that we had a coupledifferent updates, but maybe it
was the West Memphis, but thatwouldn't have been an update because
we haven't covered that key yet.
So.
I don't know.

Angela (02:06:02):
Yeah, either.

John (02:06:03):
But do you have anything else to add?
Anything else you wanna talk about?

Angela (02:06:07):
I do not, except for the fact that I, I do enjoy this platform.

John (02:06:13):
It's kind of fun, isn't it?

Angela (02:06:14):
So occasionally, if you wanna do these, I'm down.

John (02:06:17):
Cool.
Well, we've tried to do somethingsimilar now, but trying to get you
to actually watch the shows thatwe wanna talk about is difficult.
So if you wanna watch the shows, Imean, uh, the Jennings eight, I guess.
Uh, it's no secret I've decidedI'm writing a book on the

(02:06:40):
case because, well, it was a

Angela (02:06:43):
secret to everybody but me until just now.

John (02:06:46):
Yeah.
But I mean, I made it clear thatI was doing a very deep dive.
Okay.
It is poor, but you deep dive everything.
Not like this.
I mean, I've, I've written, um, I thinkI'm around 70,000 words right now,
and I still have a lot left to go.
So, um, a huge deep diveinto the Jennings eight.

(02:07:06):
Yeah.
Mess.
And so that's one that you could,you could watch the, the stuff,
uh, murder murders in the Bayou.
Uh, very good.
Very freaking good.
Uh, guy by the name of Ethan Browndid, um, wrote the book Murders in the
Bayou, and then they did a multipart.
Series I, I thinkthere's five parts to it.

(02:07:30):
There's a couple.
There's a couple, there's anotherone, and I can't remember what it is
called, but another documentary on it.
There's not very muchout there on the case.
Very little actually.
If it wasn't for Ethan Brown'swork, there'd be next to nothing.
No, but you know, just real quickly, eightwomen were murdered between um, 2002 and

(02:07:54):
2009, I think in Jennings, Louisiana.
And their, we're talking abouta county with a population
of 30,000 people, a county.
So we're talking a tiny, and forthem to have that many homicides.
Yeah, over that courseof time, it's unreal.
And then, I mean, you think thatthe West Memphis three case pisses

(02:08:17):
you off the Jennings eight case?

Angela (02:08:20):
Well, a lot of cases piss me off.

John (02:08:21):
Oh.
Jennings eight is gonna piss you off morethan probably anything you've ever heard.
I mean, the jailers at the Jefferson DavisCounty Jail were running a sex trafficking
ring where they were trafficking thefemale inmates out to other male inmates
and even taking them out of jail tosell 'em to people outside of jail.

Angela (02:08:47):
Wonderful.

John (02:08:48):
They.
One of the, one, the, the oneof the head investigators on the
case bought the vehicle that oneof the victims was last seen in.
He bought the vehicle from aninmate, cleaned it and sold
it to somebody in California.
A vehicle that likelywas involved in a murder.

(02:09:09):
Evidence disappears.
They would, they would freaking take,they would make these huge drug busts,
lay all the drugs out on the table, takepictures like they always do, and then
like one brick would be put into evidence.
All the rest would be taken andsold out on the street by the cops.
The corruption in this case is nextlevel, like nothing I've ever come across.

(02:09:35):
So that's one you could do.
We could talk about that one for hours.
The boys on the tracks case, you'regonna have to text all these to me.
Fami Mallick, one of thedumbest pieces of shit.
He's, he's a medical examiner thatwas on the boys on the tracks case.
This is the guy that, a guy wasshot six times in the chest,

(02:09:57):
no gun was found on the scene.
He rolled it a homicide.
Another guy was found dead,decapitated, his head was missing.
Fami Malik ruled it naturalcauses and then said that his
dog ate his head and it was now

Angela (02:10:16):
have to worry about spontaneous decapitation.

John (02:10:20):
And, and the dog was like a chihuahua.
And he said that he tested the dog's exexperiment and found brain tissue in it.
So the dog ate the head Well,too bad for following Alec.
They found the head in a dumpster later.
I mean, this guy is the worstmedical examiner in the history of

(02:10:43):
medical examiners and, and clowns.
Bill Clinton fought like hell till hefinally got him a $32,000 a year raise.
And there's all kinds of informationabout how Fal Malik kept Bill
Clinton's mom from being prosecuted.
So Fal Malik then just had afree pass to do whatever in

(02:11:05):
the hell he wanted in Arkansas.
Mm-hmm.
So, yeah, I mean, we can go on and on.
There's all kinds of shit, but I, I agree.
This is a really fun platform.
Yeah, it's very laid back.
It's kind of like a darkerversion of shadow chats.
Yeah.
Not as funny, but just laid backand just kind of bullshitting.
So hopefully the listeners enjoy it.

(02:11:26):
As much as we enjoy doing it.
So I hope so too, but I guess that'swhere we're gonna leave it for today.
All right, so this wasn't obviouslyone of our usual deep dive
breakdowns, and it wasn't meant to be.
This case is way too big, way too tangledand too historically polluted with

(02:11:46):
bad assumptions to yeah, try to rushanything When we come back to the West.
To the West Memphisthree, that's hard to say.
West Memphis three.
Yeah, I know.
When we come back to the West Memphisthree in a formal series, it'll
be with every document read, everytimeline rebuilt, and every piece of
evidence examined in the way that italways should have been, and hopefully

(02:12:10):
with new DNA evidence and stuff.
And so.
But for now, uh, we hope thatthis conversation gave you
something to think about.
Whether you're new to the case oryou've been following it since 1993.
And as the new DNA testing movesforward in the coming months, we're
gonna be keeping an eye on it.
And if the case cracks open, again,you'll be the first to hear about it here.

(02:12:33):
And if you want to support the work thatwe do across the Dark Dialogue Network,
the research, the investigations,the storytelling, hit follow on
whatever platform you're listeningon, leave us a rating or review.
It helps more than youcould possibly know.
Subscribe to us on our YouTube channelfor the full length episode behind
the scenes updates and any new videoseries that we might be rolling out.

(02:12:58):
Join the Dark Dialogue collective.
Uh, if you want to help with on the groundsearch and advocacy, and if you wanna
support the show directly, check out ourmembership tiers and bonus content on
Patreon and on coffee and on substack.
You can always reach us with tips,thoughts, theories, or piece ideas.
Just send an email toinfo@darkdialogue.com.

(02:13:22):
And I'm gonna follow us on Facebook.
I don't know you, us socialGoogle, or where are we?
We're

Angela (02:13:28):
dot, we're on Instagram where I need to keep up with TikTok.
Thanks for calling me out, John.
You bet.

John (02:13:36):
Why?
I follow the same thing weare on X, but same problem.
I I I'm not good at social mediashit, so, but Facebook, um, we
do post quite a bit on Facebook.
Oh yeah.
So that's our primary platformwhere you can find us.
And with that, thank you all forlistening and as always, stay safe

(02:13:57):
everybody, and keep the dialogue alive.

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West Memphis Three — Unraveled Truths, Episode 1 | Satanic Panic, False Confessions & the Case That Won’t Die

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}West Memphis Three — Unraveled Truths, Episode 1 | Satanic Panic, False Confessions & the Case That Won’t Die