Witnesses emerge
Point to Hobbs in deaths of 3 W. Memphis boys
Attorneys for former West Memphis Three death row inmate Damien Echols made Arkansas history last year when they got him freed. Now they’re fighting to clear his name.
The defense team, led by attorney Stephen Braga, announced Friday they have found three new witnesses who point to Terry Hobbs as the real killer of three West Memphis boys. The witnesses, who Braga insists passed polygraph tests, claim Hobbs’ nephew, Michael Hobbs Jr., told them “my Uncle Terry murdered those three little boys.”
Terry Hobbs, stepfather of victim Stevie Branch, did not return calls Friday. He has denied having anything to do with the boys’ murders, and police have never considered him a suspect.
Braga hopes that will change. His office sent the witnesses’ sworn statements to prosecuting attorney Scott Ellington to urge him to reopen the investigation into the 1993 slayings of Branch, Michael Moore and Christopher Byers, who were stripped, bound and beaten before being thrown into a muddy reservoir.
For now, Braga is not releasing the identities of the witnesses, or their affidavits, to reporters.
He has released excerpts, which include one witness’s account that: “One day Michael picked us up in his truck. He was very quiet and upset.
Michael then said to us, ‘You are not going to believe what my dad told me today. My Uncle Terry murdered the three little boys.’ ”
The witness claimed that Terry Hobbs’ nephew was told the revelation was “the Hobbs family secret,” according to a news release issued Friday — the same day the latest film on the case, “West of Memphis,” produced by Peter Jackson, made its debut at the Sundance Film Festival.
John Mark Byers, who initially blamed the West Memphis Three for his son’s death, has publicly called for an investigation of Hobbs. Byers joined Echols, Braga and others in Utah Friday for the film’s screening.
Contacted Friday, Terry Hobbs’ brother, Michael Hobbs Sr., laughed upon hearing the allegations, calling them “made up stuff.”
He said his son and the three friends had a falling out and this is their way to get even. Braga’s team acknowledged that Hobbs Jr. had given information to police against two of the three witnesses.
The elder Hobbs said he is convinced the West Memphis Three belong in prison.
“How they got three killers out of jail, I don’t know, except the almighty dollar,” he said of Braga’s team.
He said his son is upset about the former friends’ assertions and sent him a text message Friday saying, “You think people are going to believe that (expletive)?”
Braga’s team successfully pressured Ellington to free Echols, Jason Baldwin and Jessie Misskelley Jr. in August because of a lack of DNA or other evidence against them. But the prosecutor insisted the men enter controversial Alford pleas, which al- low defendants to maintain their innocence but technically plead guilty and accept punishment.
Two hairs from the crime scene were identified in 2007, after DNA advancements since the initial trial.
An independent lab paid by the defense concluded that a hair found in a shoelace used to bind Michael Moore’s wrists to his ankles is consistent with Terry Hobbs’ DNA. The other hair is consistent with the DNA of David Jacoby, whom Hobbs visited about an hour before the boys’ disappearance.
Echols’ attorneys said Hobbs could have picked up one of Jacoby’s hairs when he sat with him and played guitars inside Jacoby’s home. That hair was found on a tree stump near where one of the boy’s bodies was found. Hobbs has said the victims could have picked the hair up from his house since they often played there.
— Beth Warren: (901) 529-2383