UNTYING THE KNOT-Greg Day

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convicted in early nineteen ninety four. Jason Baldwin and Jesse miss Kelly received life sentences, while ringleader Damian Eccles went to death row. Three years later, the documentary film Paradise Lost premiered on HBO, and the effect on the viewers was dramatic. Many became skeptical of the verdicts and also felt one of the fathers of the victims was a

better suspect. John Mark Byers. In Untying the Knot, author Greg Day tells the true story of John Mark Byers and the about face he made to free them men convicted of the crime, and Day exposes the propaganda campaign used to convince a gullible public that Byers was complicit in the death of his wife and son. Based on court transcripts and hours of personal interviews, Untying the Not explores all the case evidence while interview weaving dialogues and statements.

It traces the life of Buyers from his roots in rural Arkansas to his son's murder and the death of his wife to his ultimate imprisonment in nineteen ninety nine. Reveals a man redeemed by prison and whose change of heart changed his life. The book that we're featuring this evening is Untying the Not John Mark Byers and the West Memphis Three, with my special guest journalist and author, Greg Day. Welcome to the program and thank you for agreeing this interview.

very very controversial and very very captivating for the audience worldwide. So let's get to this right away. Let's tell us what are the circumstances that you came to be involved in this case and especially involved with Mark Byers, John Mark Byers, and this book tell us those circumstances.

had never heard of the crime. And I was just doing a basic interset Internet walk around to try and find in fact what I was interested in were capital cases, and I came across this case and found that it had a huge repository of evidence that was growing all the time, that was being put online for people's review, and of course their feeling was that the West Memphis three had been wrongly convicted, and I was interested in that as well, so I started picking through the documentations.

I eventually saw the two films, and I actually saw the second Paradise Lost film first, and that was my first introduction to John Mark Bers. Anybody who's seen that as their first introduction to John Mark Bers, I mean he was terrified. I mean it was to me anyway. And I joined the message board and started conversing with the people who were running it, who were three of

the people who were featured in the second film. They between the second film and these three people, if they don't happen, Damien Apples and his friends were rout in jail.

out there and they were all friends. And Kathy Bachhen was doing the artwork for the first Paradise Lost film Possible, it was the second Paradise of Boston, and when she's got to preview the films, she sent along to Burke Salls and knowing that he'd be interested in something like this, and the three of them decided at that point that the last number three were innocent, and they started a website and started putting all sorts of original source documentation

that they were going to People were going to the West Memphis Police Department and actually photo copying things and uh copying, transcribing recordings and putting them up on the internet. So, yeah, those those people, uh, they didn't start the filming process because there was already one film out when they came together, but they gave it wings and between Paradise Bus two and the KGB that that's what attracted. They all had contacts,

you know, Hollywood type contacts, media people and whatnot. So uh and that second film just, uh, it went off like a like a bomb, mainly in my opinion because of John Mark Byers. He gave them what they didn't have prior to that, and that was an alternate suspect. Because you and I both know that when uh, when when someone's on trial, especially for murder, and uh, they don't really have, you know, a good alibi and there's some evidence against them, their best hope for being exonerated

is finding an alternate suspect. And John Mark Buyers set the boat perfectly. He was believable. He was a crazy redneck, uh and he he performed for the cameras better than they could have expected. He and as Maror Lebert also lasted onto him at that time, he became the fact though alternate suspect of choice.

how and why was he performing like that? What were some other factors in that performance besides being a grieving father, if we were to look at it.

miss Kelly Baldwin and uh and Eckles came from. And by the way, the trailer park was a step up for Eccles, Uh, you know, it starts to relative to people who were on disability or you know, unemployment, they weren't working, They Mark puzzled drugs and all for relatively small amount of money. He was a jeweler by trade, and he did have a short period of time where he was profitable at that, but it it didn't last. So but you're right in saying that the money was

not the big bush. Mark Mark pires is. He's an attention junkie. And when he to give you an example of this, one of the hearings out there, when the berlinger and the filmmakers were following them around, he was just going to person to person, just trying to find the last journalist who had a microphone or a camera on. He wouldn't go home until the last you know, and this was, you know, very shortly after his son's murder. I thought at the time maybe it was cathartic. I

don't know, but he was. He was very much. And if you've seen the movies, particularly the second one, the scenes at the braveyard, the burying of the mock rays, there are just these scenes that you can't imagine somebody sitting there like if it was you and there always holding a camera in front of you, you know that you would that you would be able to perform like that. But but you know, but Mark could it. And I know that seems it seems like a little bit trite, but.

