West Memphis Three's DNA Grift Gets Green Lit!

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:20):
You are listening to the ROBERTA. Glass True Crime Report
putting the true back in true crime from New York City.

Speaker 2 (00:34):
ROBERTA.

Speaker 1 (00:34):
Glass is now on the record. Okay, how is everybody?
Can everybody hear me? Hallo Tuesday Money? Okay? Second? Okay?

(01:05):
Is that better? Hello Tuesday Money? Hello? Dark Side of
the Moon Vicki Moore Rainbow ramblings. I know this is
not my usual subject matter. It's really the subject matter
that started me out talking about Innocent Squad and true crime.

(01:33):
And there has been breaking news in the West Memphis
three case, the solved case of the West Memphis three.
So the West Memphis three were convicted of killing three
eight year old boys on May fifth, nineteen ninety three

(01:57):
in West Memphis, Arkansas. And when I speak of the
West Memphis three, of course, I'm talking about Jesse miss Kelly,
Damian Eckles, and Jason Baldwin. And they were convicted by
two juries. One jury convicted Jesse Miss Kelly, and another

(02:17):
jury convicted Jason Baldwin and Damien Eccles. Damien Eckles was
given a death sentence, Jason Baldwin was given a life sentence,
and so was Jesse Miss Kelly. But after the West

(02:37):
Memphis Three Paradise Lost Propaganda documentaries, the filmmakers said that
they knew they were innocent from the minute they saw them.
That started a online campaign that gathered much celebrity support
from people like Johnny Depp, Oh who else, Natalie Maynes,

(03:05):
the guy from Pearl, jam Eddie Vedder. I mean, it's
just Margaret Cho I mean it's a long list of
celebrities all saw this, these documentaries, and I too was
fooled by these documentaries. So it wasn't until I heard
a podcast talking about their guilt. I never heard that

(03:28):
side before. That's a side that you never hear in
our mainstream media. They will never outline the evidence that
actually convicted the West Memphis Three. They only talk about
how they were convicted because of satanic panic and now AI.

(03:51):
If you ask chat, GPT or some kind of other AI,
what you get is that it was all satanic panic.
There was no evidence. Strangely, two trials full of evidence,
there was little evidence convicting them. And you can see
I have a playlist. I'll try to put it in

(04:11):
the show notes about the West Memphis Three, where I
have worked tirelessly to talk about the actual evidence against
against the West Memphis three. And so now the breaking

(04:31):
news I think I sat on the lead here. The
breaking news is that now they have been okayed to Arkansas.
A court has okayed them to test do more DNA
testing in this case. Now am I opposed to DNA testing, No,

(04:54):
but a this is not a DNA case. The three
eight year old victims in this case were found in water.
They were thrown, hogtied and thrown in water. So there's
I would think even with m fact technology, they're not
going to find a lot of stuff. But they're only

(05:16):
asking to test like very select items. And so what
this does, I think, so well, it's expose how the
wrongful conviction movement uses DNA to fool the public into
thinking that DNA evidence is the only evidence that matters.
And I have seen DNA cast cases where convictions have

(05:39):
been overturned, where there's a signed confession, video evidence, all
that evidence goes out the window when there's a lack
of DNA. Not that there's someone else's DNA found there,
but there's just an sometimes I question that as well,
Like in the case of Stephen Avery in his on

(06:00):
Penny Bernstein the way that was done, and you can
look into my videos on that. But if there is
absenence of DNA, that's exonerating. So if they find no
DNA event that's ever going to be matched to anyone,
that's exonerating. And forget all the other evidence, including testimony,

(06:24):
including eyewitnesses, confessions, fiber evidence. In this case, the knife
used in the crime was found behind Jason Baldwin's trailer,
And instead they want to talk about how this is
like an ify case and we'll never know and maybe

(06:46):
someday it will be solved. But they still have not
released the DNA evidence from twenty and eleven. Instead they
came forward and said, oh, it matches a stepfather. So
they went from one grieving step father to the next
and they said, oh no, we have DNA evidence that

(07:06):
matches one step father when it matched millions of people.
I think it's three point five million Americans, and that
DNA report we've never seen. Instead, right after that they
got that DNA report, they asked to plead guilty via Alfred.

