West of Memphis (2012) - full transcript

West of Memphis is an examination of a failure of justice in Arkansas. The documentary tells the hitherto unknown story behind an extraordinary and desperate fight to bring the truth to light. Told and made by those who lived it, the filmmakers' unprecedented access to the inner workings of the defense, allows the film to show the investigation, research and appeals process in a way that has never been seen before; revealing shocking and disturbing new information about a case that still haunts the American South.

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The investigators are now filing

in and the reporters are getting ready

to cover this news conference.

Many parents in the community

will be breathing a sigh of relief

if this indeed is the break

that police have been waiting for.

Chief Inspector Gary Gitchell

is about to begin,

and he's also bringing in

some photographs.

Obviously these will probably be

photographs of the suspects.

Of course, suspects unofficially

at this point, although many believe

in this triple murder

of the three 8-year-old boys.

Arrested at 2:44 p.m., Thursday,

June the 3rd, 1993.

Jessie Lloyd Misskelley.

Jessie Misskelley is 17 years of age.

Charles Jason Baldwin.

He is 16 years of age.

Michael Wayne Echols.

Mr. Echols is 18 years of age.

He is charged with three counts

of capital murder.

Were you surprised

when these guys were arrested?

I was surprised about Jason

because he's, like, the quiet one

of them all.

But I wasn't surprised about

Jessie Misskelley and Damien Echols,

because I just expected it out of them

sooner or later.

Killer!

When the police

were asking for clothing

so they could give it to the dogs

to pick up scent,

the bandana here was the only thing

that I had in my household

that had Stevie's scent on it.

I've never washed it.

When I get the need to just want

to feel him again, um,

I'll grab it and I'll hug it,

and I'm so thankful

I feel an embrace back.

I was walking the route

to take Stevie to school,

and I checked him out,

I believe, at 2:30.

Stevie told me a hundred times,

probably a thousand, on the way home:

"I love you, mama." "I love you too, son."

And it was just constant.

We got home, first thing I asked him,

"Do you have any homework?"

He said, "I did, but I did it in school."

And he hung his homework

on the refrigerator.

And Michael Moore came up,

and they started asking,

could Stevie go to Michael's house?

And I said, "No, I'm getting ready

for work, I'm cooking supper."

Both of them,

you know, begging:

"Please, please, please,

we'll be back," and all that.

I gave in and I said, "Okay." I said,

"But, boy, you better be home by 4:30.

If you're not, I'm gonna ground you

for two weeks from that bike."

I'm gonna say Christopher

probably arrived at the house

around 3:35 maybe,

and he asked me if Stevie was there.

I told him, I said, "I'm surprised you didn't run

into him because him and Michael just left."

He left and he was gonna go

searching for Stevie and Michael.

Uh, well, around 4:45, Stevie had...

Still hadn't arrived.

Terry came in. I told Terry,

"Well, let's go ahead and leave."

We went ahead,

and he took me to work.

My night at work was a normal night.

Terry walked in, to the phone,

didn't say hi, bye, nothing.

He just walked to the phone,

and I took two pieces of candy

to the car and Amanda was there,

and I asked her, "Where's Bubba?"

And she said, "Mama, we can't find him."

And I thought the worst,

that he was dead.

I got out of the car, went through

this door, got out of my uniform,

put sweats on and put a T-shirt on.

Because all I was trying to focus on

is where's Stevie, where's he at,

and I gotta get out there,

and I gotta start searching.

Last time we saw him

was about 6:30 yesterday evening.

What's...? Give me your name.

My name is Mark Byers.

Okay. Has your son...?

Has this ever happened before?

None of the boys have ever

gone off anywhere.

None of the three have ever been

missing or taken off ever before.

What's going through your mind

as a parent?

I'm scared to death.

That's, you know, plain and simple.

I'm scared for the safety

and welfare of all three boys.

That particular day, I'd

called the West Memphis P.D.

The dispatcher Lucy

answered the phone.

She said, "We've had three children

missing since last night."

I said, "Well, you know,

I'm gonna go help too."

I'm not seeing anything.

Not seeing no kids running around

on bicycles or nothing.

And then I thought

about Robin Hood Trails

as I was driving down Goodwyn,

and I said:

"Well I'll... I'm gonna go over there,

just get out and walk around."

I was looking around, you know,

just physically looking out and about.

And then I looked

into the small ditch.

That's where I saw the tennis shoe at.

I called

West Memphis Police Department

to have Mike Allen

meet me out here.

And so I showed him the area

of the tennis shoe.

And Mike had said

he was going to take it out.

Mike fell into the water.

I was looking down on him like this.

He looked up and I said, "What?"

And he said, "it feels like my leg

is caught on something."

Like a log or something."

And Mike fell backwards,

and when he fell backwards,

his leg came up...

and one of the little bodies

was on his leg.

From the moment they

told me Stevie was dead,

I really lost it,

lost all touch with reality.

Pam Hobbs' son,

Steve, and two of his friends

were found murdered

Thursday before last.

It's more a part of my

life than I would like it to be.

Because frankly I'd like to be able

to not have those three 8-year-old boys'

pictures in my mind.

What you found, you found three boys

that had been hog-tied

and thrown in the water.

It appeared

that they had been sexually mutilated.

That appears to be cult-related.

The West Memphis Police Department

a lot of times would ask me about

occult things as though I were the guru.

I probably was because there wasn't

anybody else that was doing it.

This program is designed to help

law enforcement officers

better understand Satanic cults.

I got some books and I spoke to police

organizations around the country

that had some experience with it.

Okay, we have a rope here.

If you look at it closely...

I don't know

if the camera can pick this up.

But there's blood on this noose.

The police department asked me

to put together a list of people

that we had on probation that might

be involved in that type of activity.

Well, the guy that I knew

that was involved the most in it

was Damien Echols.

The two guys he ran with,

Jessie and Jason...

Jessie would fight.

Jason was not very aggressive,

in that respect,

but I believe he would do anything

that Damien asked him to do.

Eight months have passed

since the three boys were killed.

Cameras are in place

and miles of cable laid

in preparation for this

highly publicized murder trial.

I guess they found that those three

were the most likely to have done it.

Move back.

And then, of course, they

had the confession from Jessie.

The most compelling evidence

yet was introduced in open court.

Misskelley's taped confession

made to police.

I saw Damien hit

this one... Hit this one boy real bad.

Then he start screwing him and stuff.

Jason turned around

and hit Steve Branch

and started doing the same thing.

Michael Moore took off running,

so I chased him

and grabbed him and held him

until they got there, and then I left.

If he does not run

through the woods

and chase him down and bring

him back, Michael Moore lives.

Did Damien invite

you to some meeting?

He did. A cult, Satanic meeting.

Okay.

Tell me some of

the things y'all do, being in this cult.

We go out, kill dogs and stuff.

Some of my friends had said

they saw a hog's head out here,

and they saw the body

in a plastic bag.

The State is now trying

to prove motive in this case,

calling this a cult-related killing.

Whether that will be enough

to sway the women and men sitting

on this jury remains to be seen.

Damien, any

comment about the charges?

Did you do it?

I got a letter in the mail telling

me that I had summons to be on the jury.

And I didn't want to be on there

in the beginning.

But I didn't know how to get out of it.

Is it your opinion

and do you want to tell this jury

that these crimes were motivated

by occult beliefs?

Yes.

Blood is the life force.

They prefer to have a child

that is young.

There's evidence of genital mutilation,

and the red is the shaft of the penis.

Jason told me how

he dismembered the kid.

He sucked the blood from the penis

and the scrotum

and put the balls in his mouth.

You take this knife and drag it,

and it rips and tears.

The knife is being twisted

and the victim is moving.

Just like in the picture.

Damien, he had a book that he wrote in.

It was pretty dark.

A lot of death, a lot of...

He talked about dead children.

"Thirsty for blood

and the terror of mortal men."

Look favorably on my sacrifice."

I think they went out in the woods.

They may not have been meaning

to kill them.

And then it just got out of control.

And Damien,

I think he was the mastermind

over Jason and Misskelley.

I do believe that. I do.

You begin to see inside

Damien Echols.

And you look inside there

and there's not a soul in there.

I know he's guilty, you know.

I can't imagine the fear going

through them boys

watching one another get killed.

Knowing they was next.

I can't believe the heinous crime.

"We, the jury, find Damien Echols guilty

of capital murder"

in the death of Stevie Branch.

Guilty of capital murder

in the death of Chris Byers.

"Guilty of capital murder

in the death of Michael Moore."

A message has to be sent.

You can't be involved in murder

and expect to get away with it.

Misskelley was sentenced to life

in prison for the murder of Michael Moore.

And 40 years for the murders

of Steven Branch and Christopher Byers.

"We have determined that

Jason Baldwin shall be sentenced

to life imprisonment without parole."

If I'd been on the jury,

I sure would have found them guilty.

If there is ever an appropriate case

for the death penalty in Arkansas,

you've got it in your hands now.

That they burn in hell.

They wanna worship the devil,

let them meet him. I hope they do soon.

"We the jury have

determined that Damien Echols"

shall be sentenced to death

by lethal injection."

I was kind of, I guess, happy,

if I could...

Might say that word, that everybody else

was as angry at them as I was.

Now my boy can play

and go on about his life in heaven

the way it is,

and I'll go on with mine

the best I can.

And I'm glad it's over.

It's like the community felt

like they were relieved

that somebody was behind bars

and that they didn't have to be quite

as scared as they were. They were guilty.

This call originates

from an Arkansas correctional facility.

I have a prepaid call from:

Damien.

An inmate at Varner Unit.

If you wish to accept... Thank you.

Damien and I

probably have 5000 letters

that we've written to each other

over the past 15... Fourteen, 15 years.

You know, it's the way

we got to know each other.

I saw the film Paradise Lost,

which is a documentary

that was made about the original trial.

I was living in New York City

at the time

and I saw it at probably

the second time it was screened.

We were just watching TV

the night we were arrested.

We were in the bedroom,

turned the light off.

To hear Damien talk in that

film, he reminds me so much of myself.

Did she tell you whenever

she awarded herself the first-place prize

and rode in a parade?

She had this sign on the side

of a car that's saying "first place"

and it's got a blue ribbon on it.

And it was not even a contest!

She just gave herself "first place."

After a series of letters,

writing, corresponding with him,

and then I cared deeply about him.

And the next thing I know,

I'm in Arkansas.

When I was a real little kid, I had,

uhh, a pet turtle for a while. A box turtle.

Did you do any painting on its shell?

I most certainly did not.

We did.

Seeing the film, you realize

something has gone wrong.

You don't get the full picture

because there's so much to the story,

as we've learned,

as it's unfolded over the years.

I was struck by the fact that these people

didn't commit these crimes.

They don't have the right people

in prison.

Questions about

whether justice was served

have loomed in this case

since the verdicts.

The HBO documentary Paradise Lost

gave the case worldwide attention.

I am so glad to see so many people here,

people who are interested in this case.

When I started to write Devil's Knot,

my friends said, "Mara, they did it."

And I said, "Well, that may be,

and if that's true I'm gonna find out."

This was probably the first

crowd-sourced criminal investigation

in history,

is about the only way to describe it.

The case was supposedly solved.

If it was an open case,

the West Memphis Police wouldn't be

required to make available documents.

The West Memphis Police put together

an incredibly large investigation.

Even if a lot of it was nonsense

and rumors.

So we could take on the case,

we could begin to ask the questions.

We can look at Jessie's confession

and we could say:

"Wait a second,

what did he really say

compared to what he was claimed

to have said?"

Right from the start, after Jessie

Misskelley made his Statement to police,

it was recorded, transcribed.

And then it was immediately leaked

to The Commercial Appeal.

I read the confession on the front

page of the Memphis Commercial Appeal

just like everybody else did.

And it seemed like it happened.

When we were appointed

by the court in 1993,

we thought it wasn't gonna be

a jury trial.

We thought it was gonna be a plea.

As I got deeper into the case

and looked at things,

they just didn't start making sense.

Misskelley's versions

of what happened changed wildly,

and he couldn't get the story right

every time or any time.

Everybody round here

knew that Jessie didn't do it.

He didn't like Damien,

he was scared of him.

He, uh, stayed away from him

as much as possible.

Well, he wasn't too good in school.

Had to take him out of school

and I got him started

doing mechanic work.

He caught on pretty good.

When I was growing up, my dad always

taught me, you know... Tell the truth.

Tell the police the truth. I thought

the police was there to help you.

That's when they, uhh,

started questioning me.

Gary Gitchell and Bryn Ridge was,

you know, asking me some questions.

You know, about the kids.

And I tell them,

"I didn't know nothing about it."

The only thing I knew was what, you know...

What I was told from another guy.

I kept telling them the whole time,

"I wanna go home. I wanna go home."

Certainly one of the reasons

behind why he confessed is

that he's borderline

mentally retarded.

He was trying to compose a story

as though he was there.

He just didn't have the details.

