Reputation In Ruin, Boy's Stepdad Says

Terryhobbs2

Arkansas Democrat Gazette
By Cathy Frye

The pieces appeared to be falling into place.

The DNA testing.

The discovery of previously unknown details about the night of May 5, 1993.

A potential new suspect.

So on Oct. 29, 2007, defense attorneys felt confident filing new federal court documents contending that Damien Echols, Jason Baldwin and Jessie Misskelley had been wrongly convicted of killing three 8-year-old boys.

The attorneys revealed the results of ongoing DNA testing, turning their spotlight on Terry Hobbs, the stepfather of one of the West Memphis boys.

Two days later, a panel of forensics experts and a former FBI agent again pointed at Hobbs, saying he should have been questioned by police at the time of the slayings.

Hobbs, 49, is angry, saying that in the past year, defense investigators have ruined his reputation and caused him to have a nervous breakdown.

“I want people to know I haven’t done nothing wrong,” he said in a Friday night interview at a Memphis barbecue restaurant. “I want them to hear it from me.” The defense contends that DNA results are irrefutable and that an evolving timeline of that night shows Hobbs had motive and opportunity.

Former FBI profiler John Douglas, who has investigated Hobbs for the defense over the past year, says his subject has a dark side. He says two separate interviews revealed very different versions of Terry Hobbs.

“You’re talking to a saint — the all-American father, a great husband. And then there’s the rest of the story. We are talking about two different people.” It’s been nearly 15 years since the nude, hogtied bodies of Stevie Branch, Michael Moore and Chris Byers were discovered in a drainage ditch that runs through West Memphis’ Robin Hood Hills area, where the children often played.

All three of the boys had suffered numerous abrasions and puncture wounds. Most disturbing, however, were Chris Byers’ injuries. There were cuts on his inner thighs and a portion of his genitalia had been mutilated and removed.

A month later, police arrested three locals: Echols, 18; Baldwin, 16; and Misskelley, 17. In two trials that focused heavily on allegations of Satanism, all three were convicted. Echols was sentenced to death, while Misskelley and Baldwin received life sentences.

Spurred by HBO documentaries on the case, skeptics from across the nation formed a grassroots movement that eventually came to be known as Free the West Memphis 3. Money collected by supporters eventually secured a high-profile team of attorneys and forensics experts, who, in recent months have revitalized interest and publicity in the case.

The crux of the defense rests on DNA testing that wasn’t available in 1993.

In the court documents filed Oct. 29, 2007, defense attorneys said testing thus far hasn’t linked any of the three men to the crime scene. And six forensics experts contend that animals — not satanic rituals — caused the boys’ wounds. These injuries, they added, occurred after death.

Lawyers for Echols plan to take their new appeal to a state judge this month. The decision comes after U. S. District Judge William Wilson Jr. asked Echols to present parts of his appeal to state courts before turning to federal courts. Arkansas Attorney General Dustin McDaniel said last month that he’s frustrated by “a misleading press campaign” suggesting that there is new DNA evidence exonerating the three men. And he stood by a state medical examiner’s conclusion that Chris’ scrotum was cut off by a knife.

A YEAR OF SCRUTINY Defense investigators arrived on Hobbs’ doorstep in late February 2007. Hobbs was leery but invited them inside. “It was raining,” he explained. The investigators, both from a private Memphis firm, had two questions: Can you account for your whereabouts on May 5, 1993 ?

Why didn’t the West Memphis Police Department ever question you about the boys’ murders ?

Before leaving, unbeknownst to Hobbs, the pair took cigarette butts from an ashtray in his living room and the front yard.

“They used to call that stealing,” Hobbs said, thumping the table for emphasis.

Over the next few months, investigators talked to Hobbs ’ neighbors and family. They also were in frequent contact with Hobbs’ ex-wife, Pam, who has long accused Hobbs — to his face and in the media — of killing Stevie, he said. “She hurt so bad, she would lash out. She didn’t think I was hurting and wanted me to feel her pain.” During such arguments, he said, Pam would yell — “You killed my son !” Meanwhile, investigators continued to dig, tracking down a video from a neighborhood bar he used to visit with his ex-wife. The tape shows the couple involved in a lengthy fight, Hobbs said.

On March 7, Hobbs suffered an emotional breakdown, he said. He staked a sign in his front yard, putting the contents of his rental house up for sale. “I walked away. I put myself out on the street.” He spent the next few months living in a yellow Ford pickup with his teenage daughter.