(07:28):
So make of that what you will. So first off,
I'm going to read the the actual article. This is
so bad, the worst, I mean, this is also how
these how these innocent fraud campaigns never die because they're

(07:51):
so helped by journalism, Like the journalism from I don't
even want to call it journalism. The writing from the
Arkansas Times, Matt Campbell writes the West Memphis three murder
evidence to undergo DNA testing. Thirty years later, more than
three years after the Crichton and County Circuit Court denied

(08:17):
a petition for additional DNA testing, and more than a
year after the Arkansas Supreme Court reverse that decision, the
West Memphis three are one step closer to getting some
answers they hope might clear their name. Like they don't
know the answers. So right after they got the the
the DNA results in twenty eleven, they asked the state

(08:42):
to plead guilty via an Alfred plea, which means that
they have enough evidence to convict you, but you can
still maintain your innocence. But it's legally a guilty plea.
They are legally a legal rarity. Twice convince did killers,

(09:02):
so not only did they plead guilty, but a jury
convicted them. There was a great article. I'm so sorry
it's been scrubbed by the Internet.

Speaker 3 (09:13):
I think.

Speaker 1 (09:13):
There was an interview with him too, of a guy
who had been in prison for years and years, and
the thing that made him think that the West Memphis
three were guilty is that they were willing to plead guilty.
He's like, this idea that you just do anything to
get out is when you're innocent. It's just untrue. He

(09:33):
just thought that they would never plead guilty to a
crime like this of killing three eight year old boys
if they hadn't done it. And that's from someone who's
been in prison, So take that with what you will, don't.
It's not the reason I think they're guilty, But I
thought it was interesting that some a prisoner had written
a whole thing about how he found that very sus

(09:56):
as the young people say. More than three years after
the Crichton and County Circuit Court denied a petition for
additional DNA testing, and more than a year after the
Arkansas Supreme Court reversed that decision, the West Memphis three
are one step closer to getting some answers they hope
might clear their name. A hearing in Crichighton in County

(10:18):
Circuit Court Friday morning lasted less than ten minutes and
was fairly uneventful. Prosecuting attorney Sonya Hayguard and attorneys for
Damian Eckles, Jason Baldwin and Jesse mimss Kelly signed in
agreed order for DNA testing and Haygard presented the order
to circuit. Judge Tonya. Alex Xander Baldwin was in attendance,

(10:43):
but Ecchles and miss Kelly were not, having been excused
at their request. Strangely, they don't want to be there
this and they have done nothing after they got out.
So when they got out via this Alfred plea, they
had a big press conference saying that we're going to
work from the outside to clear their name. Jesse Jason

(11:06):
Baldwin I think presented one thing to the court and
then they did nothing. But Damien Echolds did nothing to
clear his name for years and years until Bob Ruff
started asking like, why aren't you asking for this kind
of DNA testing. The men have long sought DNA testing.

(11:27):
So now they've totally ghosted the twenty and eleven testing
where they they smeared another grieving family member, another stepfather.
It's not enough to get to smear one step father
in this case, they have to smear two. They have
long sought DNA testing of evidence from their nineteen ninety

(11:48):
four conviction under a twenty eleven law that allows someone
convicted of a crime to file a petition to vacate
and set aside a judgment if scientific evidence is not
available at the time of trial establishing the petitioner's actual innocence.
With the entry of today's agreed order, that testing will

(12:10):
now take place. The only real real disagreement between the
state and defendant's attorney at the hearing was over how
the evidence is to be tested and will be The
evidence to be tested excuse me, will be transported from
West Memphis to a company that will do the testing,
Haygard referred, so that's the DA referred referenced a courier,

(12:33):
but Patrick Benke, representing Echelles, said it would have to
be FedEx, as no independent, third party courier who could
take the evidence exist in that area. Haygard said she
opposed using FedEx, though she didn't say why. According to
one of the attorneys, today's heuring was the first time