Right after,

uh, they beat up all three of them.

Beat them up real bad? And

then they took their clothes off?

Mm..hmm. And then they...

Then they tied them?

Then they tied them up.

Tied their hands up.

And about what time was it

that all this was taking place?

I was there about 12.

About noon?

"Okay. Was it after school had let out?

I didn't go to school.

It couldn't have happened at noon.

It couldn't have happened

before the kids were out of school.

So they kept leading him down the path

from noon to 4:30, 5:30, 6:30.

Was it getting dark?

Your time period might not be

exactly right, what you're saying.

Police officers don't

like the word "interrogation."

They like the word "interview."

So Mr. Misskelley wasn't interviewed,

he was interrogated.

And he was interrogated from 9:00

in the morning until after dark.

This is an entire day

that he was being interrogated,

yet we only had a few minutes

of the audio tape.

Jessie, about what time was it

when the boys

came up to the woods?

I'd say it was about...

It was about 5 or so. Five or 6.

Ummmm.

All right, you told me earlier it was

around 7 or 8 or... Which time is it?

It's 7 or 8.

Okay.

I remember it was starting to get dark.

Okay, well, that clears it up.

We all have our breaking points. I

think it's important that people realize

that this is not just about a person

with disabilities

falsely confessing to a crime.

This is about police misconduct.

That's what this is about.

Once police convince

the person to make a Statement

against their interest, how does

that person know what to say?

Did anyone use a

stick, and hit the boys with?

Damien had a kind of a big old

stick when he hit that first one.

It's because of this phenomenon

known as contamination,

the police will suggest facts

about how the crime happened.

What was to keep these

little boys from running off?

Were their hands tied in a fashion to where

they couldn't have run? You tell me.

They're sitting there

listening to the police.

Listening to their interrogators

ask those leading questions.

"Weren't these boys sexually assaulted?"

Then they know what story to tell back.

Another boy was cut, I understand.

Where was he cut at?

" . At the bottom?

On his bottom?

Do you mean right here?

In his groin area?

Do you know what his penis is?

Yeah, that's where he was cut at.

Did it ever occur to you

that what he was telling you was false?

His entire story was false?

Jessie simply got confused. That's all.

I mean, Jessie was not convicted

on the basis of his confession.

And neither was Damien and Jason.

They were convicted on the basis

of Gary Gitchell's confession.

That was his story.

All they had to do

was get Jessie to agree to it.

It's not particularly difficult

to get a confession from someone

who's mentally handicapped.

It's like interviewing a 3- or 4-,

5-year-old child.

People don't tend to confess

to crimes that they didn't commit.

You know, I'm sure

there may be circumstances

where a person might

have a low mentality.

He's slow-minded, is what it is,

you know what I mean?

It took a while for him to, you know,

get things straight in his mind.

Kind of slow-minded, you know.

Well, hell, everybody's a little bit

slow-minded anyway.

I just have better faith

in our law enforcement

than to force somebody

to make a Statement that's untrue.

I think that it was essentially

poisoned from the very beginning.

The most basic things

about the investigations,

talking to the family members.

Getting Statements from police

that evening.

You know, whether they had these alibis

or not, but it wasn't done.

And it's why the case went bad.

Y'all need to be

investigating some of these people

who've been arrested

for child molestation.

Well, it's like this.

We've got a story

that is very, very believable.

It is so close to perfect

that we have to believe it.

I don't see how anyone could believe it.

Jessie Misskelley said it happened

that morning and everything.

Jason was in school.

And then Jason mowed

his uncle's yard.

He got some money,

went to play video games.

I called Jason's house,

and Jason and Damien

and Jason's brother

were playing video games.

They weren't talking much.

I got a little irritated at them.

Damien asked me to call him

later that night.

There was never a night

that we never spoke.

I remember that we had talked

that night.

When I spoke to police and they came

one afternoon and they spoke to me,

and I talked to them once

and that was it.

"On 9-10-1993, I met Jennifer Bearden

at her residence in Bartlett, Tennessee."

The interview was a result

of having obtained information

that she'd been on the phone

with Damien on the day of the homicide.

She informed me of several times when she'd been

on the phone with Damien and Jason after school.

"And until about 9:30 p.m.

on the evening of 5-5-93."

I was never given a chance

to at least give them, you know,

an alibi to the jury, I mean.

And honestly, I don't think

it would have changed their minds.

I think they were pretty dead-set

on what they were gonna decide.

The evidence will show

that not only was Mr. Misskelley

not in Robin Hood Hills

at the time of these homicides, he was in

a different county almost 40 miles away

the time these crimes occurred.

There were a lot of alibi witnesses.

When was the first time

you remember seeing Jessie?

At, uh, 2:00.

Jessie came to the house. I asked if he could

watch the kids while I went to a conference.

She got back about 4:00

and we went walking.

I seen him walking down the street.

I met him on the corner.

Talking about him fixing to leave

to go to wrestling.

A lot of these folks, when

we went back and visited with them,

they came to the conclusion,

"Oh, yeah, that's the night

that we went wrestling with Jessie."

Do you remember if you went wrestling?

Yes, sir, I did.

Okay, do you remember who went?

Jessie, Freddy.

Me and Jessie and Freddy

and James was at wrestling

that night, you know.

And that's the night that he got hurt.

And that's the night

that so-and-so only went with us.

Once. One time.

That was the same night that we signed

this register at the wrestling hall.

Do you remember seeing Misskelley?

Yes, sir.

Yes, sir. Yes, sir.

You remember Jessie Misskelley?

Yes, sir.

Are you positive about that?

Yes, sir.

Looking through the juror's notes,

they hardly seemed to pay attention

during the alibi portion of it.

You could say I sort of, like, died

myself because I shut out humanity,

and I didn't like people,

I was a hateful person,

and before this happened

I wasn't that type of person.

Words can't explain what the grief,

and what you go through...

We have found this to be

a world of its own.

We had quite a few arguments and

stuff because I couldn't let go.

He told me I had to let it go,

I had to keep living,

and I told him I was still in that ditch

just as much as my son was,

and I was clawing my way out of it

the best way that I knew how.

I left Terry in 2002

and we were divorced in 2004.

I do think that you can meet someone

and know that there's something there.

That there's some journey there

for you.

But I think it takes a long,

it does take a long time,

and I think it's a painful process,

actually.

I was talking about it and how really

and truly stressed out you were that day.

It was the first time you'd been touched

by anybody, like, in seven years.

And I'll never forget you were, like,

so completely pale.

And you were shaking,

and I kind of thought

you were gonna pass out

at one point.

It was a Buddhist ceremony,

and we kind of wrote it ourselves and...

They had a little... We had a little

temple set up or a little altar set up,

We did. Incense burning on it.

You know, they had two guards

up there watching the whole thing.

And you could tell they had no idea,

you know, what the hell was going on.

So they just pretty much stayed

out of the way.

We'd intersperse lots of, you know,

bowing, then kissing and hugging.

I think you're supposed to only kiss

once or something in the ceremony.

We just... We made it seem like

it was a part of the ceremony.

So that was nice,

that was really nice.

But, you know, back then

it was nothing like it is now, you know,

with the people who knew

about the case.

So it was kind of nice

because it was real low-key.

I had talked to Lorri. She

had come out to talk about the case.

My attitude at the time was,

you know, we cannot do this.

They were adamant that this should be

and was a case about innocence.

"We don't want you to focus on death

versus life without parole.

This is a case about innocence."

My reaction was,

if it is a case about innocence,

what they said is that

there's all of this investigation

that has to be done on the ground

in Arkansas.

And we're, you know, a two-lawyer

partnership in San Francisco.

How are we possibly gonna get

the resources to get on the ground

and really investigate

a case in Arkansas?

Lorri Davis said,

"I'll find a way to do it."

I've quit my job, my other job,

so I that can work full-time on the case.

Attorneys for Damien Echols are

appealing their client's conviction

on Arkansas Rule 37,

ineffective counsel.

Prosecutors disagree.

It was effective, it was thorough.

It was a 17-day trial.

Outside the court, supporters

unveiled a banner of more than 2500 postcards,

each pleading to free

the West Memphis Three.

It was always about

free the West Memphis Three.

We were raising funds and it wasn't

even to raise money for their defense.

It was to raise money

so they had money when they got out.

Because the day was coming soon.

I decided it

should be Black Flag songs.

I called Iggy Pop, he said sure.

I called Lemmy, he said, "I'm in."

Called Chuck D from Public Enemy,

he said, "You got it."

All to help these three guys

who I'd never met.

I went to your benefit show in '03

for the West Memphis Three.

It was like the best concert

I've ever been to.

See? I can't believe that

this is still going on.

Yeah, well. I saw a little bit of myself.

Damien liked to hang out alone

and wrote in his journals

that he was depressed. Hello.

He liked to listen to weird music.

Check.

He was a wise-ass

in the face of law enforcement.

I mean, are you kidding?

It could have been me.

Could have been me.

Not everyone agreed

with Rollins' message.

The parents of the murdered children

showed displeasure with picket signs.

My baby was murdered

and butchered like an animal

and his two friends were too.

Whatever punishment they get,

they deserve.

Michael's mother, Diana Moore, agrees,

telling us, "Make no mistake about it."

These three you see convicted

and sentenced did it."

I started getting very

passionate, very sincere hate mail.

Because if you are seen to be

sticking up for someone

who someone else truly believes

has murdered a child,

there's no way you can reason

with that person.

I remember thinking

that if we could get involved,

we'd probably get them out

in maybe one or two years.

That's how naive I was.

It's usually on average

of like 15 to 20 years.

If you would have told us that

three or four years in,

I think it would have been

quite daunting.

This is the first e-mail that I received

from Fran and Peter, and it's 7-25-05.

"What a horror story, unbelievable."

Something positive

has to come from this.

What can we do down here

in New Zealand?

Our names are Peter Jackson

and Fran Walsh.

We would like to offer financial

assistance to help facilitate, hopefully,

"a positive outcome in Damien's appeal

to the federal court."

When Fran and I first got involved,

it felt like the case

was in a holding pattern.

But it wasn't a holding pattern

for Damien's chances of staying alive.

That doesn't go into a holding pattern.

"Dear Fran and Peter,

your e-mail was a welcome sight"

on a very hot Monday morning

here in Arkansas.

My name is Lorri Davis

and I have been involved

in working on the case for nine years.

There are many twists

and turns to the story.

It's still incredibly frustrating.

"Appeal's taking forever

and funds always needed."

I have a pathological hatred

of bullying and people in power

crapping on people who have

no ability to defend themselves.

I believe in justice. I think there are

good people and bad people.

People do horrible things

and should be punished.

Justice should be fair,

it should be honorable,

it should be decent, it should speak

to our values as human beings

that right must prevail.

And all that I could see in the case

of the West Memphis Three is

wrong was prevailing and that wrong

was being perpetrated by people

who, I believe,

knew they were doing wrong.

Most people think that this

case is something extraordinary.

It's spectacular in some sort of way,

and it's not. Burnett and Fogleman

thought they could make a name

for themselves off of this case.

Because, really,

you're dealing with three kids

who were bottom of the barrel,

poor white trash

that nobody's ever gonna

ask another question about.

He thought they would say, "Guilty."

This whole thing would be swept

under the rug.

The State would kill me.

Jason and Jessie would spend

their lives in prison.

He'd move up the political ladder.

That's all he cared about.

This case is nothing out of the ordinary.

This happens all the time.

How did I decide

which trial would go first?

And the reason I'm hesitating,

I'm trying to think if that's a question

that I should be answering.

In general, a case with a confession,

uh, would be your easier case

as opposed to one

without direct evidence.

Ten feet, ma'am. Back up.

Okay.

Are you gonna testify

against your co-defendants?

Jessie, were you

forced to talk about this?

The prosecutors had a problem.

They could not play the tape

of Misskelley's Statement

at the second trial.

They needed Mr. Misskelley to testify.

They thought they were gonna lose

the other two.

Are you worried about his testimony?

Judge Burnett appointed Phillip

Wells to interview Mr. Misskelley

to make sure he didn't really,

really, really want to testify

against Baldwin and Echols.

Here's a young 18-year-old,

under a lot of stress,

facing life plus 40 years in penitentiary.

He has to make sure whatever options

and offers are available to him

are looked into or communicated.

Promises of lesser sentences,

you know, a much easier life in prison.

Many defendants would have

jumped on that deal. Jessie said no.

They can't come

up with physical evidence.

They've got to turn to witnesses

who they can convince

to give Statements in court. That's

the only evidence they come up with.

Just when it seemed attorneys for

the State had their back against a wall,

Craighead County Courthouse

came to an eerie silence

as 16-year-old Michael Carson,

a former juvenile inmate,

who spent time with Baldwin,

took the stand.

I was doing serious adult drugs

and, I mean, I was doing a lot of them.

I got out there.

I thought birds had cameras on them.

Michael Carson, he was fixing

to go to the penitentiary

for several counts

of residential burglary,

and that is when the prosecutor

got a hold of him.

