From 2008: Some observations on the WM3

Ed.-I've written on this case several times and am always amazed at the comments my observations have generated. Have I been wrong about the case in the past? You bet, and so were many observers. Read the comments. Many of them are interesting, a few very illuminating. My deceased maternal grandparents were from Arkansas. I have some unique views on the place and its very backwards culture.

http://chickasawpicklesmell.blogspot.com/2008/01/west-memphis-3-update-terry-wayne-hobbs.html 

Songs from the Site Meter: DOJ returns over the West Memphis Three

WWW--This is pretty funny. These clowns kept coming around during the DC Madam scandal all the time, now they seem to have noticed the WM3 case for the first time. Check the link they read or bookmarked, I think I'm onto something with the fact that Terry Hobbs and Mark Byers (fathers of the murdered children dumped at what was Robin Hood Hills at the time in the early 1990s).

My take is that the kids were likely slaughtered because their parents were drug-addicts who turned informants, snitched on the wrong crowd, and the resulting murders became inevitable. There is more than smoke hovering around this thesis. Why the DOJ is reading it after having a few years is a matter of priority and competence. The war on drugs creates secondary crimes that are far more destructive than the original ones they're going after. Pathetic.

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West Memphis 3 Update: Terry Wayne Hobbs vs. John Mark Byers?

West Memphis, Arkansas--In a case that has had as many twists-and-turns as the aftermath of WWII, there is another bizarre development: John Mark Byers is alleged to have come out for the innocence of the West Memphis 3. At this time, it's impossible to corroborate as Byers is alleged to be claiming that he's been doing "undercover work" towards whether another step-father might have been involved in the murders of the three eight-year-olds back in 1993--Terry Wayne Hobbs.

[John] Mark Byers has recently come out in favor of the innocence of those in prison. He has said he has helped perform undercover work, making tapes of his conversations with Terry Hobbs. He has made some remarkable allegations about Hobbs past. The supporting evidence for these allegations have yet to appear. (http://www.jivepuppi.com/Terry_Hobbs.html, November 15th, 2007)

What's interesting is that there have been suspicions that Byers did in fact do "undercover" informant work for the West Memphis Police Department prior to the murders of his own step-son and the other two children. It's likely that the informant work was related to drug interdiction, as West Memphis is a well known corridor for the flow of illegal drugs through that part of Arkansas. It should be noted that Hobbs's and Byers' step-sons suffered some of the most brutal mutilations and violence to their bodies. This includes what could be a bite-mark (or the lashing from a belt-buckle) on his face. Christopher Byers, step-son of John Mark Byers, suffered mutilation of the genitals.

Is Byers innocent? So far, DNA-evidence found at the scene has not fully exonerated the man, now purported to reside outside of Millington, Tennessee. Some of the results of the DNA testing are still unknown, but one of the hairs found on the bodies of the children in a a shoestring ligature (binding) has a positive ID: Terry Wayne Hobbs. John Mark Byers and Terry Wayne Hobbs--what's common to these men? That's answered easily: both were step-parents, and both were involved in patterns of criminal violence, breaking-and-entering, and heavy drug-use. They also show signs of being abusive in their homes and with the children of others. Both Hobbs and Byers also came from strictly religious and economically comfortable backgrounds. They did not grow-up poor as the West Memphis 3 had. Then, there is the mysterious David Jacoby:

THOMAS FEDOR, FORENSIC EXPERT: None of the defendants could have been the source of that hair. None of the victims could have been the source of either hair. None of the DNA evidence from the crime scene connects any of the defendants to the scene of the crime.

MATTINGLY: So, who could the hairs belong to? A defense petition in federal court says the DNA from one hair is consistent with that of Terry Hobbs. Hobbs is the former stepfather of victim Steve Branch.

(on camera): Mr. Hobbs, do you feel like that the attorneys are accusing you of this crime?

ROSS SAMPSON, HOBBS'S ATTORNEY: The answer to that would be no.

MATTINGLY (voice-over): Hobbs agreed to go in front of our cameras while his attorney did the talking. And through most of my questions, Hobbs remained silent.

(on camera) Is it possible, Mr. Hobbs, that that was your hair?