But I mean, I can't imagine anything, but at least at that point in time later on, when he when he thought he had an alternate suspect and he wanted to join the bandwagon or start the bandwagon, I can see it that at that point, all I see is that he was he for whatever reason, wanted.

your book is an examination of facts versus opinion. And when there is going to be an opinion rather than the fact, you're going to speculate that. So we're going to go through that for the people that that's what they're really really looking for, and that's what you really provide in this book as well. So let's talk about what the film, if anything, they did in that second film to say supported their claim and this very big claim that not only was the West Memphis Three innocent,

but in fact John Mark Byers. What was the evidence that they presented in that film.

But in any event, there were circumstantial things like that that they were already pointing towards him. I didn't see any real evidence in either one of those films. The first real evidence I saw came when Damian Echols had enough money to hire a very high powered defense team, forensic experts, FBI profilers and start finding and even then the evidence was thinned that they found something in the movie,

I don't think they presented anything more than circumstantial. They have, of course, went to the things that everybody goes to, the Miss Kelly confession, and Joe and Bruce managed to. They would segue these scenes with these little tech screens that would help the viewer hear what he was about to see, and they would say things like Jesse ms

Kelly was interrogated for twelve hours before confession. Now I went through that again before I got on the air to find out an exact timeline, because Miss Kelly actually gave four different confessions, one pre conviction to three post conviction, and he had only been at the police station about three and a half hours before he first filled the beans.

They kept him there for twelve hours, but he went in around eleven o'clock in the morning and by twelve thirty or two thirty, I mean, after failing a polygraph and they said, well, he only had an IQ seventy, so that's why he cracked. I go, yeah, okay, but anytime miss Kenny tried to to remove himself from the situation. To me, it made him closer to the situation, like by saying that he chased after Michael Moore during the

murders and brought him back and then he left. So what he was saying in his idiot's mind was that, you know, all I do was bring him back and then I left. And he said several times during the confession, and then I left, okay, and then it was then I left. His confession was was in my a strong piece of evidence against him, and they tried to prevent it as its sculptory evidence. So I honestly can't think of things they came that they came up. Well, let

me let me correct that. They also found blood in what became known as the John Mark Byers knife, and it was a knife that Mark had given to a crew member of the filming team, and they had noticed there was some material and it looked like blood, and they had test and found out that it was consistent with Mark's blood and Christopher's blood, which was kind of curious because Christopher was an adoptive son. He was in

a biological son. But they tried to question him on the stand to get him, you know, the defense, to get him to somehow a trip up, and he was very confused, and you could tell that he was drugged. Everybody at the trial was drugged all the at least on the victim's parents team. They were on valume. And this is from I'm getting this from them, not from anyone else, but Mark was If Mark appeared confused on

his an end, he probably was. But they couldn't get a straight answer out of him about where that blood came from. And that was probably the strongest piece of evidence that they had, because when he got off the stand, I think a lot of people in the jury weren't quite sure of what to make of him. He didn't, he didn't, he didn't clear himself. But in the end, it just didn't. They couldn't match any of the eyes they had, they had two guys, and they couldn't match

him with the wounds. So and in fact, those myphoones would be the subject of questions for another fifteen years to this day. The new defense team thinks they are turtle lights.

I think he's a fellow traveler of Alistair Crowley. And so that's where he is, you know, and that's what he firmly, he firmly believes. But in your book, you well, you have a more objective tone, we'll say the least, talk about who was really the instrumental people and the admirable job that they did do in once they believed in the cause. Tell us about that, because it's a fascinating true story of Hollywood, not just making some noise

or some rock stars behind the car. I mean, they've been again admirable in other causes like live Aid and farm Aid and some admirable things. But again, this is something very very very big. If their convictions on these people's innocence is true, they did a very very impressive and profound thing. Really here, So tell us about the effort by and who those people were to get these people this new evidence.

lot of attention. And it wasn't until Paradise Loss came along, and with the first film they were getting some lower level people like Michael Grade from the Misfits, Margaret cho I think even back then they might have gotten Eddie better involved. And as Echol's wife points out, they would not be where they are.

key person, was Laurie Davis. He goes, they had money, you know, coming in before that, but they didn't have anybody direct in the effort. And Laurie Davis, without a whole lot of connections, started contacting these people. She knew about that E. So she got ahold of E personally.