(12:55):
Haygard had objected to using FedEx. So they're going to
want to say that somehow that the prosecuting attorney, though
she's totally on board with this farce of DNA testing,
is somehow against them. That's what the that's what you're
supposed to gather by that. Hold on one second, guys,

(14:25):
my apologies. I had a cat emergency. I didn't live
my cat out. The men having okay the only real
disagreement with okay. So basically we're supposed to think that
the that the state is desperately opposing this DNA testing

(14:45):
when they're totally on board with it. I don't know
why they would oppose, you know, FedEx. Maybe because they
can't verify how that stuff is packaged and sent. While
the West Memphis story is well known, a bit of
background is youthful to help clarify the procedural issues that
slowed the process and require the Supreme Court's involvement. The

(15:09):
bodies of three eight year old boys, Christopher Byers, Michael Moore,
and Steve Stephen Branch, were discovered in a muddy creek
behind the Robin Hills the robin Hood Hills neighborhood of
West Memphis in May nineteen ninety five. With satanic panic
in full swing in Arkansas and the nation, police attention

(15:32):
quickly turned to Eccos, an eighteen year old high school
dropout who liked heavy metal music. How was that relevant?
He was hugely into Satanism and he wanted to sacrifice
his own child. He had a five hundred page scary

(15:53):
mental health history. They're not going to talk about that either,
I guess and has lied about this case NonStop. I mean,
let's look at some of Damien echos lies.

Speaker 4 (16:07):
This is.

Speaker 1 (16:11):
Well documented by West Memphis three or Guilty, that YouTube channel,
and this is William Ramsey's video that he put together.
Let's check it out. The question that some people want

(16:49):
to say as well, what was his alibi?

Speaker 3 (16:51):
What were you doing?

Speaker 1 (16:52):
Why would police come to you? What was your alibi?

Speaker 5 (16:56):
I had an entire day mapped out at that time.
You know, there were many people that had saw me
at the time that the police say the murders took place.

Speaker 3 (17:04):
I was actually on the phone with three different people.

Speaker 5 (17:08):
The problem was the attorneys I had at the time,
the public defenders, never even called them to the witness stand,
never even asked them about.

Speaker 3 (17:14):
This kind of stuff. I was on the time that
they say the murders happened. I was on the phone
with three different people.

Speaker 5 (17:19):
You know, the attorneys that I had were so incompetent
it models the imagination.

Speaker 3 (17:25):
You know. I asked him, why.

Speaker 5 (17:26):
Aren't you going to call these people up on the
stand so that they can testify that they were on
the phone with me?

Speaker 3 (17:30):
And they would say, we don't need them.

Speaker 5 (17:32):
You know, the state's case is so weak and ridiculous
as it is, there's no point in even wasting time
on this.

Speaker 1 (17:43):
Here's where he says Damien echoes in this next clip
that he just had depression. And then he turns the
conversation to probation Officer Jerry Driver, who had As they
often do in innocent fraud cases, they they target the
people with the most knowledge of their guilt, and so

(18:05):
he has this is unsubstantiated allegations of essay, it's going
to say that he was abusing boys when it was
Damien Echols who tortured and killed three boys. Let's take
a listen and pled guilty to it and was convicted
of it. Let's take a listen.

Speaker 6 (18:25):
And I asked you earlier, you know, how do you
keep saying in your cell on death row? But the
fact is, before this trial, you spent time in a
mental institution I.

Speaker 5 (18:36):
Did when I was younger for depression. And that was
what led the cops initially to start focusing on me.
Is because there used to be this cop named Jerry
Driver who he was like a juvenile officer, and I
had run ins.

Speaker 3 (18:49):
With him over and over and over again.

Speaker 5 (18:50):
And part of the reason is because he used to
come through our neighborhood and pick up teenage boys and
tell him tell them unless they gave him moral sex.

Speaker 3 (18:58):
He was going to take him a jail, press charges
against him.

Speaker 1 (19:02):
Driver was convinced that the murders were the work of
Damian Eccles, and he told that to the police.

Speaker 4 (19:09):
The police, so.