Were you offered anything

as far as a reward

or anything of that nature?

No, sir, and if I was,

I would deny it.

Jason was not very outspoken. He wasn't,

you know, jumping around and stuff.

He's a very quiet,

to-himself type of person.

What did he tell you?

He told me

how he dismembered the kid,

he sucked the blood

from the penis and scrotum

and put the balls in his mouth.

I remember not knowing

why I was doing what I was doing.

I remember it actually going

through my head.

I would have this massive illusion

in my head and swear to God it was real.

And the kids, that night

I let them listen to the news,

and they just went crazy.

They said, "He's a lying son of a bitch.

Jason didn't tell him nothing."

I could understand why he

would never want to see me again

or talk to me again, but I'm just

telling him right now that I'm sorry.

I made the Statement

to Larry, the sheriff.

I said,

"Larry, those kids are not guilty."

He said, "Joyce."

He said, "it's this simple.

Crittenden County fucked up,

now we've got to clean up."

I'm a drug addict.

I was doing a lot of inhalants, LSD,

I was huffing gas all the time.

It's bad. It takes your whole perspective

on life and makes it a dream.

And they knew that.

They knew the drugs that I was doing.

Did you walk in

those woods in the winter?

Yeah, that was

the best time because during summer

it's really marshy.

During the winter it was froze,

the ground would be froze solid.

So you didn't have to worry about

all the mud and all that business.

I love the thought of being out there.

The cool, dark part of the year,

it's my absolute favorite time of year.

Part of it was that whenever I was out,

that was always the time of year

whenever I felt the safest.

Because most people, whenever

it gets cold, you know, they're not out.

So it's almost like at that time of year

the entire world is almost yours.

Nobody else wants it.

Jason and I would talk about leaving

that place, moving out of that place,

but we were so young that it never was

a definite plan, it was always just

we've got to get the hell out of here.

The thing that Jason always loved

was art. You know, painting,

drawing, things like that.

He would do these paintings

that were absolutely incredible

when he had art class in school.

The teacher would refuse

to grade them.

She would say,

"That's not what I told you to paint.

That's not what I told you to draw,

I don't want to see one more skull."

She would say, you know, "You were

assigned to do a still-life of flowers."

Jason was like, "Fuck that, I'm not

doing that, it's not what I want to do."

I've jokingly said to Lorri before

that I think that, in a lot of ways,

I may have brought this on myself,

this entire situation.

Because when I was a child

I knew what my passion was,

I knew what my drive was, I knew

what my desire was. I loved magic.

I would say to myself, you know,

these names that people think of.

I would say, "One day my name

is gonna eclipse all of them."

I'm gonna be the greatest magician

there's ever been."

And I had no idea that that meant

I would have 20 years

to sit alone in a prison cell

and practice and study.

But that's a word

that you don't even use here,

because when people

hear the word "magic,"

anything even remotely

connected to magic

has to be evil in some kind of way.

Uh, I noticed that Damien,

he had on kind of a black

duster-looking coat and carried a staff.

And I... You know,

that's kind of weird-looking.

But that's one of the things

that I testified to in the court hearing.

Damien, Jason

and Jessie had no motive

whatsoever to kill these three boys.

You know,

boys that they didn't even know.

And so, therefore, the State went

to the only motiveless theory

that they could possibly go to.

We thought that the best thing

to do would be to

actually get some expert analysis

on the crime itself.

As far as we could see the best person

to get would be John Douglas,

who was there at the creation

of the FBI Behavioral Science Unit.

From the evidence and the crime scene,

they start to put a picture together

of who committed the crime

and why they committed the crime.

My role when I was brought into this

case was primarily to analyze the case to see

does it really fit the three people

they have in prison?

I didn't wanna know anything

about them.

I don't want to become prejudiced

and be swayed in any way.

If I do an analysis like this, you may not

like what I have to say. I'm not a hired gun.

When I work on a case like this,

I work for the victims.

No matter who brings me in,

I'm working for the victims.

This appeared to be

what we call a lust murder.

There's blunt-force trauma inflicted

on these children.

There was evidence of sexual mutilation

to one of the victims.

Three victims were hog-tied

with their shoelaces

from their wrists to their ankles.

And on the surface, it appeared

to be a sexually motivated crime.

The focus of the investigation

is always on the families.

You start from there,

and you work your way out.

There were some police notes

where they had looked

into the possibility

that a stepfather might be involved.

They take me back to

the police station and said:

"We have information

that you are involved in this crime

and that you did it."

I may have

information that you have something to do

with the disappearance of the boys,

and, ultimately, of the murder.

It's almost more than I can

believe, you know, what you just said to me.

And it makes me so mad inside

that I just kind of got to hold myself

here in this chair.

I had hair removed.

I had to have over 30 pubic hairs

pulled out, plus the roots.

We're gonna interview

the other two fathers.

We're gonna ask them

the same questions.

They said, "We're gonna do

the other family members"

just like we gonna do you."

The assumption is that the crime was

unusual, it was bizarre, it was grotesque.

Even when

Paradise Lost 2 comes out,

and they are presenting

an alternative scenario,

they're going to an equally theatrical

possible perpetrator in John Mark Byers.

"Dearest Damien."

There are many things we can do

that can shed light on the truth

of what happened to those boys.

It is impossible

to do something this heinous

and not leave a personal imprint.

We need to do extensive

investigative work on Byers,

"investigative work

that the police failed to do."

I went down to the

Memphis area and conducted

an interview with Mark Byers, or

attempted to conduct an initial interview.

I knocked on his door,

he came out, his wife came out,

and pretty much,

he wanted to kick me off his porch.

He didn't wanna talk to me.

It was daily grind, fighting on the

Internet with people, being in a place

and someone recognizing me

and get up and go call their friends,

then all of a sudden, I got a mob,

and I got to sneak out the back door

because I know

a ass-kicking's coming.

"We need to find all of Mark Byers'

living relatives. We need to find Ryan Clark."

We need to figure out a strategy

for getting him to talk.

We need to know where

and at what time

they went looking for Christopher

on May 5th.

We need to locate all

of Byers' vehicles

that he owned at that time

and Luminol-test them.

We need to access

Byers' ex-residence

and Luminol-test every floor surface

in the house.

Lots of questions,

and not many answers.

But right now

we're still stumbling around in the dark

"looking for a light switch."

Mark Byers, he had a tough life.

He has a criminal history,

got busted for some prescription drugs.

But he is not the type of personality

that would perpetrate a crime

like the crimes I was looking at

here in West Memphis.

When we learned the case,

the timeline just

didn't add up to us.

Beyond the theatrical

nature of Mark Byers,

he didn't have a motive,

he didn't actually have the opportunity.

It became clear to us that,

you know,

people were looking at Byers

because they thought he was

the sort of person who could do this.

And our reaction to that was

the reason Damien got convicted

was that people thought he was

the sort of person who could do this.

When I was in the Bureau,

we came up with a crime

classification manual we designed.

We considered Satanic

because these cops were

bringing back these cases to us.

Satanic murders, Satanic murders.

There were classes being offered

all over the country.

Oprah Winfrey had shows,

Geraldo Rivera had shows,

it was all over here.

Another area that you might

find Satanic ritual carving

is in the stomach area.

This is not a Satanic...

This is not a ritual. It's a murder.

It's a murder

maybe by one crazy guy.

If you're calling this Satanic,

we could have

just as many murders

where a Bible is left there.

Does that make it a Christian murder?

It's a Bible? I mean, no, it's nuts.

It's just one, you know, crazy person.

Police say Satanists in our area

often conduct their rituals

in remote, wooded areas.

At some point did Damien

invite you to some meeting?

He did.

The West Memphis

Police didn't seem interested

in corroborating anything,

they just took everything at face value.

A cult, Satanic meeting.

Okay.

I got a phone call from

a lawyer in Fayetteville

who had Vicki Hutcheson

sitting at her desk.

Would you raise your right hand?

Said, "She's ready to recant her

trial testimony, how fast can you get here?"

She obviously asked for immunity

from the State,

which they refused to grant.

So here's the State of Arkansas at

the Rule 37 hearings still stonewalling,

still refusing to let the truth shine

on this case.

Damien and I stood back,

and then these kids took

their clothes off,

and I looked at Damien,

and I said, "I want to leave."

I testified to it, but I lied on the stand.

It was frightening to

listen to her tell the truth,

the truth that I knew had existed

all these years.

The truth that she wouldn't

come out and say

because she was afraid

of what would happen to her.

You mentioned

that you went and met.

Jerry Driver

at the Marion Police Department.

I'm trying to remember.

I do, I know who she is.

It's just kind of back in my mind

somewhere.

What did they ask you to do?

Do I think... They asked me,

do I think I could get, um, Jessie

to introduce me to Damien.

All we asked her was to go

in and see what she could find out.

Now that was with police department's

knowledge and consent.

He's the one that suggested:

"Well, if you're gonna have Damien over,

you to need to have demon books

on your coffee table."

The only thing she was coached

to do was to not get caught,

because we were actually afraid

that if she got caught, he'd kill her.

Damien looks down

at those demon book things.

And I said, "Why are you so nervous?"

And he said, "Well, you'd be nervous too

if they thought you killed

three little kids."

And I said, "Why would they think you,

of all people?"

And he goes, "I'm... Because I'm weird,

I guess, you know." And I was like...

I Was like, "Well, did you kill them?"

He said, "Well, no! I wouldn't do

something like that," like I was stupid.

And he was just like any other kid

his age, you know.

He was just a normal kid.

Any other contact with Damien?

None at all. Okay.

I was just a big liar,

and I really was just a big liar.

I've spent a lot of

the last 17 years looking back

at what I should have done

and what I could have done.

You know, it would be easy for me

to say I did the best I could.

But I didn't.

There's no substitute for experience,

and it's hard to look back.

It was before the trial when

Mr.Fogleman was leaving my office,

I stopped him in the hallway, and I

asked him, "Is this actually Satanic?"

Is that what they're saying?"

And he... His response was no,

it's not Satanic.

It's just murder.

It's not something made up,

it's not something dreamed up,

it's not a figment

of our imagination.

The evidence was that this murder

had the trappings of an occult murder,

a Satanic murder.

When you take the crime scene,

the injuries to these kids,

the testimony about sucking of blood,

and there's a transference of power

from drinking of blood.

Could you have any reason

to understand

why someone would do that

to three 8-year-old boys?

Well, you know, everyone can say,

"Well, who did you tell?" Well, nobody.

I think this case was never about justice

because they knew we didn't do this.

Fogleman knew we did not do this.

Is it a coincidence

this knife is found in the lake,

hidden behind

Jason Baldwin's house?

And the same person that this knife

is found behind is the person

that told Michael Carson

that he did it,

and he sucked the blood out

of the kid's penis, is that a coincidence?

If you ask me, the

single greatest offense

committed in this case

is what was done by John Fogleman

with the knife in the lake.

Fogleman had divers search

a small lake behind the trailer park

where Baldwin lived.

That search produced a knife.

To go out there in this

big pond, and to go right there,

and in just less than 3O minutes

and come up with this... This knife.

I mean, you win the lottery.

And then there's a reporter covering it.

We interviewed and have

the declaration of the diver.

He said that he was given

a description of the knife

and where it would be located.

The press said they were told...

And we have the reporter.

"Come to the lake,

we are about to make a discovery."

The prosecution knew the knife

was in the lake.

Nothing wrong with that.

You have an informant, they tell you:

"Oh, the crime was committed and

we know where the murder weapon is.

They committed the crime

and they threw it in the lake."

The thing is that informant

is of critical importance.

They're the one

who connects it to the crime.

They're the one who allows you

to say it was the murder weapon.

Why don't you call

that informant at trial?

Why instead do you tell a lie,

as John Fogleman did,

and say, "I just had a hunch

it was in the lake"?

The reason is that John Fogleman

had been told how it got in the lake.

It was thrown in the lake

by Jason's mother.

All I know is my son is innocent,

and he has been quiet.

And so there's a connection to Jason.

Why not bring it forward?

Because the same people

who told them that it was in the lake

let him know that it was thrown

into the lake a year before the crime.

He knew that knife in the lake

had nothing to do with the crime

because he had been told

when it was thrown in the lake.

This knife, State's exhibit 77,

caused those injuries right there.

Dash, dash, dash.

I think the knife that

was in the courtroom was the one

that was used on the Byers boy.

I still think that.

People that found the bodies

and saw the wounds

said that it appeared

to be cult-related.

Serrations are consistent with

being inflicted with this type of knife.

The only way you can tell

if a serrated knife has been used

is by looking for the serrations

that rub across the skin.

Arkansas is one of

the last remaining States

that has a prosecutor-controlled

crime lab.

What that means is

the medical examiner is not a witness

for what actually happened, but he is

an actual arm of the prosecution.

At this time I would ask that Dr. Peretti

be allowed to show

the photographs and use...