But you know, she had practically ran a publicity office for people to call in, and so she hooked up all these people and she started taking the money that they were giving her and doing what nobody else had done, and that was hiring friends, that's experts and legal people. That was the West Memphis Three's main problem is they had public defender grade lawyers and no money for to

prepare their case. Usually, if you're an indigen you get the port will give you some money to collect evidence on it, but they didn't do that, and so she started spreading that money around. She hired Dennis Ardan who's he worked on the Nightstalker case and I think in the appeals he was part of the appeals and that was his thing, is that he was a federal appellatetan UH lawyer, and he started assembling the legal team. She got John Dogliz Uh to go out and start talking to people.

capable of violence, you know, obbosit the bill. So they had a violent guy, they had a hair, and away they go. And then they started doing the benefits to keep the money cranking in the last benefit they did was on the eve of the Supreme Court hearing which resulted in their ultimate release. Was Danny Harrison was there and Depp was there. Patty Smith so and Peter Jackson got involved and had been involved for some time, but

really behind the scenes. He had been funding a woman named Amy Berg who produced a documentary called deliver Us from Evil about a Catholic priest who was a pedophile, and she had gone like undercover with Pam Hobbs for several years trying to get evidence implicating Hobbes. And she put out her own documentary at that time called West of Memphis, so they had. At the same time, Bruce and Joe were putting a third Paradise Loss together, So there were three Paradise Loss films.

But that book was three quarters and I invited anybody to go through and tell me otherwise. That was three quarters of a hatchet job on John Mark Byers. It's all that book was. Yeah, and then their buddies these days.

as responsible as documentary filmmakers. How do they go from blaming in two movies basically and like you say, three quarters of Mayor Leverett's book, Devil's not accusing Mark Byers in this almost the same kind of way that ironically that the West Memphis Three were accused through not complete police work. Let's say, how do they do that? How do they justify that? Do they say anything? Do they address that? And how does that work?

the film. And I just couldn't see it being there if there was enough, if you didn't if you didn't do anything else but watch movies, and I suppose you could believe what you saw. But uh, there was a website out there that I leaned on heavily. It contributed to pretty heavily as well. Where since the beginning of the case, they've been piling evidence. We were talking about this in the pre show. They had things transcribed, recordings transcribed.

They had, you know, people transcribing court records and things like that, and evidence reports and photo copies of police reports. And I mean, they had just had so much stuff up there. It was very I wouldn't say it was easy. It would be tedious to walk yourself through what was up there, but it would also tell you the facts. And a lot of the people who came up with different facts, and includes someone like John Douglas. Again, it

was a completely different scenario. It could not have possibly gone through the records, uh, and and looked at the facts the documentarians you can tell. One of the first things Joe said after after seeing Damien Eckles in court was that after talking to him for five minutes, he realized that he was totally innocent. And if somebody, if somebody can tell you that they can tell anybody is innocent after talking to them for five minutes. He obviously

didn't read all the psychiatric reports. He didn't know Epples history. And this is a violent, disturbed, you know, an emotionally deserved guy. Uh. And even if you don't buy that that's enough of a motive for murder. Uh, it's it's still something that that that the filmmakers were unaware of when they when they when they interviewed Echols when they made that movie again, the first he was better factually

in that it was less theatrical in nature. Then the second movie they got Kathy and Grove and Burke and Marill Everett and it was the whole in by Joe's own admission, the movie was them watching the Free the West Memphis three support. That's what the whole second movie is about. So it tells you right in the beginning what you're going to see. You're going to see. You're going to see a group of filmmakers. And it's really easy to do in on film, to just what you

leave on a cutter room room floor. You can make your tastes. And still, now let me say that I think that I believe that that Joe believes in what he was doing. I don't know if he would say that he was held up to the highest standards of journalism, but he's an ends justify the means kind of guy. And he said that the problem with Joe's he likes

to talk. And if you look through the commentary to the films, which I did, and you know, call the internet for all the hundreds of interviews that he's given, he just loves the glass because nobody disagrees with him. You never have to get put against any screwiny because you'll find in this in this case, most people believe that the West mamphis three are innocent. I find that mind boggling. But it's a lot, there's a lot of people.