SAMPSON: Sure. It was his son, Stephen Branch, who was murdered, and he's had to deal with this for the last 15 years.

MATTINGLY (voice-over): Defense attorneys say a second hair found at the scene is consistent with the DNA of Hobbs's friend, David Jacoby, and that the two were together in the hours before and after the victims disappeared.

Jacoby did not return our calls, but he did volunteer DNA samples to the defense. Authorities say they stand by the old convictions. West Memphis police have no plans to question anyone. ... (CNN transcipt, November 8th, 2007, http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0711/08/cnr.01.html)

And what of David Jacoby? What is his background? Who is he? His hair sample was found at the site where the bodies of the three murdered children were found, located on a tree stump. This is a relatively new name, and it should be noted here that Hobbs and Jacoby--both friends supporting each other's alibis on that day--have all generally remained out of the spotlight of this whole affair, ever since 1993. Hobbs in-particular has gone out of his way to avoid interviews until recently, while Jacoby has been relatively unknown to the general public until 2007.

While the cops try to get their stories straight and lose more evidence in their custody, a real move towards exoneration of the West Memphis 3 is building. It is long-overdue.

On November 18th of 2007, Pamela Hobbs was arrested for domestic abuse of her sister, Sheila Muse. Drug abuse is the suspected reason for her behavior, a trait she shares with her ex-husband (as well as problems with drugs). Her own daughter aided her in the beating of Muse.

In an about-face, Pamela Hobbs is now siding with the calls for a new trial for the West Memphis 3. Still, there's the nagging question: what's John Mark Byers up to? Whatever it is, it appears that the real murderers of Steven Branch, Michael Moore, and Christopher Byers are growing restless. Everyone has to confess to their transgressions, and it's just a matter of when. When is coming soon.

What Really Happened to Azaria Chamberlain? by Bernie Pattison

Ed.--I'd like to introduce you to my first submission from a nice lady in Australia who cares about threatened minorities. Like the West Memphis 3, the case of Lindy Chamberlain and the disappearance of her baby into the outback of Australia is troubling. Lindy and her husband were members of the Seventh Day Adventist church down under, a group that is somewhat reviled by many Australians. Simply by being "different", they came under intense-scrutiny and suspicion based on these fears and bigotries. As a result, in both cases, a fair trial was an afterthought.

Here then, is an observation on the case of the disappearance of Azaria Chamberlain, and the harassment her family endured in-the-aftermath. Damien Echols, Jessie Misskelley, and Jason Baldwin were likely arrested because they looked "weird" and stood-out. This can be a liability when social hysteria has hit a community...
If anyone had thought to ask the traditional owners of the Uluru-Kata Tjita National Park, the Pitjinjara Yankajara people, known locally as the Anangu, what happened to the small baby girl that disappeared from her family’s tent on a freezing night in August 1980, the Anangu would have been able to tell them. But no one asked them. The Anangu would have told them of the dingoes that lived in the area, outnumbering the human mammals by three to one. They would have told them of these wild dogs that would approach even at the camp fire and look for small human mammals unattended and smelling of warm mother’s milk.
But no one bothered to ask them.

On the night that Azaria Chamberlian was taken by a dingo they did however ask a well known black-tracker to track the dingo that had the baby in its mouth. Nipper, the black-tracker, found the tracks of a big dingo carrying a bundle and followed the tracks to where the bundle was laid in the sand leaving the imprint of woven cloth and followed them again to where the animal picked up the bundle to carry it off across a bitumen road, only to lose them at that spot.

Some short time earlier the baby’s mother Lindy had gone to the family’s tent upon being told by her husband Pastor Michael Chamberlain of the Seventh Day Adventist Church and others at the camp site that they had heard a baby cry. The baby had just been fed and put down to sleep in a small crib in the tent. As Lindy approached the tent opening she saw a large glossy well-fed dingo with a bundle in its mouth coming from the tent. The dingo was totally unafraid of her and pushed past her in the darkness. Not daring to imagine that the bundle the dingo carried was her baby she rushed into the tent where she had a few moments before lain her 10 weeks old baby Azaria and settled her small sons, Reagan and Aidan and found the baby’s small crib empty. By the pale light that shone in to the tent she could see a spray of blood on Reagan’s sleeping bag. She screamed to the others at the camp site that a dingo had taken her baby and she rushed out into the darkness where she saw the animal again, but still could not see clearly what it held in its mouth.