One of the key elements of the case that

we wanted to get into was Frank Peretti.

Dr. Frank Peretti was the assistant

medical examiner at the time

the autopsies were conducted.

He's not actually board-certified.

You get five chances to take

the board exams in Arkansas

and Frank Peretti has

failed them twice.

He's opted out of taking them again

for personal reasons.

His medical testimony at the trial

created a picture in the jury's mind

of a ritualistic, sexual murder.

These type of injuries we commonly see

in the female rape victim.

Trying to spread the legs

for penetration.

The anal orifice was dilated, it could be

from putting an object in the anus.

Those types of injuries

we generally see in children

who are forced to perform oral sex.

There's evidence of genital mutilation.

This is the cutting wound here

and the red is the shaft of the penis.

Cutting wounds, superficial cuts,

gouging-type injuries.

Multiple superficial, interrupted cuts,

multiple cuts.

Stab wounds and cutting wounds.

The knife is being twisted

and the victim is moving.

Gouging where the skin

has been pulled out.

Gouging wounds, cutting wounds,

stab wounds.

Skin is going to tear,

skin has just been pulled away, torn out.

Those were the most horrifying

photographs that anyone could imagine.

Those jurors were scared to death.

He is painting the picture in jury's minds

of an absolutely horrific murder.

Cruel and unusual.

It's what the jury hears coming out

of Frank Peretti's mouth

more than anything that sentences

Damien Echols to death.

We took our lead from Peretti himself,

because during the trial he holds up

this textbook on forensic pathology.

And it's written by Vincent DiMaio, who

is a renowned medical examiner in Texas.

I believe you indicated that

Dr. DiMaio and you are on a first-name basis.

Yes, I did.

And so we went to DiMaio himself.

The thing that's most interesting

in this case is that while the autopsies

are done in exquisite detail,

to me, the interpretation of the findings

are completely wrong.

There is nothing here

that I would say was due to a knife.

Either the cutting edge,

the tip or the back of a knife.

If you think about how stupid it is,

they're saying they're killing these kids.

And, you know, dragging the back

of a knife across them.

When I looked at the photographs,

it's obvious that by the appearance

of the wounds,

they had occurred after death.

If you're gonna torture and mutilate

someone, that's to cause pain to them.

But these wounds are postmortem,

so why are you torturing

and mutilating dead bodies?

It doesn't make sense.

The irregular nature of the wounds,

some scratches.

There's no bleeding, there's no pattern.

To me, it's obvious animal activity.

We actually called the place

back there we used to ride our bikes.

Turtle City. That's just behind there,

because there were so many turtles.

Everywhere, hundreds of them.

Painted turtles, snapping turtles,

soft-shell turtles, all kinds of turtles.

And they actually got such thing

called the alligator snapping turtle

that could be found. I mean...

Big turtles with humps in their back.

That make them look

kind of like alligators.

Our house was up against

a ditch, so we would go back.

There was a lot of them there,

turtles, fish and mud.

You'd see an armadillo that fell

in the water or got hit by a car,

and there'd be like four or five turtles

just chewing on it.

Red flags should go up when

a body is pulled from the water.

Especially in the month of May.

At that latitude,

those reptiles are in high gear.

They're feeding at their highest level,

their most voracious appetites.

Just keep going, keep going.

This is the bite mark I'm looking for.

You can already start to see

the outline of the jaw.

The animals usually

start with soft tissue.

And the scrotum and the skin around

the penis is soft and they're coming off,

so the animal doesn't have to

go against the body mass itself,

but goes at the things

that are dangled in front of it.

And then they'll go to things like lips

and the tip of the nose and the ears.

What you're dealing with

is a horrendous crime.

Three young boys

murdered in cold blood.

Just that alone upsets people.

You look at the bodies and there's

these savage injuries all over.

It affects people emotionally

and it warps their judgment.

And then someone says,

"Maybe it's Satanic!"

And they say, "Well, the only type

of person who would do this"

would be someone like that."

We didn't want just one opinion.

We thought the best thing to do

was basically to get

six or seven of the very best people,

get a wide range of views.

Every single one of the independent

experts that we approached

came out with the same findings.

There's no evidence that these

injuries occurred while they were alive.

There's no evidence that,

as the medical examiner testified,

they were sexually assaulted,

pulled up by the ears, fellatio involved.

The problem is bad science

drives out good science.

You don't have to be a rocket scientist

or a forensic dentist

to look at that serrations on the back

of that knife and say

that that knife made these marks.

I mean, give me a break.

That is the most ridiculous Statement

that I've ever heard.

And to sell that to a jury

is unconscionable.

We flew several of these

forensic pathologists down to Arkansas

to meet with Dr. Peretti face-to-face.

Dr. Peretti listened patiently

and nodded his head.

And said he would consider all this.

But he'd concluded that this couldn't

have been caused by a turtle,

and that's kind of where

he drew his line.

Now here all this

information comes in.

I start seeing a totally

different kind of situation.

This is not a lust murder

where the killer is going after

the genital areas of the victim.

This is what's starting to develop to me

as a personal-cause homicide

directed at these children, but maybe

one more than... More than others.

In all probability this person

would have been interviewed.

Should have been by now,

because he would be the logical person.

There's a connection with the victims.

The person who killed those three kids

is still out there walking on the street.

To me, that would seem like

the highest priority. Not this case.

Not me, Jason or Jessie.

You know, don't get me wrong,

we're thankful for the support

that people give us.

But the main thing

I would be thinking about

is there's someone who killed three kids

still living in my neighborhood.

If you disregard the

State's Satanic ritual theory,

the entire nature

of the crime changes.

It starts you thinking, "Well, maybe we're

not looking for these extreme suspects."

We're looking for someone

who's kind of ordinary, invisible."

So at that point we thought we should

put more funding into the DNA testing.

We're getting packages and

shipments of all sorts of DNA samples

that we're then forwarding

on to our DNA expert.

Out there was a

process that was going on

that either would be the impetus

for exoneration

or would be the State's last chance

to demonstrate in this highly controversial

case that he was good for it.

And Damien's reaction to that was

that he was absolutely adamant

about the DNA testing.

Of all the samples and all the

various hairs and things that got tested,

there was nothing,

none of the DNA came back.

Nothing matched Damien,

Jason or Jessie.

What was interesting, however,

were some unknown hairs.

There was one hair in particular

that was in the binding

of one of the ligatures.

The boys had their hands

tied with shoelaces,

and right in the middle of a knot

that had been tightened,

there was a hair jammed

in that knot.

Had the hair been located anywhere

other than inside a ligature binding,

I would say, you know,

it's not as significant as it could be.

But given its location, I think

it's particularly damning evidence.

The hair tied into Michael Moore's

ligature had to come from somebody.

So over Christmas, 2006,

we studied John Douglas's report

and started to think about

who that foreign profile could belong to.

"This crime was not nearly

so convoluted nor as twisted"

as the public were led to believe.

John Douglas said that this

is most likely a personal-cause killing.

That is to say, the perpetrator knew

one or more of the victims

and had good reason, at least

in his own mind, to act out violently.

We know the boys were bashed

on the head, tied up,

"and thrown into the drainage ditch."

The children were submerged in water,

which is an unnecessary act

if you're a total...

You know, total stranger.

And an unnecessary act to throw

the bicycles into the bayou.

"We know that all of this could have

happened in the space of just 2O minutes."

It almost certainly happened

before dark,

which means the crime in all likelihood

occurred between the hours

of 6:30 and 7:45 p.m.

Who knew these boys

well enough to kill them?

Who was out looking for them?

From where I stand we are pretty much

left with a list of three people.

Mark Byers, Terry Hobbs,

and Todd Moore.

Mark Byers began looking

for Chris from 6 p.m.

Terry Hobbs was looking

for Stevie Branch from 5 p.m.

Todd Moore was out of town.

We're left with two stepfathers.

But only one of them has ever been

scrutinized as a suspect.

Byers once referred to himself

as the giant red herring of this case,

and I think

he was speaking the truth.

That is why I am interested

in Terry Hobbs.

Hope this helps to explain

where I'm coming from.

"Sending much love to you, Fran."

We were working with a

private investigator, Rachael Geiser,

and we asked Rachael

to start to investigate Terry.

I'd come in to work daily,

and I would have

all of these e-mails from Fran about:

"Here's what we need to do,

thanks for what you sent."

We really didn't know

a whole lot about Stevie

because Stevie's life

was kind of confusing.

These are the

photographs of Steven Branch.

You had his father,

Stevie, his biological father.

Here we can see...

You had Pam, and then you had Terry.

Other than the fact that nothing's there,

there's nothing that would raise any flags.

And so getting Terry's

DNA became a priority for us now,

and the brief to Rachael was really

get Terry's DNA without him knowing.

Saturday morning, it

was raining out, I remember,

and we showed up

at his house early,

and he opened the door,

and we told him who we were.

He said,

"I've been expecting y'all."

I'll never forget it, he was like,

"Come on in."

I remember we sat there with him

for a while, and he, you know...

He was a likable-enough guy,

he really was.

He talked about their life

and how their life was.

He didn't talk a whole lot about Pam.

I think they were fighting at the time.

And he didn't talk, really,

about Amanda at all.

He interviewed with us,

told us where he was.

He said that was the first time

he'd ever told anyone his whereabouts.

So we waited in the living room

while he was in the bathroom, I assume,

and that's when I took the cigarette

butts out of the ashtray. Yeah.

We got the fax,

and I'm reading the fax,

and I'm reading the fax,

and at some point I said, "Holy fuck."

We all were just kind of stunned to see

this very dramatic DNA result.

Terry comes in, sits down,

and we tell him, you know...

The DNA that was found

on the hair doesn't match.

Damien or Jason or Jessie.

So it's somebody else's DNA.

They don't know whose?

Tell me. Yours.

No. Yes, it is.

No, that's wrong.

We had to get him to come in because we

knew that he didn't voluntarily give us this DNA.

We wanted to get either a voluntary

sample or we need to see him

do something, you know,

that would have left his DNA.

Terry Hobbs would not, at any point,

give me his DNA voluntarily, no.

The biggest bombshell

of the new defense investigation

is that an unexplained hair that could

be from another victim's stepfather

was found on shoelaces

at the crime scene.

They say the DNA matches victim

Stevie Branch's stepfather, Terry Hobbs.

Hobbs tells me tonight, quote,

"I don't have anything to hide.

I'll answer any questions."

Mr. Hobbs, do you feel like the attorneys

are accusing you of this crime?

The answer to that would be no.

Is it possible, Mr. Hobbs,

that that was your hair?

Sure, it was his son, Steven Branch,

who was murdered, and he's had

to deal with this for the last 15 years.

The first tattoos I

got was my parents' name...

because I love them

more than anything in the world.

I've abused drugs for many years

and I'm only 21

and I feel like it's because

I'm trying to hide.

I did it to suppress something,

to cover something up.

And where are your kids

during this time, at your mom's?

Mm-hm. They live with my mom.

And so why don't you stay

with your mom?

She thinks I'm too wild.

So she says, "You can't stay here

because you're too wild"?

And I'm hung out on a limb.

What's that mean,

you're hung out on a limb?

That I'm going crazy the way

she did when Stevie died.

Once Terry Hobbs surfaced,

it certainly advanced things.

It helped shift the momentum.

The West Memphis

Police Department realized

that they had never actually

interviewed him,

despite the fact that he was

a stepfather of one of the victims.

They quickly conducted an interview

with Terry Hobbs in 2007.

Anything unusual

when you got home, at all?

Nothing other than, uh,

Stevie wasn't home.

Terry Hobbs said to everyone

that he was very concerned

when Stevie Branch didn't

come home at 4:30 that night.

If he was so worried at 4:30,

why didn't he call Stevie's mom?

When he does finally tell her,

9:00, almost five hours later.

This person knows that he will be

a logical suspect at some point,

but what he needs,

he needs time on his hands.

He needs to establish an alibi.

We studied his movements that night.

He had spent some period of time

on the evening of May the 5th

in the house of David Jacoby,

who was a friend of his.

And I asked David, I said,

"Would you go help me?"

He was with me probably

2:00 or 3:00 in the morning.

May the 6th.

Jacoby here is kind of a witness.

He never had this window of opportunity

to perpetrate a crime like that

because he was with him

for such a long period of time.

We got a sample of David

Jacoby's DNA voluntarily...

and the analysis came back to say

that another hair

that was found on a tree stump by

the ditch where the bodies were found

was consistent

with David Jacoby's DNA.

I wasn't even aware that

he went to David Jacoby's.

According to Terry, he was walking the

streets and searching the whole night.

So that was news to me

when I found out.

Is there anything you can think

of that we hadn't gone over?

That we hadn't asked, something

you remembered through the years?

You'd thought they would do a

meaningful interview with Terry Hobbs.

It was as if they were sitting out

on the back porch just sharing a beer.

"We know you didn't

have much to do with this."

Just, you know, for old time's sake,

why don't you describe again

"how you didn't have anything

to do with this?"