a Satanic ritual. And and yet I read in your book about for the first time that there are three distinct styles of knots, which indicates three different killers. Can you talk about that?

wouldn't wouldn't make a whole lot of sense. John Douglass admits that too, while he would be all these different and he postulates and maybe one of the kids tied up the other kid, and that's possible, although if it was Jessic mis Kelly didn't say that, and he never said that, And there any one of his four confessions, he never said anything about anybody but Damien and Jason fine knots, which means that he probably tied on himself too.

John Douglass also says that it was impossible for jess mus Kelly to who have run away and grabbed Michael Moore and bring him back because he was already he was already bound and he couldn't have run away. And I don't know where he gets that of information because it's not in the facts, So that's just something he made up. But yeah, I don't really. In fact, I sat here with a pile of leather bombs trying to find outce because I was not a boy scout and I

don't want anything about nuts. And they gave a very good description of you know how these knots are tied, and they some of them seemed a little more complicated.

It is easier to control children, and I don't think you needed any kind of giant intellect or a huge body size or but it certainly if you had help that would do it. So, I mean, that's the obvious explanation for different knots, is that there's there's gonna be three different kids involved, because before if one of the Dickens's time or not.

Did they deserve another trial? So two questions.

And they still would wind out this convicts, but they would be released out to seventeen or eighteen years behind bars. But the thing that made the trial, and it goes right back to the beginning, even forgetting the whole occult. I met with Vicky Hudgington at one point and I still never found out why. You know, it's a mystery how much Jessicas Kelly was into the calife. And I don't you know, I mean, they had a little little spooky groups going on around town. But I don't think

anybody ever really approved the occult. But the question I think you're asked, did the jury by it? And it's a two pronged answer. And in the case of Jesse miss Kelly trial, because he was tried separately because he wouldn't testify against the others. In his case, the jury believed the confession. They heard the tapes confession played in

open court. That's all they needed to hear. And what they did, though, was that information found its way into the trial of Damien Echols and Jason Baldwin, who were tried together. And it was later uncovered that, you know, the jury had included the miss Kelly confession in their deliberations, right, and they yeah, the who's the confession and their deliberations And also they had a juror who who talked his

way onto the jury. He lied about, you know, some some questions you know they ask you and turn who idea all the different questions that might preclude you from providing a bias service. And he lied to that, and he also discussed it with his attorney and wanted to know because he was afraid that the prosecution was dropping the ball and they were going to they weren't going to convict these guys, and he wanted to make sure

he decided they were guilty. He wanted and convicted. And uh so that's when he brought this kind of convention, the confession into into the jury deliberations. Uh, that's enough. That's Jerman's conduct. Uh. He had a tainted jury. And if Judge Burnett had given them a new trial right away, they may have come up with the same Uh, you're the same payment because those people were there were local people and the news sort of was still big. But

he he didn't do that. He'd stone walled them for fifteen years, and by that time they were guaranteed a new trial and they were going to be acquitted and everybody knew it. So that's why they came up with the op place. So that's the deal of Yes, the short answer is they deserved new trials and they should have had them right away for that reason.

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Get yourself Dystopia June's Louke Create Mystery Box. So we last left off, we were talking about the effect of this Alfred plea, well not the effect of the Alfred Plea, but effective all of the the five movies, the films and the movement to get these people released from prison. What is the state of the case legally as a result of all those five movies and all this activism

and the Alfred plea. In reality, what is the legal evidence against Terry Hobbes in reality and what is what's the if anything, any kind of movement by the police or any progress by police in that area.