Speaker 1 (19:17):
Here's a clipwork. He lies about having no knowledge and
not being from the area where the murders took place.
West Memphis. Take a listen.

Speaker 3 (19:27):
Back to nineteen ninety three.

Speaker 2 (19:29):
Had you that area, that Robin Hills area? Was that
an area that you were familiar with or had ever
been in to nineteen ninety three? Had you that area,
that Robin Hills area? Was that an area that you
were familiar with or had ever been in?

Speaker 5 (19:57):
That's actually, you know, most people always call us to
the West Memphis three, but we actually weren't from West Memphis.
We were from a small town right outside of West
Memphis called Marion, which almost no one knows where he is.
And being that West Memphis is the closest thing to Marion,
it's just sort of people look at it as being
almost the same place. And all of the dealings we

(20:20):
had were with West Memphis Police Department. So West Memphis
wasn't a place that I went to a great deal
of time. You know, I went to school in Marion,
I lived in Marion, so I didn't really go to
West Memphis a lot at all.

Speaker 2 (20:37):
So where these murders took place that was not an area.

Speaker 5 (20:39):
Then no, because that would have been a residential area,
a wooded area close to a residential area.

Speaker 3 (20:44):
You know, there weren't any If I went to West Memphis,
it would have been to do something.

Speaker 5 (20:48):
I'd say, go to Walmart, you know, go to the
grocery store or something like that. So it wouldn't have
been in a residential area anyway.

Speaker 1 (21:00):
So for those listening on podcasts, you can see here's
where he used to live, and the crime scene was
right behind his apartment of the former apartment the Mayfair Apartments.

Speaker 7 (21:14):
The police the prosecutor, the judge, the jury, all of
them got it wrong.

Speaker 3 (21:20):
In our opinion, Yes, in our opinion, yes.

Speaker 1 (21:30):
In this clip, Damien Echoes conveniently omits all of miss
Kelly's post conviction confessions and we can go through those
and focuses upon inconsistencies in the original June third confession,
many of which were clarified the same day. He said
he did it to throw the police off. It was
about the stupidest thing he could do, changing the time
of the crime, etc.

Speaker 7 (21:55):
Defense attorneys claimed the confessions were coerced.

Speaker 5 (21:58):
You couldn't even get a single d tale of the
crime right. They would ask him things like what time
did this happen? He says, eight o'clock in the morning. Well,
they knew that was a lie. They knew it wasn't
true because the kids were in school at eight o'clock
in the morning.

Speaker 3 (22:11):
They didn't care.

Speaker 7 (22:12):
Both buyers, Michael Moore and Stevie Branch, were found naked
and hog tied in a West Memphis ditch. Prosecutors say
the murderers were part of a Satanic ritual.

Speaker 3 (22:22):
You had nothing to do with any of that. Absolutely.

Speaker 1 (22:29):
Here's some of his unsubstantiated stories of prison, like.

Speaker 3 (22:32):
When I first came in.

Speaker 5 (22:34):
When I first came into the prison, the guards, I guess,
they decided they were going to throw me out.

Speaker 3 (22:39):
Welcome to the neighborhood party.

Speaker 5 (22:41):
So they put a knife in my cell and carried
me back to the part of the prison they called
a whole where for the next three weeks, they beat me.
They starved me, and they tortured me and just about
every way you can torture human being.

Speaker 3 (22:54):
They beat me so bad I pissed blood. One of
the things they did is they messed up my teeth.
They caused a lot of damage in my teeth.

Speaker 5 (23:00):
Well, in prison, there are no root canals, there are
no crowns, there are no caps.

Speaker 3 (23:04):
I was in more pain than most people can imagine.

Speaker 5 (23:07):
Imagine the absolute worst toothache you've ever had in your life,
and then imagine it multiplied by ten, and the imagining
lasting for years.

Speaker 3 (23:17):
Well, there was nothing I could do, you know.

Speaker 5 (23:18):
They told me, deal with the pain as long as
you can, and then when you can't take it anymore,
we'll pull your teeth out.

Speaker 3 (23:23):
I didn't want to live with no teeth. I didn't
want to have to come and face my family with
no teeth because I was beaten by a bunch of
prison guards.