It didn't have the atmosphere

of a serious interrogation at all.

You know, I don't know what happened

out there in them woods that night.

Mike Allen, the lead

investigator at the time,

and now the sheriff

of Crittenden County,

issued a Statement saying

Terry Hobbs was not a suspect then

and he's not a suspect now.

A question that has got to be asked

is that why have they so staunchly

refused to regard him

as a person of interest?

There.

Terry, appreciate it, man.

As we sit here today, there are

272 post-conviction DNA exonerations.

DNA is the essential element

to prove their innocence,

and these people have done

more than 3500 years in prison.

On the other hand,

there are many, many cases, urn,

where there's been DNA that's helpful,

as in the West Memphis Three case,

because it does shed light

on other suspects.

And it does put particular significance

on the absence of evidence.

There's an old phrase

in the forensic science business

that absence of evidence

is not evidence of absence.

Yeah, that's true.

On the other hand,

when you have DNA testing,

and you've gone through every piece

of trace evidence at a crime scene,

and you find nothing

that links the defendants

who have been convicted

to the crime, that is significant.

This may be Damien Echols'

final appeal at the State level.

If his arguments are denied,

the case then jumps into federal court.

A decision is expected

in about a week.

All the investigative

findings, the scientific results,

including the DNA, all of that is going

to be presented to Judge Burnett.

Finally, Judge Burnett can consider

this case with all this new information

that wasn't available to him

or the prosecution back in 1994.

And so we were looking forward

to having him reevaluate the case.

We really had high hopes.

We wanted to give the attorney

general some sense that it was coming.

We told him that there'd be

these DNA results

and we got into a discussion.

What would you have

to show to get a new trial?

And there was a point of laughter

where one of them said:

"We're gonna set this bar

as high as we possibly can."

Which is to say, we're gonna try

and get a court to rule

"that it is really impossible to ever win

under the Arkansas DNA statute."

People ask us what we're gonna do

whenever I'm out, when we're together.

And we do talk about that. Um...

For Lorri and I, life isn't something that

will happen one day down the road.

You know, we're together now, here.

We're not just in a State

of suspended animation, waiting.

He was 21, I guess, when I met him.

He hadn't yet really started studying

at that point, so it was kind of funny.

You know, I was in a different place

in my life, and... But now,

I mean, I would ask him for advice

before I would ask anybody.

I send him a lot of used books,

and it is really fascinating to look at.

Because when I'm reading a book

or when he's reading,

then we're going through...

As everyone does in their life.

You're going through

specific things.

You have 90 seconds left on this call.

Uh, I don't normally read a lot of fiction anymore.

I haven't for several years,

but a couple of days ago,

someone sent me

the new Stephen King book.

You know, I started reading his books

when I was probably 10 or 11 years old.

People have always

undervalued him.

You know,

they look at him as this, um, hack.

This hack writer who churns out

horror novels.

In all of his books at the end,

he always addresses the reader.

You know, he thanks you for going on

this voyage with him,

and so I wanted to read it to you.

"All right, I think we've been down here

in the dark long enough."

There's a whole other world upstairs.

Take my hand, constant reader,

and I'll be happy to lead you

back into the sunshine.

I'm happy to go there because I believe

most people are essentially good.

I know that I am.

"It's you I'm not entirely sure of."

A judge says no to new trial.

Judge Burnett made it clear that

the DNA evidence isn't enough for a new trial

or to overturn the conviction.

David Burnett wouldn't hear

the new evidence.

He complete...

He denied it without even hearing it.

What can you do? I mean, in our minds,

we started to entertain the idea

that Damien might be executed.

My life would have been a lot simpler

if I hadn't been involved in that case.

I had to fiddle with it for 18 years

and get beaten over the head by folks

that were opposed to what happened.

But I didn't pick and choose,

I just took what came down the pipe.

It's not unusual

for post-conviction motions

to be made in front of the judge

that originally heard the trial.

The theory behind that is the judge

who originally heard the trial

saw all the witnesses testify

and is in the best position

to evaluate the new evidence.

But all of us are victims of bias that

we don't even understand or know,

and sometimes you have

to abandon hypotheses

that you've relied on in the past

and try to freshly evaluate

the evidence.

All of this hoop-de-la about

newly discovered evidence.

There is no

newly discovered evidence.

All of the evidence that was found

originally at the trial scene.

Judge David Burnett finally

decides to stand for Senate.

We hoped like hell

that he would get elected.

Because once he was elected

to Senate,

he was unable to have anything

to do with this case anymore.

So Judge Burnett

heard what he heard,

and he and his jury

made their decision.

It was up to people from all over

the world, and that would be you.

And the people next to you

right now,

coming together to make

some real justice happen.

I would like to read something

to you guys.

"I can't remember what it's like to walk

as a human being anymore."

It's been well over 16 years since

I've actually walked anywhere.

There are times when I've thought,

surely, someone is gonna put

a stop to this.

Oh, well, it does no good

to dwell on it.

Either I waste my energy by focusing

on things I cannot change,

"or I conserve my energy, and

apply it to small things I can change."

Each small thing connects

to make a great, big thing.

And that big thing is

to bring those boys back home.

This is something

I came across today

and it's just a small paragraph of one

of Damien's letters from this February.

"The thing I like most about time is that

it's not real. It's all in the head."

There's no such thing as the past,

it exists only in the memory.

There's no such thing as the future,

it exists only in our imagination.

If our watches were truly accurate,

the only thing they would ever say

is 'now."'

And that's what time it is. Now.

♪ Come gather 'round, people ♪

♪ Wherever you roam ♪

♪ And admit that the waters ♪

♪ Around you have grown a'

♪ And accept that it soon

You'll be drenched to the bone r

♪ If your time to you

Is worth savin' I

♪ Then you better start swimmin'

Or you'll sink like a stone a'

r For the times

They are a-changin' a'

r Come senators, congressmen

Please heed the call 4'

♪ Don't stand in the doorway

Don't block up the hall a'

♪ For he who gets hurt

Will be he who has stalled a'

♪ There's a battle outside

And it's ragin' a'

♪ It'll soon shake your windows

And rattle your walls a'

♪ Oh, the times

They are a-changin' N

One day, I get a phone call

from my manager

saying Terry Hobbs is suing me.

"Dearest Lorri, are the

Dixie Chicks fighting this?"

This is a great opportunity to give

Terry Hobbs his day in court,

"get all the facts out in the open

and let a jury decide."

You swear to tell nothing but the truth,

so help you God? I do.

State your name for the record, sir.

Terry Hobbs.

You can put your hand down now.

Could you tell the ladies and gentlemen

why you sued my client?

All of the emotions, distress,

the anger.

That her Statements caused you'?

Correct.

I didn't say anything about him. I had no

intentions of finger-pointing at Terry Hobbs.

I don't even know

that Terry Hobbs did it.

I sort of asked my attorney,

"Why would he be doing this?"

He was confident

that he was gonna win

and he was gonna get

millions of dollars.

I think he's gutsy.

He had to have been warned that if he

did that, he would have to be deposed,

which he was,

and have to answer questions.

We gave Natalie's

attorney, D'Lesli Davis,

access to our investigative files

on Terry, his background,

his relationship with Stevie.

And it enabled them to basically

sit him down

and to finally question him

in a way that he had never, ever been

questioned about this murder before.

Describe your reputation, other than just

"a good man." What else would it be?

A hard-working man, good dad,

good husband in the past.

Uh...

Pretty good man.

Are you an honest fellow?

I try my best.

Law-abiding man?

I do pretty good at it.

We started doing

background on Terry.

I went to Garland County because

I knew he had lived there before,

specifically to interview his ex-wife.

And it raised some flags at that point.

She told me he had gotten in trouble.

I went to the court records

in Garland County and was able to pull

that incident involving Mildred French.

Let me give you a minute to go through

the declaration of Mildred French.

All right.

Have you read it?

No, I'm not going to.

Why not?

It don't mean nothing to me.

Why doesn't it mean anything to you?

It just don't.

Mildred French was a neighbor of yours

back in the '80s, wasn't she?

I don't remember.

Paragraph number four, "On

one occasion I heard a baby crying"

and sounds that indicated to me that Terry

Hobbs was beating his wife and/or his child."

She kind of let out a cry,

and then I heard the baby.

"I ran next door to Terry's unit

and rang the bell

to Terry Hobbs' residence."

He said it was none of my business,

and I said, "I'm making it my business,

you do it again."

I said,

"Because I've heard you before."

Do you recall she was your neighbor?

Some old woman was.

"A few months later,

I worked outside in my yard.

I went inside my home to take a shower

and get cleaned up."

And I got out of the tub and when

I was reaching in to get the towel...

"Terry Hobbs, who had broken in

and somehow gotten upstairs

into my bathroom..."

I didn't see him come into the bathroom.

He just grabbed me on my breasts.

"I screamed at Terry loudly,

'What are you doing in my house?'".

And screamed, 'Get out!"'

He said, "Shh! Shh!"

"I kept repeating loudly."

"Get out of my house!"

"And ultimately Terry ran out of

my home and ran downstairs into his unit."

What is your recollection

of those events...?

I don't have any.

Let me finish.

What is your recollection of the reason

that the police were called

and those events that Ms. French

remembers so clearly?

I don't have any.

"I said to Terry,

'Tell them what you did to me.'."

Terry looked at me square in the eye

and said calmly, 'It never happened.'

I looked at Terry and told him,

'You are a liar and you are sick.

And I say, "You know, you're sick."

And he says, "Yeah, I'm sick."

I never did like him, I mean...

Even when Pam first married him,

.there was just always something.

He creeped me out.

Do you lose your temper very often?

No.

Pretty even-keeled guy?

Try to be.

He's got a look that's plum evil,

and when that look of evil comes

over him, you know, I know he's mad.

What... What's this?

It is a judgment

against one Terry W. Hobbs

for aggravated assault in '94,

in conjunction with the shooting

of your brother-in-law.

Is that your signature at the bottom

of the first page, sir?

It is.

He can snap into a nice guy

and a bad guy by a snap of a finger.

You did backhand Pam Hobbs

the night you ended up

shooting her brother,

correct? Okay.

Is that correct?

Yeah. All right.

Is that funny?

Well, it's... You get tired of talking

about it after a while.

I need, for the record, for you

to State under oath that you did

I did. Backhand Pam Hobbs.

It was over a jealousy of a woman.

I was just trying to get away

and calm down, cool off,

and come back home,

and he wouldn't let me have the keys.

So he punched me pretty hard

that day.

Were you jealous over the

attention that Pam gave to Stevie?

No. Did you compete with Stevie

for Pam's attention? No.

He had made a comment to his mom

that I paid more attention to my son

than I did, you know,

being a wife, so...

Stevie started talking to me

probably when he was about 6 years old,

and he wanted to know

if I could keep a secret.

And I told him, yeah, because we were

really... We were very, very close.

Kind of like, you know,

grew up together.

Because I was 8 years old

when he was born.

Daddy Terry, as he called him,

was mean to him.

And that he... He treated him

different than Amanda.

The very first thing he ever told me

is about how he would whup him.

Make him hold his hands up

in the air,

and he would hold him

by the hair of his head

while he was whupping him.

He'd hold their hands

in the air as he whipped them.

Sometimes when he whipped Stevie,

he would leave belt marks on him.

Is that true? No.

Is it true you whipped Stevie with a belt?

Yes.

Is it true that you whipped Stevie and

made him hold his hands up in the air?

I didn't want to hit him

on the hands.

So that's true? Yes.

The only thing that's not true

about paragraph number 1O

is that you would leave

belt marks on him?

Not that I recall.

Stevie had a belt mark on him,

and I asked Pam who whipped him.

I thought she had

and she said Terry did.

She didn't want to tell at first,

but she finally told me.

Stevie never would tell us because

he's afraid he'd get beat to death

or whatever when he got home.

And about locking him up in the

closet if he didn't do what he was told

right when he was told.

I lived with them.

I was around them off and on.

It was a happy time.

I've got pictures,

everybody's smiling,

everybody's happy.

Everybody's swimming,

everybody's having a good time.

There was no fighting

and screaming and hollering

and beating the kids

and stuff like that.

I can't say, "I wish he wouldn't

have married her." I can now.

Back then I didn't know her

enough to say, "Ew."

But I do now, so, "Ew."

Then he got into a little more detail about

things that were happening about...

Terry would come into his room

while he was asleep or going to sleep...

and he would make

Stevie watch him masturbate.

It progressed so much that he started

making Stevie mess with Amanda.

Is that true, sir?

No, it's not true.

Can you think of any reason that

Judy Sadler would say that about you

if she had not heard that from Stevie?

You'd have to ask Judy.

Can you think of any reason?

No.

She's told me about that,

but I really feel like, if that was true,

why didn't you say that

16, 17, or 18 years ago?

Why do you wait

this long to say it?

Because maybe if it would have

been true and she said something,

then my mom would've kept me,

she would've fought for me.