the details in the book I go. I do go into detail about mitochondrial DNA and what the story is with that hair and how inculpatory it actually is. You know, there's no hair follicle, it's just a hair shaft, so you can't get anything but mitochondrial DNA, which can trace things through the mother's line, and they can say things like, you know, Terry Hobbs is oneerful group of you know, in West Memphis thirty five hundred people who could have done this, you know, that kind of thing. But it's

you know it. I don't think if they're good evidence, but it's evidence. They also have some statements by Hobbs, then neighbors. H and I'm gonna geeze a little bit here because I think that I think one was Jennifer Baird. They were sisters and they lit three doors down from from Terry in West Memphis, and they they claim to have seen him with all three boys at his house, uh on a date where he said he had never

he had not seen the boys. He had he hadn't even seen his own steps on uh Stevie, because Terry hadn't come home from work yet when Stevie went out riding bikes. Uh. So they're they're showing that he not only saw, but was with and talked to these three kids the very shortly before the murdered, within an hour or so. Uh So that's another piece of it. And they they those were just sworn Affi Davids and uh they uh they've got uh Terry's uh uh. She wasn't

a wife, she was a fiance, I think. And she said that he used to talk about the murders in his sleep. Mind you, this stuff is coming out like within the last last six years. She wouldn't say anything out of them, she said she didn't she like she didn't hear about the case, so she didn't know to come forward with this information. The same way with the girls and seen the three boys, which they didn't. They didn't know that it was an issue, where else they

would have brought it up years ago. There was also a woman named Mildred I can't remember her name. She was out in Hot Springs, Arkansas, and Terry nig her when he was younger before he married Pam. And she claimed that he it broke into her apartment while she was in the shower and it's actually assault her and that the landlord as a result kicked him out of

the apart. So this is another sorg and appidated. Uh so this one is very old, well not very old now that she's she's probably my age, she's miion her sixties or something. But she came forward.

the seer. So she's just saw some functionary and just presented him with petition and some postcards and whatnot. But she apparently had said something on the web side about Terry Hobbes and he felt that it was defamatory. So he brought suit.

he doesn't need an alibi per se. But he says different things to different people involving David Jacoby, and then David Jacob is interviewed and says different things contrary to what Terry Hobbs said. So tell us what you found and what was tell us about this.

you said on the timeline. He has a couple of different timelines, but they're close enough to around what might have been the time of up because I remember they never established time of death either, but they can they can, they can narrow it down circumstantially, you know about when it probably took place. And uh ads had come to Jacoby's house, uh somewhere prior to six o'clock on that night.

Uh they played guitar for a while, and Uh Terry had actually come from from home for Stevie because Stevie and Jacoby's kids used to play and they were the friends. And uh Stevie had Pam had already gone to work, and when Terry got home, Stevie was gone, so he went looking at Jacoby's. But you were a lot of concerned, you know, they said, well, why did he play guitar? It was trend for half an hour when the sun

was missing. But yeah, you know what West Memphix, everybody knew each other, and uh it was it was just not an unusual thing, you know, Steve to be out riding his bike. But at one point he allegedly got concerned and after six o'clock and he left, according to Jacoby, for around forty five minutes, and when he came back,

he said he hadn't found him. Now, there are those who claim that that was enough time to commit the murders, and I suppose it probably was because everything you know, one of the things that strikes you when you drive around that area is how close everything is. You know, it makes it sound like people are miles and miles away, but all these sites of the trailer parks, the Bayou, Hobbs buyer's house, all that is like walking distance. You know,

it's very close. And he he didn't tell Terry at the time, I mean Jacobe at the time that you know, wherever he'd been, but he did say that he hadn't found a Stemian. Then he left again, and it gets confusing after that. You actually have to go through the documentation at Terry don't statements, you know, to see where he went, because surely they're at her He hooked up with Mark Buyers, and according to Terry, that was the first time he'd got he laid eye on Mark Buyers.

to be, and so she came took those statements. And she never made any mention of seeing Terry Hobbs, as Harry said, he's in one accountany he was in his car the whole time in another county. Said he was there with them and he saw me. Uh. Nobody came and asked her, did you see Terry Hobbs. So I can't tell you whether he was there or not. She just was silent on the subject. In the statements, don't say anything about He says that Mark is there, Most

was there, Dana was there. Didn't say anything about Terry.