The hunt was on, but according to later advice from the traditional owners and rangers of the area, the baby would have been dead before it left the tent, from shock and loss of arterial blood. Michael Chamberlain soon realised the impossibility of finding their child in the blackness of a desert night and appealed to his wife to accept God’s will, that He had taken their child. We who have no gods do not know how people can be so trusting of the gods in which they believe. But trusting they were ,on that night and for all the dreadful nights that lay ahead, and by all accounts Lindy is still. As the family stopped by a roadside petrol stand on the drive home to Alice Springs a few days later, they were approached by a group of aborigines coming from a hunt. They immediately sympathised with Lindy and told her they knew a dingo had taken her baby. How they could have known this hundreds of miles from the site of the attack and without communication with other aborigines no one has been able to determine, but in the way of the aboriginal people who have lived there for millennia, they knew.

Uluru, formerly known by Europeans as Ayer’s Rock is a monolith that sits majestically in the Uluru-KataTjita National Park in the dead red centre of Australia. Over 500 millions years ago it was thrust up from the bottom of the sea, bringing with it Tjukurpa the Dreamtime. The Dreamtime is the force that brought life to the structure that was Australia and still is today. Tjukurpa is the force of the Dreamtime and native Australians still live by its precepts and laws. It is not a concept that Europeans understand or believe in. But the native people talk to the spirits of their land and the spirits of the great rock Uluru and know things we could not possibly know.

A coroner’s inquest on the disappearance of the baby a few months later found that it had indeed been taken by a dingo but that there had been human intervention. This was decided because of a photograph taken by the police of the baby’s jumpsuit found concertinaed in the sand and rubbish near a dingo lair. The policeman laid the jumpsuit out neatly for the picture and thus the legend was born…. ‘there’s no way a dingo could perfectly separate the jumpsuit from the baby and place it down so neatly’. When Northern Territory authorities realised the panic in the community about the loss of a tourist’s baby to a dingo, they prepared themselves for a fight. Serious loss of revenue to the Territory would result from a drop in the number of tourists.
Police were ordered to investigate further. In pubs around the country and at backyard barbeques people began to question how a dingo could have lifted a 10 week old baby in its jaws and carried it off. They had not seen dingoes lift small mammals like hares and wallabies and trot with them for miles. Aided by slanderous gossip about the Chamberlains, and somehow annoyed by the stoic behaviour of Lindy which they determined to be ‘brazenness,’ public feeling turned firmly against the couple. There was talk of the tiny black dress Lindy had made for Azaria with red ribbons and bows and tiny red bootees. Surely only someone who delved into the occult would dress their very young baby in this way.

There was a false claim that the baby’s name Azaria from the Old Testament meant ‘Sacrifice in the Wilderness’ when in reality it meant ‘Aided by God’. The sleeping bag which had the blood spray of the sleeping baby on it was lost after police raided the Chamberlain house so there was a denial by authorities that there had been blood spray in the tent. The Chamberlains were said to be Satan worshippers and the church to which they belonged was called a Satanic cult. Someone I knew told me Lindy was the sister of a woman who was convicted of murder in Queensland a few years before.

Not true
After another inquest which found that the baby had been murdered, Lindy was charged with murdering Azaria. Her husband was charged with being an accessory after the murder. At her trial in 1981-1982 the prosecution claimed that she had cut the baby’s throat with scissors in the front seat of the car. The baby’s arterial blood had sprayed underneath the dashboard, and this was supposedly proven by laboratory tests. It was suggested that the tiny body was stuffed in a camera bag and later disposed of. Lindy claimed that the cut marks in and around the neck of the jumpsuit were made by sharp incisors of a dingo.

But an expert from London who had never seen a dingo claimed they were scissor marks. Lindy always maintained that the baby was wearing a matinee jacket the night she disappeared but the prosecution said she was lying about the jacket because of the claimed scissor marks.