He can’t explain why the investigators’ visit prompted this reaction. “These are things men don’t like to talk about,” Hobbs said.

He also blames frequent media attention over the past 15 years. “None of us families have had a chance to go through the healing process,” he said. “But I never let this thing take a toll on me until last year.” Maybe it was because he was writing a book about the case, Hobbs said, adding, “You relive it.” Meanwhile, the defense’s investigation intensified, especially after forensics experts said a hair found in Michael’s ligatures matched mitochondrial DNA on the cigarette butts taken from Hobbs’ home.

In May, Hobbs met again with the defense investigators at their request. He stayed awhile but didn’t cooperate, he said. Around this time, he began attending church and got a job in sales at a lumber company.

In June, he was summoned to the West Memphis Police Department for questioning. His ex-wife had been talking to officers about some pocketknives he once owned, Hobbs said, adding, “It wasn’t nothing.” On Oct. 9, Hobbs began attending support group meetings to deal with his stepson’s death, he said.

A few weeks later, in the Oct. 29 filing, defense attorneys said further DNA evidence linked Hobbs to the crime scene. A second hair, found on a tree stump, belonged to a man Hobbs had visited the evening the boys disappeared, they said, adding that they didn’t believe the man had been at the crime scene.

A few days later, Hobbs received a note from the support group he had just joined. It asked that he not return until “all the uncertainties are cleared up.” Members of a second group have remained supportive, he said, as has the congregation of his current church and his coworkers.

THE DEFENSE’S THEORY Twice during the late summer, Hobbs met with former FBI profiler Douglas, once at a mall and again at the downtown Holiday Inn. The first interview was pleasant, he said. Douglas agreed, saying Hobbs presented himself well, making the retired agent wonder if he was investigating the wrong man. “After about two hours, I told the person I’m with — ‘Jesus, I don’t know about this guy. ’” Over the next few days, however, Douglas interviewed others. By the time he was done, he knew Hobbs had lied repeatedly to him in the previous interview, Douglas said.

Douglas contends that: Hobbs beat his first wife and his second wife, Pam; he was abused by his own parents; he abused Stevie and his younger daughter.

The second interview didn’t go so well. “He was rattled when we confronted him,” Douglas said.

Douglas said he believes the killings occurred after Hobbs set out to taunt and punish Stevie and his friends. The killings happened, he said, when Hobbs realized things had gone beyond “teaching a lesson.” The defense questions why Hobbs reportedly ventured near the crime scene during a search for the boys but then turned back, saying he had a creepy feeling.

“I know you’ve all heard the lowdown about me,” Hobbs says in response during the interview at the Memphis restaurant. “But it ain’t all lowdown.” He’s always been a good husband, he said, and while he and Pam once got into an altercation during which he slapped her and shot her brother, the abuse she suffered for many years was inflicted by others. That 1994 shooting, he said, happened in self-defense after the man jumped him. “Yeah, I shot the dude. He was a big guy.” The brother survived the shooting.

Hobbs scoffed at investigators’ assertions that he was abused by his own parents, alternately describing his dad as a man with a redhead’s temper and as an upstanding Pentecostal minister.

He was reluctant to discuss the subject further, however, saying again that it’s a “man thing.” “They’ve gone around to my family and have put together things they said. I’ve heard some things I didn’t know or care about. I had a good dad and mom.” Asked about allegations that he disliked or abused Stevie, Hobbs said, “He called me Dad. We had a blast. We didn’t have a hostile relationship.” On the night the boys disappeared, Hobbs said, he did go down the path that led to the crime scene.

“I couldn’t breathe. I froze. The hair started standing up.” He described the odor of blood, saying he knows the scent because of the time he worked with his dad, a butcher, but said he didn’t smell it on the path. “I had to get out of there. Something just wasn’t right. I don’t know what came over me. I don’t remember if I told police.” He’s glad he wasn’t the one to discover the bodies, Hobbs said, adding, “They were buried underwater.” He finds it a strange twist to watch Chris Byers’ stepdad, Mark Byers, go from being an implied suspect in two HBO documentaries to one of Hobbs’ accusers. “They were bashing him, and I kept saying, ‘ He didn’t do this. ’” He thinks Byers and his exwife have turned on him because of attention and the promise of money.

“It shames you, something like this. That’s the biggest thing I’ve had to deal with — shame.”