But Terry said he was there, and then he joined the search effort at that point where people were going in and out of robin Hood Hills, and he was with his father in law because Pam had called her dad from Flysville talk him about half hour forty five minutes to get down there, Jackieyick's senior and he and Terry had gone through around to the Blue value of the Blue beacontructor stuff and called in the woods and stuff, but they were never really clear about whether they went

into the woods. Pam said she went into the woods. Jacobe said he went into the woods. Terry Hobbs, I think he went into the woods. But in any case,

they didn't. They didn't find anything, and with a crime scene that was so trained because it was dozens it is just the night before the next day, they didn't discover the bodies till like one o'clock in the afternoon, and from dawn all the way through that time, the crime scene had just been trampled, so they only had a few things that they could rely on, like they

fished their bikes advi. So somebody had definitely thrown them in there after committing the murders, well before, but probably after.

to you know, pleaded with them not to confess, but they did, regardless of all though tutality. What was the what were the corresponding evidence that said, yes, what Jim jesse ms Kelly said corresponded. You know, we had we had to talk of again, very very confusing when you get somebody saying it was a surgical castration and then we're talking about sea turtles or or some kind of turtles, and we talked about a wound on the left side

of the cheek that jesse ms Kelly had made. So tell us the things that corroborated what he said to prove that there was some crucial evidence in his confessions.

after the after the murders. He left separate from miss Kelly and I mean from Echoes in Baldwin, and he went walking along the railroad tracks, finishing his bottle of Evans Walker whiskey, and he threw it off the bridge there and danced it and then then up going back down there and finding it. And it's very difficult to take a bunch of broken glass and say, well, this is this is evidence. Uh so, But I mean it was something that he told them and they could kind

of corroborate it. I think the biggest problem with with miss Kelly's confession was that he named all these people that knew where he was, none of which were Damien and Jason, because he was supposedly said he had was wrestling that night up in Dias It's about forty miles away. And the guys that he named all came up to the standard initially lied about the dates, and then it was proven that they that they didn't see him on that particular day, that it was a different day that

he was there. I think they convincingly convinced the jury that he wasn't He wasn't where he said he was. So that was a bad piece of you know, that's kind of counter evidence and really goes back to the alibi because I can't think of anything that Jesse mus Kelly gave them that they were able to corroborate, with the exception of his dealings with Victoria Hutchinson, but she was supposedly working with the police at that time too, so they didn't need miss Kelley to corroborate anything he

So they can't think of anything. I don't know whether there was anything.

me as far as in their houses go. Uh. They came up with the fiber evidence, and I'll admit up front that I'm not a fiber guy. I read what they said about the fiber you know, I took their word for it, but uh, it didn't seem particularly convincing of anything, because all that stuff is, you know, might be to the exclusion of such and such, and uh, that's usually not enough to gain a condition for uh or an acquittal.

and then it was uh, Terry Hobbs, and that crusade continues. Yes, so I'll ask you, I'll ask you the question, then, why do you think what's your evidence that still maintains the guilt of the West Memphis three.

anything other than that he was a deserved kid. That they had said some things and Grant, listen, you gotta understand if you're involved in this case, you're not really hardcore either way. The supporters tend to be hardcore. But it falls apart pretty quick because because it's the nature

of this case. I hear things like when Jess ms Kelly was giving one of his statements to the attorneys and they asked him, we're all three boys dead when they were thrown into the water, and Jesse said no, he said one of them was alive, and they go, how did you tell he was alive? Well, he was. They're wiggling like a worm. And that image just pomped me because to me, that said, there's somebody who saw it.

He said, he whiggled like worm he saw that. And also the fact that one of the boys had water in their lungs, or two of the boys had water and their lungs, and one of them, sorry, one of them had water and his lungs, and the other tude didn't mean they were dead when they were put him in the water, and one of them was alive. Right, there's the absence of Damian Apples. Various trench coats. They searched his apartment.

The West Memphis police don't ask, I mean, they asked later at trial, where's the trench coat? He said. David said, I don't know. My parents must have it, but of course I didn't have it because he had ditched it. So that always, uh you know, that always bothered me.

to it? Is there anything to it?

up and he was an accident waiting to happen. So I think that if you add some drugs to the midst and some alcoholic Josic said they were drunk, but I don't know. I don't know what that means. And and then you know the story that Miss Kelly told about him calling the kids over. And you know Damian Epans was a hated guy around town. You know, he's in a little podemic southern town.

propelling evidence. And the nephews of Terry Hobbs or nephew Michael Hobbs, and his two friends, they came up with the story, and again this has done very recently post everything. They came to the story that they heard Terry and his brother downstairs in Terry's brother's house talking about the murders. Terry basically confessing, and Michael already knew this and said, hey, this is the Hobbes family secret. We don't tell anybody.