In 1982 Alice Lynn Chamberlain was found guilty in a Darwin court of murdering her baby Azaria and putting the body in a camera bag and somehow disposing of it in the desert. She was sentenced to life imprisonment without parole. Her husband Michael was found guilty of being an accessory after the fact. Lindy was sent to Darwin’s Berrimah prison for women where the authorities were under strict instructions to make life as hard as possible for her. But they did not count on Lindy’s strength, and the assistance of the many aboriginal women imprisoned with her.
As a vegetarian in a prison without consideration of her diet she almost suffered malnutrition. In November 1982 Lindy gave birth to her 4th child, another girl she and Michael called Kahlia who was immediately taken from her for fear of its life. An appeal made on Lindy’s behalf by her lawyers failed as did another appeal to the High Court. In November 1985 a book was published by Australian author John Bryson about the plight of the Chamberlains which asserted that there had been a miscarriage of justice. However the Northern Territory Government was not convinced and later that month they turned down an appeal for Lindy’s early release. The Chamberlains continued to deny their guilt and fortunately there were many people in Australia, mostly in the Labor Party who believed her.

The Seventh Day Adventist Church did what they could to help and public opinion began to swing in favour of Lindy. When certain facts of the trial became public, people began to ask how could she have been convicted when there was no evidence, no motive, and no opportunity to have carried out the crime she was convicted for.

Certain evidence at the trial was so wrong that lawyers demanded a retrial. A technician working for the Northern Territory Forensic Department who had said that foetal arterial blood had been spattered under the dashboard of the Chamberlain’s car was proven wrong when a letter from the company that manufactured the car claimed that the spatter of drops was actually sound deadener. He gave the specific details of the reaction it would have had to the specific tests which were carried out inadequately and thus deemed to be the baby’s blood. The letter was not read in court at Lindy’s trial.

The doctor in England who said the cuts in the jumpsuit were from scissors was found to have given evidence for the prosecution in another case that was decidedly inaccurate and incorrect. The judge should have thrown the case out of court but preferred to go with public opinion.

In 1986 a tourist from England was found dead at an area near the rocks where the baby’s jumpsuit, singlet and nappy had been found. As police searched the area for any evidence as to whether it was suicide or murder, they found Azaria’s matinee jacket…..the one that the prosecution had claimed did not exist and the one that Lindy claimed to have put on her baby after she fed her on that terrible night. The Northern Territory Government had no other option but to release Lindy immediately.


But there was to be no rest for the Chamberlains...
The Northern Territory Government in May 1986 held a Judicial Enquiry into the circumstances surrounding the death of Azaria Chamberlain and the convictions of her mother and father. They found insubstantial evidence for them to have gone to trial, but a further inquest in 1995 decided that the cause of the baby’s death could not be determined. This was a blow to the Chamberlains and they fought the government of the Territory for the right to have their baby declared taken by a dingo. Until this is done the family members do not feel that the case is over. There were a few things about this whole event that made me sit up and take notice apart from the flagrant miscarriage of justice...

Lindy told the police during her first interview after the loss of her baby that she had seen a large glossy dingo atop the Fertility Cave earlier in the day and that she had the feeling that it was ‘casing’ her baby. The dingo that Lindy saw leaving her tent with a bundle in its mouth was identical to the large and glossy dingo she had earlier seen at the Fertility Cave. One of the rangers at the campsite owned a half-tame dingo which was well-fed and glossy with the same red streaks which Lindy described seeing on the first dingo and it was shot by the ranger when the baby was taken.

The wild dingoes of Uluru-Kata Tjita National Park were scrawny creatures, with rough and unkempt fur. When the jumpsuit was found near the Fertility Cave where Lindy had seen that first dingo, the Northern Territory made the decision to blow up and obliterate all the dingo lairs in the vicinity of the park, probably hundreds of square miles. The blacktracker Nipper who had tracked the dingo from the Chamberlain tent that fateful night in August, was not allowed to testify at the couple’s trial as Northern Territory authorities claimed he was a drunk. He was however asked by the same authorities to testify on behalf of the prosecution in another trial a short time later. The tourist whose body was found in the same area, thus enabling the finding of the matinee jacket, had indeed committed suicide.