Speaker 5 (23:30):
So I had to learn things like reiki, cheatgung, therapeutic touch,
you know, different types of meditation that allows you to
deal with pain and physical illness and ailments.

Speaker 6 (23:40):
And this was in what facility or original facility that
was in the one over there.

Speaker 3 (23:46):
You know you have teeth now exactly.

Speaker 5 (23:48):
It's allowed me to These practices allowed me to deal
with the pain and keep it at bay enough to
hold out.

Speaker 6 (24:09):
So after these boys died, how did you get pinpointed
as one of the killers?

Speaker 3 (24:16):
Back then?

Speaker 5 (24:16):
You know, things have changed a lot in the almost
twenty years that I've been locked up.

Speaker 3 (24:20):
You know, now I'll see things on television.

Speaker 5 (24:22):
You'll have housewives that get tattoos and nose rings and
things like that. And it wasn't like that back in
nineteen ninety three in small town Arkansas.

Speaker 3 (24:32):
Back then when this happened.

Speaker 2 (24:33):
What do you think it was that made the community,
the state, even surrounding states so certain that you guys
were the ones that were involved in this.

Speaker 5 (24:40):
This was nineteen ninety three. Things we were a lot
different back then even than they are now. You know,
now you have housewives who have tattoos, and it wasn't
really like.

Speaker 3 (24:49):
That back then, at least not an Arkansas it wasn't.

Speaker 1 (24:51):
So he's also said he's has brain damage from this.

(25:19):
It's he's really easy to tell what he's lying. I mean,
it's just basically when he opens his mouth, he's lying.
He said that he you know, he's at a comedy show.
He's worried he's gonna be shanked. He's in solitary confinement.
So some interesting comments from the West Memphis three Facts

(25:49):
you show you from about this testing. I'm not gonna
keep you very all, very long, but we've heard that
they petitioned for the new DNA testing is from the
West Memphis three Facts Facebook group. We've heard that the

(26:11):
petition for the new DNA testing was granted this afternoon
by the courts, with a judge signing in order for
the items to be shipped to the Bowed lab in
ten days. We are not surprised. New prosecuting attorneys Sonya
Haygood had signaled the willingness to go along with the request,
while citing concerns about the time elapsed and opportunities for

(26:33):
contamination of items they will be testing. Hairs and ligatures,
not clothing or many other potential items. So they're picking
items where they know their DNA won't be on it.
Sounds like from that the State and THEO and I
don't think it would even if it was on it,

(26:55):
you know, even if they did. I mean, so much
time has gone by and it was in water. I
don't know if they could even find it now. But
the state and the petitioners, including all three killers, reserve
the right to contest results based on contamination, or they
could not release them like they did the twenty and
eleven results. We are not expecting anything beyond a ball

(27:16):
of confusion if the results are ever released. See I mean,
nobody in court, nobody in our press is where are
the results from twenty and eleven? And what have you
been doing? Why does it take Bob Rupp who's never
met a convicted person that he thinks is guilty. I mean,
it's just he has filled whether it's a nonsied or

(27:39):
the West Memphis three or other killers, especially connected to
the Texas Innocent Project, that he's going to go to
BAT four to line his pockets and make his name
on He's never found anyone. So this was all done
because Bob Ruff, the podcaster, did a deep die, thinking, oh, well,

(28:01):
the West Memphis three is such a celebrated case. It'll
be so innocent, so easy for me to prove their innocence.
But it wasn't. The More Family attend like they would
never let them out if they thought they were guilty,
which they do. They let guilty people out all the time.
The more Family attended, as did Pam Hobbs and John

(28:22):
Mark Bayer's brother. Much of the media attention today in
Arkansas is on another senseless killing across the state and
another devil's den besides the one in West Memphis case.
Additional infro can be found. So I mean, just to
give you an idea.

Speaker 7 (28:42):
At the.