This is kind of a new thing

for y'all, this therapy stuff,

so that's pretty stressful.

But you'll get comfortable with that.

"Guilt. I feel guilty practically all the

time." Can you put a finger on the guilt?

Where's that guilt coming from?

I don't know.

Just can't seem

to pick it out, huh?

Attached here, too, is exhibit

one, pages from Amanda Hobbs' journal

in her handwriting.

"You know, I think I'm the only

19-year-old that can't remember"

what happened in my life

10 years ago.

Was I traumatized as a child that

I had to turn to drugs to forget about it?

I used to tell my mom,

'My dad messed with me.'

I honestly don't remember.

I used to dream about my dad having

sex with me, but it was just a dream.

As far as I remember,

my dad never touched me sexually,

"but he beat the hell out of me."

He hit me one time with a belt,

but he used the buckle.

And it left a welt, probably that thick,

across my whole back and it was purple.

Is it still your testimony

you never hit your daughter?

Correct.

You never sexually molested her?

Never one time.

When we talk about emotional or

other problems your daughter has had,

you do not feel you are

responsible for any of those.

Is that correct? Correct.

I know Stevie asked me about

two weeks before he was murdered

to leave Terry,

and I asked him why.

And he said, "He loves Amanda,

but he don't love me."

I feel like I'm putting the pieces

of a puzzle together and I'm so scared.

Talking to Terry over things

that's happened and all that,

they did their job,

they got the right ones, and all this.

I just want the truth.

I want the answers.

Since the program aired,

convictions were handed down

to all three of the accused teenagers,

and it became undeniable

that the brutal murders

had been part of a Satanic ritual.

Back with us today,

Pam and Terry Hobbs.

I mean, all murder is horrible.

Is the manner of his,

the specific manner in which he died,

is that something

that will always haunt you?

Yeah, I'll go to my grave with it,

thinking about it.

I realize my son

is in a better place.

I got a phone call back

in 2003 about the Hobbs knives

that Pam discovered

when their marriage went south.

What stuck out to our attention

is Stevie's knife in there.

According to Pam, that knife

would have been in the boy's pocket

the day that he was murdered,

and so that was very interesting.

How did he get it? More

important, when did he get it?

Pam says she knows Stevie Branch

had it until he died. Terry Hobbs says...

I was his dad,

I was acting as a responsible parent.

Not letting a 6-, 7-, 8-year-old little boy

carry a pocket knife.

Aren't you aware

that his mommy, his mother,

said that he carried the knife with him

up until the time that he disappeared?

So?

And she Stated

that she didn't trust

the prosecution and she wanted

to turn it over to the defense.

I'm asking if it surprised you,

given the fact that the West Memphis Police

has spent so much time

and so much money over the years

saying they got it right, that when

DNA attributed to someone else

was found in the ligature

of one of the victims

that they attributed it

to secondary transfer?

What if it was secondary transfer?

What if it wasn't?

What are you saying?

I'm saying there could be a question

about whether or not you were

somehow involved in these crimes.

Well, who says that?

How do you explain

Mr. Jacoby's DNA?

Which is the second...

I have no explanation for that.

Objection to form...

We was in them woods all night.

The first time I heard about DNA was

the lack of DNA at the crime scene.

The first time I heard about my DNA,

it was just shock therapy, I think.

Telling me that they found my DNA

at the crime scene.

Sleepless nights, you know,

going over and over,

trying to see if there was something

you missed or something you heard or...

It's your testimony Mr. Jacoby

was with you all night in the woods?

We were together quite a bit that night.

No, that's not my question.

You testified earlier

that you and Mr. Jacoby

were together all night

until it was time

for him to go to work. Exactly.

Is that your story, or are you changing it?

No, we were.

So I'm at home and I

hear a knock on the door.

And it's Terry and Amanda.

I ask him what's he doing. He says:

"Oh, looking for Stevie,

he was supposed to be home."

"Terry and Amanda

came inside my house."

Amanda played with toys and Terry

and I sat down and played guitars

"for up to one hour." You've

already Stated that it's possible

you went to David's house

and played guitars for one hour.

I didn't say that.

You said that in your last deposition.

I don't recall playing the guitars.

I went over to see if David would

help me look for the three little boys.

"Pretty Woman," Roy Orbison.

I handed him my guitar and asked him

to play that part of that song again,

so I could get it down and he...

We did that two or three times,

you know, before I finally got it right.

So, you know,

a little time went by and he says:

"Well, you know,

I need to go look for Stevie."

I said, "Terry, let me know.

Let me know where you find him."

Did you see Stevie

at all that day, May the 5th?

No, I did not.

Did you see any

of the three boys that day?

No, I did not.

I think the timeframe is what

pulled us in more than anything else,

because I was like, "Wait a minute."

We went to church every Wednesday

at the same time.

We left about 6:30 every single

Wednesday, we never missed church.

And we saw them out there.

Terry Hobbs and Steven Branch

lived three houses down from us

on South McAuley.

About 6:30, we came out the door

and Steven was in front on his bike.

Christopher and Michael

were running behind him,

and they zoomed out real fast.

I told Christopher,

I yelled to him, "You need to go home."

Your brother said to go home."

He said, "I don't have to do

what you tell me to do."

And I saw Terry walking down

the sidewalk, and he was saying:

"Y'all come back down here,"

and they all went in that direction

toward him and we got in the car

and went to church.

The next day at school,

Ryan came up to us and he said

they couldn't find his brother,

his brother didn't come home.

I told him, "I saw your brother,

I talked to him."

I told him to come home.

What are you talking about?"

He was really devaStated,

he was crying.

And he said that they found his brother,

and he wasn't alive anymore.

We knew we saw him,

but we thought,

"There, his dad was out there with him.

Surely, they told him

that they were down there."

So we thought all this time

that they already knew.

If deemed credible, it's more damning

than even the DNA evidence, you know.

I mean, the last person to be

in the presence of these three victims.

By denying that occurred, rather than

offering any explanation of it,

it's awfully powerful stuff.

These people here

were never interviewed.

They were just neighbors of Hobbs.

Hobbs wasn't interviewed.

Didn't do a neighborhood.

They'll swear on a stack of Bibles

that they saw Terry Hobbs

with the three children around 6:30.

I don't know how many years

before anybody had asked me

anything about it too.

You say you were not ever alone

on the night of May 5th

and the morning of May 6th,

and yet David Jacoby

says you left his house twice, alone.

What Jacoby has told us so far

is that it could be two hours where

Terry Hobbs can't be accounted for.

I'm saying that you

don't have an alibi witness

for two to two and a half hours

on the evening of the murders.

From 6 p.m. to 8:30 p.m.

I don't know.

Does that concern you? No.

Hello? Hey.

Had me a visitor today.

John, what's...? John Douglas?

John's the FBI.

Ah... What'd he say?

There's a bunch of discrepancies

on where I said where we're at

and where you say we were at,

and it just...

I don't give a shit what them people

got to say

about where I was at

and what time I was there.

We don't have to answer

to them people.

David is his primary alibi,

and what he has done in the past,

he's fed information to David,

putting them together.

I don't know, from

what I said and what you said

and what they're telling me,

6:30 to 9:30's really fucked up.

Six-thirty to nine-thirty.

I don't know what they're playing...

We rode around

looking for three little boys.

We got out and we did a little walking,

looking for three little boys.

I went and picked my wife up

at 9:00.

"Where did you ride around,

Mr. Hobbs?" West Memphis.

What'? You was with me, David.

You remember that?

Jacoby is starting to

realize that he was being set up

by Terry Hobbs as an alibi.

Well, we know we didn't do it, okay?

The police know who done it,

and they're sitting in prison.

At the time, I wasn't looking

for three murdered kids.

I was helping my friend

look for his kid

and who happened to be

with another kid

who happened to be

with another kid.

So I mean, and what upsets me is...

Yeah.

I gotta stop with the camera,

here it goes.

It just gets me that he didn't

come back, you know? Fuck.

Why do you not come back

to your friend's house to help you

if you can't find your kid?

Yeah.

I stopped myself from saying

that he did it,

you know, in all these years.

I've actually, you know,

said he couldn't...

It gets to the point, I'd give my

life to know the fucking truth.

Fucking Terry.

But I've been that little kid,

you know?

You been that step...? That stepchild?

That stepkid, yeah.

That gets his ass whupped

at the drop of a hat for...

You know, for something

somebody else's done.

And you catch what's

built up from everybody else.

And that, I felt that with Stevie.

I mean, like with the marbles.

He's throwing marbles

and bouncing them off the wall.

Terry is telling him,

"I'm gonna bust your ass. Quit."

Stevie, I'm gonna bust your ass.

Stevie, quit.

"Stevie, quit. I'm gonna tell you

one more time, Stevie."

And, you know, you just want...

You wanna get that last marble.

And Stevie's looking like that

last marble's fixing to come again,

and I said, you know, "Sit down, let me

show you how we played marbles."

And it got Terry, you know,

off of him, and...

Terry hated him.

What he did to him

to make him hate him, I don't know.

Stevie was scared of Terry.

He was hid in the closet, and I asked

him why he was hid in a closet.

You know, he had

a mishap in his underwear

and Daddy Terry would whip him.

And one time he had thrown him

against the wall.

I do not believe

the homicide was planned.

This person responsible for the murders

lost control and had to kill them.

They were already heading that way, and

he said, "Get back down to the house."

And they passed him,

they were laughing and playing.

We thought it was a normal day.

It was things we saw them do

all the time.

You were not angry in the sense

that you become physically abusive?

Correct.

These young boys were overpowered.

You do not fly into rages?

Correct.

And you do not beat your children?

Never.

If he was capable of doing this,

and I can almost picture it,

that he freaked out, and the other

two boys being there, um...

They've got skull fractures,

they've got brain injuries.

If it had been an accident,

the Terry Hobbs that I know,

no, I don't think that he would say

that, "I accidentally did this."

"I'm sorry," and turn himself in for it.

These children were alive until

they inhaled water and drowned.

To do what he did to the children,

hide the clothing, hide the children,

he got in water, got muddy.

There's been some

discussion about you doing laundry

the evening of the 5th

or the morning of the 6th.

Recall that? It didn't happen.

You didn't do laundry?

No.

I saw him cleaning.

I saw him washing clothes.

I saw him in Stevie's room.

I mean, he had bleach and everything

and was cleaning.

I had never seen Terry

clean anything

the whole time I had known him.

When he took me to work, I believe

Terry changed into a purple tank top,

a pair of shorts

and his LA Gear tennis shoes.

He's muddy,

he has to change his clothing.

When he picked me up from work,

he was in blue jeans

and flannel top shirt on.

He has to get prepared

and wait to be interviewed.

And you have a dispute with every

single one of your alibi witnesses.

If you put

all of these Statements together,

and all the evidence together

that I've just run through,

and you're the police,

wouldn't you wanna look

at Terry Hobbs for this murder?

You'd have to look

at Terry Hobbs.

From an investigative perspective,

it solidifies Terry Hobbs

as the principal suspect.

It's gonna be tough

for someone like him to confess.

If he is in fact the guy,

it's extremely tough.

He's had 18 years to think about it.

He's got an answer for everything.

You throw him a pitch, he's got it.

You know, he knows how to hit it.

The attorney general's office

has taken the position

that not only should these

wrongly convicted young men

not have the opportunity

to prove their innocence,

but that no one ever in Arkansas

be given that opportunity

on the grounds that Arkansas

is incapable

of ever convicting anyone wrongly.

It's one thing to build perception

that there's something wrong.

It's another thing to get

a formal judgment overturning it.

There are still some formidable

legal obstacles to opening that door.

Tell us why you're here today.

I'm here for justice

and the real killer to be found out.

If I've had to be the spotlight

of people thinking I was involved,

if that kept the case alive

to get where we are today,

I'd turn around

and do it all over again.

Talk about what has been so impactful

in this case that has changed your mind.

Because that day,

you believed he was the killer.

That day I believed

what the State told me.

And it took quite a while

of being blinded,

and when I finally

got my answers,

none of the roads

led to the three in prison.

All the roads and all the evidence

lead to Terry Wayne Hobbs.

This case is outrageous.

People need to get involved and help

on this case. I am happy to get involved,

donating my time,

time from my law firm, pro bono,

because these young men

need a fair trial.

If they're convicted again? Fine.

But do it fair. Do it constitutionally.

It's an endurance test

to keep up with this.

I think I was in my late 20s

when I first heard about it.

I am now 45.

We'd buy Doritos and Skittles

and M&M's.

And we'd sit down, and I'll have napkins

and then Damien would say:

"All right, put out your napkin,

okay, try this, all right."

One Ruffle, two orange Skittles.

All right, get the root beer ready.

"Now eat that, drink that

at the same time, isn't that crazy?"

It's a long, long process. We've all had

to educate ourselves and learn patience.

We'd make a small breakthrough

or something and Lorri and I would

have a long two-hour phone call.