Have we Australians learned anything from this grave miscarriage of justice against a woman who was stoic and calm and devoted to her religion? I don’t think so. I still talk to people in important academic jobs who assert that Lindy killed and ate her baby because she was starved by her religion for meat. People are becoming aware though that dingoes kill people and particularly small helpless people as there have been deaths caused by dingoes in the last few years and attempted abduction by dingoes of some small children.

I have always known about animals and the scent of mother’s milk. When my first baby was about 2 weeks old I found the cat from next door had somehow come in an open window 20 feet from the ground and was sitting on my baby’s tiny chest, inhaling the sweet and evocative odour of breast milk emanating from her sleeping body. Had I not arrived in time my baby girl would have been suffocated by the weight of the cat on her chest. Would I have been convicted of killing my baby? It happens.

Bernie Pattison

JOHN MARK BYERS & THE WEST MEMPHIS 3

"Just remember boys, it all started here."
--John Mark Byers, to documentarians Bruce Sinofsky and Joe Berlinger, early 1990s

Arkansas --The West Memphis Three, remember them? They've been in prison for 13-years now. I don't personally think that Jessie Misskelley, Damien Echols, or Jason Baldwin committed the murders. For a good overview, check some of the links below, and watch both Paradise Lost documentaries (and do a few searches of your own).

Make up you own mind. "Paradise Lost 3" is being released this year [Ed., 11.18.2008--I assume it's going to be released sometime in 2009 with the recent developments in the case.], and a movie based on Mara Leveritt's investigative book, "Devil's Knot " is being made into a major motion picture. Who did it? I think--in my own humble opinion--that it was John Mark Byers with some unknown accomplice(s). It's even possible that one-or-more of the WM3 know the details of some of it, though if this was so one would think we would know the truth by now. Byers has a criminal record, and some members of the West Memphis community have alleged he was a drug informant working for Tennessee Police [Ed., 11.18.2008--Correction, The West Memphis PD.]

He sure acts like one:

In July 1994, Byers was arrested for contributing to the delinquency of a minor for allegedly instigating a knife fight between two youngsters [Ed.-At-gunpoint.]. That same month, he was arrested for burglary. During that summer, neighbors filed restraining orders against Byers for allegedly whipping their sons with the metal handle of a flyswatter, and firing shots at their home. Byers was on probation when he was arrested for selling Xanax to a narc in 1999. He served 18 months. (lacitybeat.com)

Both Melissa and John Mark Byers had a long history of drug abuse and criminality. With so many different-takes on the murders at Robin Hood Hills, and constantly changing his story, John Mark Byers presents a great picture of the guilty who are yearning to confess their numerous-crimes. Many individuals with a personality disorder tend to incriminate-themselves subconsciously, but most people have this tendency towards confession.

Byers illustrates plenty of examples of this in "Paradise Lost 2"--so-much so that it becomes unsettling. One of them has a chilling resonance with the occult, namely the graveyard footage in both documentaries that have the shadow of a Christmas star throwing a pentagram (inverted) onto Byer's forehead. One could call it poetic. I noticed this image in the first Paradise Lost, and Berlinger and Sinofsky put emphasis on it in the second film. It's a Jungian moment that is absolutely breathtaking, and I can recall nearly falling out of my chair when it hit me. But just listen to his statements on nearly everything--almost all of it is about hurting or punishing someone, something, and how much of a "man" he is. He plays the victim well, but not the innocent. His voice sucks too, by the way. The man cannot sing.

Aaron Hutcheson is an overlooked-aspect in the WM3 case--he might have actually witnessed the murders (he was nine, so he's not even certain today), but was pressured and coached by West Memphis Police into never mentioning he felt Byers was at the scene of the murders, and was the murderer of the three children. Rumors were also rampant in the public and the media and fear gripped West Memphis.

It was known that John Mark Byers had younger associates who he would use to harass other children for him as part of his abusive M.O. Again, this pattern resurfaces in the charges against him from the 1994-incident when he was alleged to have forced two young men into a knife fight at gunpoint.

