Terry Hobbs speaks out on the West Memphis 3

May 21, 2013

1 minute

Damien Echols, Terry Hobbs, West Memphis 3

As most of you know Terry Hobbs was the step-father of Stevie Branch. Stevie was one of the three little boys who were murdered 20 years ago by the so-called West Memphis 3. For a number of years now Terry Hobbs has been the virtual bogeyman of the West Memphis 3 supporters, ever since the supposed DNA evidence has been made public.

Roughly near the 20th anniversary of the killings Hobbs spoke to WREG in Memphis to give his side of the story. I implore you to watch the video or read the article at the attached link, I could never do it enough justice. However Mr. Hobbs rightly sums up what the West Memphis 3 movement has always been about….

But Hobbs says Hicks, as well Byers, are wrapped-up in a story that’s turned into an industry, “To me, they`ve all tried to capitalize and they have turned our tragedy into a money making business .”

He says that business, and Hollywood hype, has set the real killers free, “Jason Baldwin, Damien Echols and Jessie Misskelley. I believe that with everything inside of me.”

Hobbs says he hopes the three eventually tell the truth one day and apologize, but until then Hobbs says he has to live with the story that many people believe.

A story that is false but one that the West Memphis 3 supporters cling on to in the name of their outcast profit….I mean prophet.

Thanks to Jim for the tip.

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8 responses to “Terry Hobbs speaks out on the West Memphis 3”

Fred J Walsh

May 21, 2013 at 10:26 pm

Thanks for sharing this. I thought Terry came off as very straight-forward and sincere, and like a regular guy. While I realize appearances are by no means a guide to truth — my fairly in-depth study of the case has led me to believe him innocent — I can’t help but note the WM3 have used the familiarity of their own images to great effect. The films and ample interviews and reports have fostered a sense that we “know” D/J/J — and that familiarity can really work in their favor (or in the case of Echols, sometimes work against him), in terms of what the public thinks about guilt/innocence. There’s a natural human tendency to grant someone credence on a gut level, if they seem recognizably human and sincere, as Hobbs does here. So, it’s nice to see the media work a bit in his favor for once, after the deck was so mightily stacked against him in the last couple of WM3 advocacy films.

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1. Trench Reynolds
  
  May 21, 2013 at 10:38 pm
  
  I absolutely agree Fred. Like I said, I was once a supporter because I was an outcast kid that wore all black and listened to metal. Emotion is a strong tool in overriding common sense. Thankfully I was able to come to my senses.
  
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Mike Blatty

May 22, 2013 at 1:50 am

Glad to see him finally speaking up. He should have done so long ago.

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Shannon Bradley Byers

May 22, 2013 at 7:32 am

Mike, as I know you and Trench know, it is very hard to stop this crazy train, and the more you try the more vicious people get. We live in a society that gives death threats to an author just because they don’t like the way she ended a series of books. God help those of us that don’t think Echols and crew are innocent. Once again people are taking the word of other people that have not bothered to do in depth research and just regurgitate the PR machine. The DNA that was tested matches a good number of the population, not just Terry. People had no problem proclaiming a witch hunt on Byers because he had his teeth removed (among other reasons) and then when he decided that he needed money so bad, he was willing to say Damien was innocent, they jumped off that bandwagon so fast it made your head spin. An absolute sample was not gotten from Terry, they snuck around and grabbed a cigarette butts to test. Those tests results show a single nucleotide heteroplasmy and prevent the samples from being described as matching and could belong to 12,000 people in the metro area population, and at best it can say that Terry “cannot be excluded”.

The stories that have come out recently about Terry are beyond ridiculous and obviously driven by money and/or people seeking their “15 minutes”. Anyone that actually digs into the DNA reports could make up all sorts of things. For example, the HLA DQalpha alleses on one of the pendants tested matched both Jason Baldwin and Stevie Branches DNA. Same goes for blood on Jessie Miskelley’s shirt which also matched Michael Moore. But no, all people have to hear is the watered down version, “One of the hairs found matches Terry’s DNA” and the crazies continue to come out of the woodwork. Terry really has no hope of defending himself against the stories that get crazier by the day. I am not surprised it’s taken him this long to speak up.

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Joe G

May 22, 2013 at 7:58 am

Terry Hobbs comes across very welll here. It would be most interesting if Echols gave a simillar unscreened, no-holds barred interview and to compare the two’s answers and demeanors. Of course, Echols never will agree and disturbingly no major media ever will ask him to submit to one.
Hobbs probably should have stepped up to knock back this BS some time ago, but the fanaticism of the WM3 cult probably deterred him. In their never-ended quest to live in their own reality, the compound denizens likely will move on to their next red herring as Hobbs diminishes as an alternatve.

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Grumpy Cat

May 22, 2013 at 11:09 am

The only reason he did this interview was because they said they would not twist what he said around. He sat through the editing, the next day they called him and said you cannot say anything about Echols, Terry said then you cannot show the interview. They came to an agreement, he had more to say about Echols but wasn’t allowed. So who is watching over Echols that he knows everything that is going on. Terry is offered interviews all the time, he had to pick the right person and still had problems. I am just waiting for Echols to fall and he will, he might end up in Earle working on a farm like Jessie did..

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RazörFist

July 30, 2013 at 5:19 am

The man who provided Hobbs’ alibi, David Jacoby, completely contradicts Hobbs’ version. Something Terry, to this day, has yet to account for, along with his whereabouts between the 6:30-7:30 window during which the children were murdered. Jacoby even outright states that Hobbs left his home – alone – during that crucial window of time, and returned hours later without once asking Jacoby to accompany him in searching for the children.

Further, the only person who saw the three boys during the four-hour window of their deaths (the neighbor leaving for church) claimed that she saw them being beckoned by Terry Hobbs. I’m sorry, this interview doesn’t even begin to explain or disprove any of that circumstantial evidence, or the hard, physical DNA.

The explanation about secondary transfer (‘He was my kid, so that’s likely how the hair got on his shoelace’) is completely ludicrous. If the hair was simply ‘stuck’ to the shoelace, or inadvertently woven into the fiber itself, that would be one thing. But it wasn’t. It was literally TIED INTO the knot that was used to restrain the victim. Which means it had to come from either the victim or the murderer. The DNA doesn’t match any of the victims, but it does match Hobbs, and less than 0.3% of the population.

The facts are simply not on your side, Captain Contrarian.

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1. dana
  
  April 30, 2014 at 11:26 am
  
  I agree with you one hundred percent!!!
  
  Reply