We'd get off the phone,

think this is gonna be a happy ending.

There's gotta be a happy ending to this.

One thing that could

happen is they could say no.

"Judge Burnett was right.

You lose, no new hearing, Damien.

Sorry, done."

And then he literally is done

in the Arkansas court.

The oral argument today

it is Damien Wayne Echols

v. The State of Arkansas.

So we have a situation

here where the Arkansas legislature

passed these statutes out of, quote,

"In response to nationwide concerns"

that innocent persons

were being imprisoned

"and even executed

for crimes that they did not commit."

However, the State takes the position

that the only evidence other than DNA

allowed in a DNA action in this State

is evidence of guilt.

The fact of the matter is

that DNA evidence

that couldn't have been obtained

15 years ago

begins to make things relevant.

Connect to other evidence that did

not appear relevant 15 years ago.

So your interpretation is it's not

really just new scientific evidence.

It's new evidence

across the board that'll come?

Yes, Your Honor.

The animating purpose of this statute

is not to do away

with finality of judgments,

but to test evidence of innocence.

Doesn't that include

the last 17 years?

No, well, I'm sorry.

Does it include the last...?

The last 17 years, or are you limiting

the evidence that can be presented?

You can't bring in evidence that

is just further reweighing of evidence

that the State post-conviction processes

permit you to make in other forums.

Now certainly he would like to have

a much freer reign

to go back to court

and bring in 17 years' worth of claims

that have been made

and retry his case.

Counselor, what harm is there in

allowing him to present the evidence

from the last 17 years?

I'm sorry?

What harm is there to...? In

allowing him to present all evidence?

The harm is in the

finality of a criminal judgment

that is not demonstrated

to have any constitutional

or procedural defect

and just to try it again. I mean...

We would submit that the court

is to consider the DNA evidence,

along with all other evidence,

whether or not admitted at the first trial.

All simply means all.

I talked to him, actually,

right after the hearing.

Guards came into his cell

and took everything,

everything he owns. All of his books.

Fifty-one books, his journals, his shoes.

When he asked

why they were doing that,

they said they were sick

of seeing him on the news.

It's terribly abusive.

They were horribly abusive to him.

They don't like the death-row thing.

They're trying to get Damien Echols

off of death row

so they can put

two new people in there,

and you know

who them two new people is?

Don't even say it. Me and you.

I ain't never felt the need to have to

try to defend somebody

in our family before,

but now I feel like

my brother's getting a bad rap.

Somebody's got to say something.

He, obviously, is just gonna

keep letting it go and letting it go

because he feels like he's had enough,

you know, and it's...

Somebody needs to say something.

If they're trying to put the blame

on someone,

they need to dig deeper

and find that someone.

Received December 11th at 11:02 a.m.

Ummm... Hello. I

need to speak to somebody,

so please have someone call me.

Marker.

State your name, please.

Blake Sisk.

How old are you?

Twenty years old. Okay.

The other day

we got a call on the tipline.

This young man had been a friend

of Michael Hobbs Jr.,

who is the nephew of Terry Hobbs.

Michael Hobbs Jr. Lives in a town

called Mountain Home, Arkansas.

His dad, Michael Hobbs Sr.,

runs a restaurant there,

and they've lived there

for a long time.

First thing he told us was that

when he was about 12 or 13,

he and Michael Hobbs Jr.

Had been playing football in the yard.

And when they got done playing football,

they came into the house,

got a drink and were gonna

go to the basement to play pool.

Michael said, you know,

that his uncle and dad

were in their downstairs basement,

and we were gonna go downstairs,

but his dad hollered,

you know, "Don't come down here,

we're busy talking."

So me and Michael

decided to listen in.

Michael Hobbs Jr. Told the witness

that his dad was down there

with his uncle,

sounding like

he might have been crying, saying:

"I'm sorry for what happened

and I regret it."

Michael's dad was just consoling him

about, you know, the situation

and everything would be all right.

"You're not in any trouble."

A number of years later,

he and a friend

were picked up by Michael Hobbs Jr.

In Michael Hobbs Jr.'s truck.

My name's Cody Gott. This is fine.

You can use this for whatever you need

to use it for. You have my permission.

When he picked us up, it was like...

It wasn't the same Michael that I...

You know what I mean? He wasn't...

Wasn't in the same mood

that he usually is.

He's usually outgoing,

like, ready to go do something.

Ready to talk, ready to...

And he was just real quiet.

He wasn't as talkative, and I asked him

what was going on and he...

"What's up, man?"

And he said, he told me that:

"My uncle Terry,

he killed those kids

in that case,

in the West Memphis Three case."

And then he was like, well, "My dad

told me that my uncle's the one"

who murdered those three kids and

it's been, you know, on my mind all day.

"It's been just running

through my head."

And I was just in shock,

I didn't really know what to say.

Then, according to Michael Hobbs Jr.,

the second witness says

that his dad called this, quote,

"the Hobbs' family secret," close quote.

He said, "Only me, my dad, my uncle"

and I think maybe his mom

and someone else in the family

might have knew.

It might have been the other brother.

He called it the Hobbs' family secret,

and he said:

"If they knew I told you,

I would be in deep crap."

There was one third

friend that they thought

might also have some information.

What this third witness told me:

"Michael Hobbs Jr. And I and a third

friend were playing pool in the basement."

During the game,

the third friend said something

"about the West Memphis Three case."

Then this young man,

the third witness, asked:

"What's the

West Memphis Three case?"

Might be the only teenager

in Arkansas

who didn't know what

the West Memphis Three case was.

He asked that question

and Michael Hobbs Jr.

Responded to him by saying, quote:

"My uncle killed three kids

in West Memphis," close quote.

And according to this third witness,

Michael Hobbs Jr.

Was dead serious when he said this.

He was not fooling around.

In addition to getting them to sign the

declarations under penalty of perjury,

they all took polygraph examinations.

The polygraph examiner concluded

that these three young men

were absolutely telling the truth about

what they heard Michael Hobbs Jr. Say.

I don't even think Michael knows

why he did it.

I just... You know, he knows

it happened, he knows he did it.

And it was his dad...

His dad is... Probably would know,

you know, why he did it.

We don't have any power

as defense attorneys

to call Michael Hobbs Sr. Into my office

and to ask him to tell me

whether he called this the

Hobbs' family secret and why he did.

The prosecutor can issue

a grand jury subpoena

and ask Michael Hobbs Sr.

In the grand jury

where he's under penalty of perjury

if he lies, "Did you say this?"

Why'd you say it?

What did you mean?"

And I think

that's the kind of information

that only the prosecutor can get

that could really crack this wide open.

I don't give a

shit what happened 17 years ago

I know what didn't happen.

Me and you didn't do nothing wrong.

So fuck them motherfuckers.

We're proud people. We don't

have no reason to tuck our head.

You hit a bump in the road, you wasn't

expecting a speed bump being there,

but you pick yourself up on other side

of that speed bump

and go, "Damn, I didn't see

that one coming," and keep on going.

Pam's a speed bump.

I'll put her that way.

Was Terry capable? Did Terry do it?

Did I stay with a man

that possibly murdered my child?

And it does raise a lot of questions.

The court rejected every single thing

that the State argued.

Basically saying Burnett was wrong in

not allowing a hearing based on the DNA.

One, by one, by one.

Just no, no, no. Wrong, wrong, wrong.

Finally the Supreme Court

has ruled in our favor.

Uh, we could not be more excited.

It was unanimous.

This is huge for Arkansas.

The Supreme Court is...

Has ruled in our favor.

The State Supreme Court

is on our side.

Finally. We won. We won.

The mother of Stevie Branch,

one of the three 8-year-olds killed

in that murder,

joins us now on the phone.

What is your reaction to the ruling

by the Arkansas Supreme Court

that the killers

can have a new hearing?

My reaction to it is,

now with the DNA evidence and things

that doesn't point

to the three men convicted,

that lets me know for sure

they didn't lay a hand on my son.

They keep constantly

pushing the date of the hearing back.

First they told us

it was gonna be in June.

Then they told us

it was gonna be in October.

Now they've pushed it

all the way back to December.

The wake of the victory was probably

the most difficult

and frustrating time for Lorri of all.

"Dearest Lorri, you never, ever

need to apologize for how you are feeling."

I totally understand what you said,

and why you said it,

and I'm glad you felt

you could say it to me.

This situation is so very hard.

You and Damien

have been treading water for years

and the shore never seems

to get any closer.

"It's no wonder you feel like giving up."

After years and years of filing

and hear... You know, this and that

and never-ending bureaucracy,

it keeps going back and forth.

To go 16 or 17 years and finally

have what was a remarkable victory,

and not simply for the three,

but about the whole nature

of DNA testing in Arkansas.

And then say, "Well, when will this

actually lead to Damien being released?"

And the answer being,

you know, who knows?

"it took me a while to understand

what you must have learned long ago."

Nothing, and I mean nothing,

comes easily with this case.

The breakthroughs are small

and the obstacles never seem

to decrease in size.

Any small piece of progress

is clawed from unforgiving rock.

All we can do is keep going.

If we keep on pounding on the wall,

it will break, because it must break.

All things eventually break.

I would love to see photos of the 1920s

house in Garton when you have them.

It sounds wonderful.

"Sending much love to you always,

Fran."

You're so worn down,

you know, you might get something

like say a common cold,

and the next thing you know, you're

laying in bed sick for next six months.

Damien, you know, he's struggling

because of the health issues

he's facing in prison,

just not having adequate nutrition,

not being able to go into the sunlight.

You know, lack of vitamin D.

His eyesight is starting to dim.

Everything in your

body is just hurting and shut down.

Mm-hm. It made me

wanna be nicer to you.

It did!

Sometimes it appears to me that

the attitude of the players involved

in this case are:

"Let's sweep this under the rug,

let's hope it goes away."

No one wants to admit

they made a mistake.

What about the lawsuits

that are gonna follow?

And who cares about that issue?

Let's just do the right thing,

it's simple to do the right thing.

Something we had always planned on

doing was to try to get the State to agree:

"Let's just go right to the new trial,

because, of course,."

Damien and Jason and Jessie

are sitting in the cooler

"each time there's a delay.

Let's get to it."

So the defense decided

to approach the State and say:

"Hey, let's skip the evidentiary hearing

and just go straight to a new trial."

Two weeks ago yesterday, we

sent Patrick Benca, our local counsel,

in to have a lunch meeting with

Dustin McDaniel, the attorney general.

I've known Dustin from law school

and I knew he'd be approachable about it.

I wasn't sure whether he would

take it in consideration.

Matter of fact, during the lunch

he said to me, "That's a big ask."

Um, but I felt that he was listening

to everything that I had to say.

Much to our surprise, the

discussions progressed sort of away

from the

"agree to the new trial" idea to

is there a way to reach a practical

resolution of this case for everybody?

The Attorney General brought in.

Scott Ellington,

a circuit county prosecutor.

He came to Little Rock

with a bunch of his lawyers.

The defense attorneys have

maintained complete innocence

on behalf of the defendants

all this time.

I mean, I don't underestimate our ability

to have obtained convictions

in these cases.

But I wasn't looking forward

to having to go to trial in this case,

because of the deterioration

of evidence.

Memories lost.

You know, stories changed.

Every time there was a filing,

you know, there was a DNA...

Came out in the paper

that there's new DNA, new DNA.

I was not looking forward to that.

We didn't want to show weakness

in maintaining the judgment,

so one of our positions was

the State is not making an offer.

The State said they're guilty.

Our guys said they're innocent.

How do you bridge those two gaps?

There's only a couple

of options in between.

We started making our pitches.

We started making our pitch

for the Alford plea,

which we talked about

before going in.

It's not a perfect resolution.

It will be a guilty plea,

but it's a very, very rare

and unique kind of guilty plea

where you get to

maintain your innocence.

Prosecutors hardly ever allow this,

and judges have the right to say,

"We're not gonna accept it

because can't maintain your innocence

and plead guilty at the same time."

It kind of seems oxymoronic.

I'm... I guess I'm kind of a

"shoot from the hip" guy to start with.

I kind of jumped on it real quick

and then the Attorney General and I

visited just briefly and he was like:

"Are you sure

that you want to agree to this?

Are you sure this is the right thing

for you, politically?"

Because he knows

I'm elected as a prosecutor.

And this could backfire.

We knew what we really needed to make

this deal, which is really only two points.

We needed it to be a deal

where the West Memphis Three

could maintain their innocence.

And we needed it to be a deal where they

got out of prison the day it was entered.

Not two years from now.

Not, "We'll consider you for parole."

Not 10 years more.

Enter the plea, maintain your innocence,

get out of jail.

This notice was released today out of

the Craighead County Circuit Court.

It's vague, saying that the court

will take up certain matters

pertaining to the West Memphis Three

case tomorrow.

It went to Damien first,

and Damien readily accepted it.

How you doing?

Then the deal went to Jessie.

Been a while.

It has been a while.

And Jessie accepted it.

We're almost home.