Speaker 1 (28:49):
At the time what was being written. So this was
after the twenty eleven Arkansas crime Lads. After the twenty
eleven results, Arkansas crime lab officials are willing to analyze
DNA evidence from the murder of three cub scouts in
nineteen ninety three that attorneys for the three men known

(29:11):
as the webmon this three says exonerates their client, a
state prosecutor said Thursday night in a panel discussion on
the legal maneuvers that allowed Damien Echols, Jason Baldwin, and
Jesse miss Kelly to be free last week in the
murder case after serving eighteen years. Prosecutor Scott Ellington said

(29:31):
the lab would look at the evidence once Vode Technology,
a private laboratory in Virginia hired by the defense, completed
its own tests. Once Bode Lab gets the reports done,
the State Crime Lab has agreed to run through those codis.
They were never released, never happened. I put the link
to this article in today's episode. In the show notes,

(29:55):
Ellington said, referring to a database of known criminals as
well as crime Lab employees. There's anything, any hits, then
that evidence can be brought to the defense attorney. It's
always been hidden. These results have always been hidden. So
we know that they did this DNA testing. Then they

(30:16):
publicly accused a stepfather. So this is kind of general
DNA testing, not one that that you know, highlights a
specific person. And so this it matched like three point
five million Americans that which included a step father, which

(30:42):
was from a hair which we've never seen. They said
that was tied into the shoelaces. It sounds good, but
we've never seen the where that hair was exactly collected from.
That's according to the defense attorneys. So this will give
you an idea. The DNA they kept talking about has

(31:04):
never been cross checked with GNA from the law enforcement
officers on the scene and has never been cross checked
with lab employees. We believe the right results are there,
but we would be willing to run those and see
if there are any matches, Ellington told reporters. Last fall, the
Arkansas Supreme Court ordered a new hearing for the three,
asking a judge to consider allegations of jury misconduct. That

(31:27):
was turned down, and so they were given an okay
to DNA or DNA testing. They went out with this
DNA testing. It came back and their own defense attorneys
called it weak. Evidence of this hair that supposedly matches doesn't.
It's not a match. So this is just the way

(31:51):
our wrongful conviction movement works. It knows that people can
be convinced with the idea that DNA matched someone else
or wasn't found, and then and all the rest of
the evidence that convicted that person just goes out the window.

(32:13):
That's how the innocence grift works. This is why Karen
Reid wants to test and raise money to test items
found in the home that the victim, John O'Keefe never
went into. So it will continue on. This is the
grift that just keeps on giving. And why they want

(32:36):
to do this now, I think, besides for Bob rob
is pushing to get it done, Who's champion the West
Memphis Three's innocence is because I think that when there's
no DNA found, they want to sue civilly for wrongful
conviction for the eighteen years they quote unquote wrongfully spent

(32:56):
on death row. It's going to be hard with the
things that they signed, but how that the money has
dried up from book deals and public appearances. This is
their last hope at a at a at a money grab,
blood money grab my opinion, So I'll stay on this.
Thanks so much for listening, and I'll see you back

(33:17):
here tomorrow and sex have a great night, everybody.

Speaker 6 (33:34):
My check.

Speaker 4 (33:35):
Roberta strides through the static case True Crime Gotham, where
the shadows later placed for its to fold when a
spotlight beams fact focus, queen busting propaganda schemes, glass shadow
lies that goes through the streets standing for victims, giving voice,
their meats and yc post truth, Sharpest Night prefer to
exposing She's the antsy frowd light pardtast warrior, dissecting Satan's defense,

(34:11):
twisted innocence, claims, breaking free sense, Gotam's truth seeker cuts
clean with the blade facts in the forefront, No justice
gets swaying cold facts drip heavy real salt, gun furls,
cracking cases open like oysters with pearls, innocence, gimmicks crumpled,
the dust in the wind for victims, her creed justice
till the end, headphones blazing, she drops heavy artillery. Now

(34:46):
we're just twisted meat, blunt objects, civility, roberta god receipts
that unraveled, deploy exposing the lies, these frauds. Thats deploy
glass his lies that goes through the streets, standing for victims,
giving voice There meats in bys e postal shockers to
day peferda explosives she used to anti fraud.

Speaker 3 (35:05):
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