Hutcheson seems to hint at some kind of knowledge of this type of behavior exhibited by Byers:

Aaron, who is now 19, is convinced the three boys were killed by Christopher Byers’ stepfather, Mark Byers. West Memphis officials have acknowledged that Byers, a former drug informant, once was considered a suspect. He was never charged. Aaron contends Mark Byers hated kids. Aaron is sure he told the police in the first interviews about Mark Byers. (Arkansas Times, 10.07.2004)

Aaron's mother was told by West Memphis Police Detective Gary Gitchell "... and Marion police officer Donald Bray [to] sign an "affidavit of silence" pledging themselves never to mention that Aaron had named Mark Byers." There is no such thing, and it's a telling example of the lack of police procedure surrounding the Robin Hood Hills murder case. The detectives were assuming that most of the people they interrogated/interviewed were completely ignorant and would simply capitulate under pressure to their version of events, just as Jessie Misskelley did in his forced confession.

They had already decided where the case was going, and became angered when they got answers that didn't conform with this preconception. It's possible they also succumbed to the rumors about the murders. Many of them bizarrely suggested a "Satanic panic." This doesn't even qualify as an investigation in this light. Why the Marion policeman was asked to sign the phony-document is unclear, though it could have been a good cop/bad cop approach on the part of Gitchell and Officer Bray. This is all very peculiar procedure. Yet, why didn't the prosecution and investigators look-into the fact that Byers told them early-on that he felt the murders "...might be retaliation for his work as an undercover drug informant. His wife would name two pawnbrokers as possible suspects." (Commercial Appeal, 04.21.2002) In what could be a connected event, around 9:30 pm (some sources cite 8:42 pm) on what must have been the night of the murders, Bojangles restaurant manager Marty King was informed by a female patron that a Black man was in the women's restroom covered in blood, cleaning himself.

According to King: "I found a black gentleman sitting in the women's restroom on the commode with his head in his lap. He was about 5'8" or 5'9", 165 lbs, real thin man. He had his head in his lap and there was blood dripping off of his forearm." West Memphis Police Detectives Bryn Ridge and Mike Allen scraped blood off of the walls of the women's bathroom...and promptly lost the evidence. Nobody was ever punished for this, not even a verbal-warning or forced leave without pay. Nothing. There is no physical evidence linking the West Memphis Three to the murders of the three eight-year-olds, and we can thank the local Police that there is none whatsoever.

There is something more to this. Something that includes a convergence of incompetence and criminality on the part of the West Memphis Police Department, and maybe even the Sheriff's Department. It's as if they are protecting John Mark Byers to hide their own sins. I really wish there was no Paradise Lost 3 being made, I really do. Free these men, but at the very least, give them another trial that includes this new DNA evidence. [Ed., 11.18.2008--No dice so far.]

Byers now lives in Tennessee. Expect more news about him, this guy loves attention. I would expect him to be in the new documentary. You think he ever watched Robert Mitchum in "Night of the Hunter"? I do. If it proves anything, it's that Arkansas is brimming with incredibly stupid citizens who don't qualify to sit on a jury. My grandparents left there for a reason, and they never looked back.

"John Mark Byers" on Myspace (Adult Swim):
http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=19690619

An Update on the Death of Melissa Byers:
http://www.maraleveritt.com/categories/?pg=3&c=cases

A Medical Report on Melissa Byers:
http://www.arwar.org/wm6caseinformation/deathofmbyers.html

A Recent LA City Beat Article on the WM3:
http://www.lacitybeat.com/article.php?id=4287&IssueNum=169

John Mark Byers' Criminal-Background:http://www.prisonpotpourri.com/JUVENILES/WESTMEMPHISTHREE.damienechols/The%20strange%20demise%20of%20Melissa%20Byers%20-%20By%20Mara%20Leveritt%20-%20December%2026,%201997.html

Aaron Hutcheson:
http://www.arktimes.com/Articles/ArticleViewer.aspx?ArticleID=2707a60b-b5d2-42d3-999e-0577590f8a9a

The "Bojangles Incident":
http://www.wm3.org/live/trialshearings/abstracts.php?abstract_Id=37&page=2
http://www.commercialappeal.com/mca/cda/article_print/1,1983,MCA_437_1094800_ARTICLE-DETAIL-PRINT,00.html