Which means by the time it got to Jason,

Jason had the full veto power.

If he said yes,

the deal would work for everybody.

If he said no, everybody was left

right where they were, in prison.

I come home, turn

the TV on, it's all over TV.

Rumor mill got started this afternoon,

and it's all over the place,

but I think everything's gonna

work out fine in the morning.

His position was, "I,

Jason, would rather stay in jail",

and fight this

with my last dying breath

"until somebody recognizes

I am 100 percent innocent."

There are reports that at least

two of the infamous West Memphis Three

could be released from prison.

And I told him

that I wanted three or nothing.

I didn't sleep much.

I think the last time I looked at the clock

it was 4:00 this morning.

Mixed emotions,

all type of things, so...

What do you think is going to happen?

Are you pretty sure, are you not sure,

you doubtful this would happen?

I'm not sure, I'm doubtful,

I don't know.

I'm just a pawn in this,

just like they are.

They've been a pawn

in this the whole time.

Now, I have to say, because I've been in

the Arkansas Department of Correction,

I understand

where they're coming from.

If I had to roll the dice

for my freedom

or get out today

by copping to a lesser plea,

I would probably take the plea

to get out of prison.

But then I'm stuck the rest

of my life with the stigma,

while the real killer walks free.

Who do you believe.

This is notjustice! Is the real killer?

No comment.

No comment?

Do you feel any relief? No.

None?

I gotta go.

What are you gonna do next, Terry?

Hey, hey, Terry,

just for a second...

There's the baby-killer. Talk to him.

This is a free world.

I can say what I want.

Freedom of speech,

First Amendment right.

I contacted the other attorneys,

asking them what was up.

If they knew anything

that was going on.

They really indicated

that they didn't know.

Jason was quite resolute

and not agreeing

to taking the Alford plea.

And, I mean, really that's about

the biggest illustration of his innocence

that you could ever imagine.

But this was really coming to a head,

and we didn't know how long

this offer was gonna be on the table.

And it was there for the taking.

We were trying to figure out

alternate ways to get in touch with him.

Somebody who cares about him

and loves him needs to be talking to him.

We need to get Holly.

It's busy.

I'm just gonna keep dialing

over and over.

You know, over the years

we've just grown to be...

I mean, I'm closer to Jason Baldwin

than I am to many people

that I have known my entire life.

Everybody just cannot believe

that he would choose to stay in prison

when he can walk out,

no matter what the reasons are.

I got a call from Lorri.

She said, "I'm gonna ask

Eddie Vedder to call you."

I was trying to explain to Jason,

look, anyone's gonna have to understand

locally and globally,

State of Arkansas is not gonna let go

of three convicted child murderers

based on time served.

It's implied that they don't have enough.

They don't have enough to keep them in.

They don't have enough to win a trial.

I was able to get a call in to the

prison to have Jason give me a call.

He said, "This isn't fair."

I don't wanna concede

anything to the State."

He did not wanna talk about it,

and he didn't call back.

And I was devaStated.

I believed in his decision,

and I didn't wanna question it.

I would never ask another man

to compromise his ideals.

But it was so close to freedom.

It was unbearable.

Not hearing from him

and not knowing what he was thinking

was unbearable.

Jason Baldwin is 16 years old.

He's been in jail for months.

And he's about to enter a trial

where prosecutors are going to ask

for the death sentence.

He's offered two deals in secret

if he would testify

that Echols had done the killing.

He tells the prosecutors,

"No, that would be a lie.

My mother raised me

better than that."

The 16-year-old refused,

not once, but twice.

At 16 years old, it

never even crossed his mind

to throw somebody

under the bus to save his own skin.

So Monday night,

I get this call from him.

He says, "Neither option is really fair."

I said to him, "if you wanted to do

something you didn't feel right about",

you could have done that

18 years ago and gone free."

And he said,

"Yeah, but the difference is, this time

I can set Damien free

by my decision."

I mean, that was his best friend,

you know.

This deal sucks,

but we want their freedom.

All rise.

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen.

Be seated, those of you who can.

We are still waiting

to find out...

I am David Laser, Circuit Judge of

Division 9, the Second Judicial District.

Continue today for this 11:00 hearing

on the West Memphis Three.

Will they be set free today?

Answer still unknown but,

of course, we will continue...

Mr. Echols,

Mr. Baldwin, Mr. Misskelley,

if you would stand, please,

and face the court.

Spend a lot of time trying to explain it.

They had a private, closed-door hearing...

Mr. Echols, how do you

wish to plead in this case?

Your Honor,

I am innocent of these charges,

but I'm entering an Alford guilty plea

today based on advice of my council.

And my understanding

that it's in my best interest to do so

given the entire record of the case.

Same as relates to you, Mr. Misskelley.

How do you wish to plead?

I am pleading guilty under North Carolina

v. Alford in the Arkansas rules.

Although I am innocent.

This is...

And this plea is in my best interest.

Everybody just be patient.

We're waiting too, like everyone else.

Just gotta stay in place.

Mr. Baldwin, how do you

choose to plead in this case?

Your Honor, first of all

I am innocent of murdering.

Christopher Byers,

Michael Moore and Steven Branch.

However, after serving 18 years

in the penitentiary for such,

I agree that it's in the State's

best interest, as well as my own,

that based upon

North Carolina v. Alford

that I plead guilty

for first-degree murder for those crimes.

All right.

The court finds that

there is a factual basis for the plea,

that the pleas are voluntary and will be

accepted and received by the court.

I'm aware of the controversy

that's existed.

I'm aware of the involvement

of the people in this case.

I don't think it'll make the pain go away

to the victims' families.

I don't think it will take away a minute

of the 18 years

that these three young men served

in the Arkansas Department

of Corrections.

What I've just described

is tragedy on all sides.

And I commend people in the case

that have assisted towards the end

of seeing that justice is served

to the best that we can do.

The tremendous judge.

Um... He didn't have to say the things

that he did at the end.

Sometimes outside help

is in fact a big help,

and for those of you who have been

a participant in that regard

that are here, I commend you

personally and publicly

for having done that.

It was great to see a crowd

of people outside of the courthouse,

you know, 18 years ago

were screaming for blood.

And Damien, Jessie and Jason

walked outwith their hands held high

and the crowd is cheering

and supporting them.

Some are happy, some are angry

and some are perplexed,

and that's the case at the end of

every trial, and this one is no different.

First of all, I understand

that nobody in that room

wanted to hear from me, particularly.

I needed to be heard by my voters,

and I needed to offer

some explanation.

I'll tell you, let me tell you this.

This judge was most likely

going to grant a new trial.

As far as gathering up evidence,

I hadn't gotten there yet.

I've not reviewed reams and reams

and volumes and boxes and boxes,

but the evidence I've seen,

I believe these guys are guilty.

I know they pled guilty.

With their entry of a plea of guilty,

we have removed the question

of them filing a civil law suit

against the State

that could result

in many millions of dollars.

I mean,

because you have three individuals

times 18 years is 54,

I mean, so, 60ish?

I have spoken with members

of victims' families

and I can tell you that they are still

suffering the loss of the little boys.

We put to rest a question

for these families

of the little boys that were killed.

These three individuals

pled guilty to the murder

of those three little boys that day.

That put that matter to rest.

Period. End of sentence.

Heh. I don't even know where to begin.

I guess we eat, right?

I was dead-set against this, like a mule.

And I am not moving an inch.

I was just trapped up in it,

just by myself.

You reminded me that I'm not by myself

and I gotta think of everybody.

I have absolutely no idea

what I'm doing.

I'm just enjoying

the moment, right?

I think that's cheese.

You think it's what?

There's cheese in there.

Yeah. Cheese. Have you had cheese?

Yeah, but not in a salad.

All right, I'm done with the salad.

Okay, let's move on.

And it's not just this war

between one person and the State.

It is everybody involved, you know,

and it was, like, how could I forget?

Mom! Ha-ha-ha!

I still feel like it's a dream.

I just talked to you Monday

and you didn't tell me nothing.

I wanted to. Free man.

It's my suitcase. Check it out, pretty cool.

I like that.

I called him yesterday and said, "I got

a little suitcase and it's all packed."

And he said,

"I've never had a suitcase before."

It's these things.

Gosh, I love you so much.

I love you too.

Every time I turn around,

you wanna talk to me.

Look, every time I turn around.

It's great. It's a great feeling.

I'm used to the guards

being around me all the time.

Every now and then,

I turn around, make sure,

you know, damn, is this really real?

Hey, man. How you doing, man?

It's a blessing, you know, to

be here with my family and friends.

Last time I seen them,

we was all kids and everything.

And here we are, grown up now.

That's really what

kept me going over the years.

When are you gonna

come to the house and say hi?

Prison is really hard.

You know, if I could stay out of prison,

I could go anywhere I want to, free man.

All I just got to do is, you know,

just stay out of trouble.

That's why I'm trying

to do things different in my life.

So I know I can do it.

I think we all had our mental image

of what this was gonna be at the end.

Which was three of these guys

walking out of the courtroom exonerated.

Everything I had in the prison,

I carried out in one small envelope.

Everything else,

when they told me I was leaving,

they said, "Pack up

whatever you wanna take."

I just threw it all in the garbage

and left it.

When he first left the

courthouse, he looked at me and said:

"It already feels like it's been such

a long time ago since I was in prison."

Within an hour of the time we

were out, it already felt that way.

And I think, in some ways,

maybe it's a little harder for Lorri

than it is for me because I've never had

a really solid foundation in my life.

When I was young, we were constantly

on the move, constantly on the go.

We never had a place that

we called home for long periods of time.

"Time to vamp up your wardrobe.

Fall is coming."

Yeah, we're gonna have

a early Halloween party

since we're gonna be gone

for October.

We're gonna do it

at the end of September.

Our time together now

is more gentle in a way.

What do you think about that stuff?

That fake spiderweb stuff?

I love it.

Think we should get it? Yeah.

When you're in prison

you get three hours a week,

so you feel very desperate

and rushed.

Like you're trying to wring

every second out of it that you can.

And it's like being out here

and being together 24 hours a day,

you just feel like you're able to relax

into each other a little more.

There's a bit of grief.

You leave people you love.

You don't know when

you're gonna see them again.

If you can ever go back

to that place.

Because we don't plan

on going back to Arkansas.

I don't look at the political aspirations,

the greed, the evil,

the cruelty or anything else.

Because for me, it's over.

For me, I'm ready to move on.

When you first asked me about the

letters, I got them out of storage,

and it felt so foreign to me.

Thank you. You too.

So then we talked

about burning them all.

We thought the best thing to do

is take all the letters.

Just burn them, so they never...

No one will ever read them.

There's so many things,

it's so personal.

I happened to pull one out

that was about six months

into when we were writing to each other

and I thought, "That's not so bad."

And there are elements of it that

remind me of how we talk today, so...

"My dearest Lorri,

I love the letter I got from you today,"

the one about us changing.

You were right,

we should be looking forward, not back.

You give me the strength

to face anything,

but I also know

that not everyone is like you.

"If they were... If they were,

then everyone would be in love."

Right, well. "I love the way

Master and Margarita ends."

The way they get to spend

eternity together, alone.

"That they are granted peace."

"And you are left to wonder

what adventures they'll have next."

♪ And don't you worry

♪ I believe your story

♪ You were put away

For something you didn't do

"That's the way I imagine you

and I, just saying goodbye to everyone"

and beginning our own journey

"to places that neither of us

have ever known before."

♪ When I come to see you a'

♪ What will I bring? a'

♪ The wisdom of a poet r

♪ The color of a dream r

♪ And I leave with three roses 4'

♪ Made from a magazine ♪

♪ More beautiful to me

Than any flower in the spring a'

♪ And the feel of summer a'

♪ Turn into fall a'

♪ Anything made of paper

That's all S

♪ That's all a'

♪ That's all a'

♪ In the shadows of religion 4'

♪ Some think we find the truth a'

♪ But innocence is stricken 4'

♪ Without an ounce of proof I

♪ While the wheels of injustice a'

♪ Can turn mighty fast a'

♪ Another blood moon of October a'

♪ Will silently pass f

♪ With words of love a'

r In a telephone call a'

♪ And anything made of paper

That's all S

What's all I

♪ That's all a'

♪ Anything made of paper

That's all S

♪ In the inside world

Where bitterness grows a'

♪ Your heart has found the passion

To see what's in your soul a'

♪ And late at night

On an angel's wing f

♪ You hold on till tomorrow

To see what it brings I

♪ Any news

No matter how small a'

♪ And anything made of paper

That's all S

♪ That's all a'

♪ That's all a'

♪ Anything made of paper

That's all S

♪ In the inside world

Where bitterness grows a'

♪ Your heart has found the passion

To see what's in your soul a'

♪ And late at night

On an angel's wing f

♪ You hold on till tomorrow

To see what it brings I

♪ Any news

No matter how small a'

♪ And anything made of paper

That's all S

♪ That's all a'

♪ That's all N'