And they took the two Michael Hobbs the nephew denied any He denied that he ever heard his father or uncle say that his two friends claiming they did they took, they they gave after Davids, it's a polygrass, uh and and past them. And an interesting thing about polygrass, especially in this case, is that when they when they point to the guilt of the West Memphis three, they're turned

out there they're termed bad polygrass. But when they're turned out to be, you know, inculpatory with Terry Hobbs, they're good. They're good polygrass. I've met with several polargriphers who believe, they really believe in what they did. I mean, they really think that that their craft shows them something. But they're not admissible for a reason. And but so I don't give any credence to these boys at all because

of the time they waste. If they're telling the truth, that's a that's a shame that they waited so long to tell somebout it, because if they had, Terry Hobbs is never gone. Terry Hobbs is never going to do any time for this crime ever, and those boys aren't gonna do anything else.

miss Kelly basically or very very little. And you say there is no evidence of satanic ritual motivation and Terry Hobbs, you can't imagine a motivation, and it looks like that it's again, if I'm wrong, you can correct me. That it looks like more than one person had to either control these kids and tie them up and or tie them up, so which kind of rules out Hobbes doing

it completely by himself. And then there is that presence of Pam's friend David his hair being there, and so people have talked about, well, Hobbs could have planted that. And then Hobbes immediately like almost like a guilty person's talking about secondary transfer like he's a lawyer. You say that you can't imagine a motivation or motive for Terry Hobbs and his friend David. And then but the motivation for Damian Eccles and Jason Baldwin is what is Damien's

mentally ill? And Jason is his friend, he's sixteen looking like he's fourteen. If it's not in occult motivation, what do you think the motive? Again I asked you before, But again, if it's not, both people don't seem to have a really good motive.

he did what he did? To my satisfaction? So what I can understand that he was guilty beyond reasonable doubt and there isn't anything and so and Charlie Manson's crew Helter Skelter vince BOLEIOSI had to go into court and proves Helter Skelter to a very skeptical jury. But he did it. But that's you know, that's a pretty nebulous type of his motive to send four people to their death, three of them being teenage girls. The motives is just something we're gonna have to do without in this case.

And I'm not gonna postulate one because I haven't the slightest idea. That doesn't mean that those boys are just as dead, whether there was a motive or not. And you're gonna take two hairs and say that fifteen years later, a guy and his best friend killed his son. Okay, I think that's a I think that's a worse motive than three wasted, psychotic teenagers getting carried away with. Yeah, because all they really did was time up and drown them each one. And they bashed him on the back

of the head with a rock. That is pretty basic. Jess, Miss Kenny knew how to bash somebody with the rock. He was very capable, and he was very pliable. He would do anything he was told. Just about Baldwin was also very malleable. So those're just, you know, those are just things. They don't prove anything.

case for the next fifteen years. He's the guy who he's the only guy who got to look at the bodies. Everybody else is going back pictures. I sat in quote and listened to Warner Smitz say that when he looked at all the marks from the bodies from the pictures, that it was no doubt in his mind that this

was animal product. And I say, you know what, I think that's I think that's nonsense because I saw those pictures too, and I could find a bunch of things that looked like I don't care if I'm not a pathologist or not, how can you how can you look at those pictures that later on and why would anybody put the You know, they would have had to have been in that bitch for a long time for the turtles to go much in on all three of them, and the fact is they were in there, what twelve

fifteen hours? Right, I don't see how you can put out all those And but I will say that there's a mark on Steve Branch's skull that looks exactly like a puncture from a knife. Seemed enough puncture wounds, I nobody, nobody would address that, and so I don't know. But but if you go up to the Callahan website that that picture is up there somewhere, and you know that

that supports the use of a knife. But the wounds that they found and were so shallow, you know, and the knives that they would have had were you know, we're not talking about butter knives. You know, certainly, even if you had a pen knife, it will make a deep enough mark. I think the deepest puncture wound they found was an engine three quarters, But that's more than a turtle cogit, So you know, I don't know, I

wasn't watching. I don't know. I know what killed them were the was the one object and the basil region and the spell and all three kids that lined up their heads smashed in and that's what killed them.

but specifically these filmmakers. So tell us a little bit about what this effect, what the effect of being accused did to him at the time that he was still grieving. And for those people that might not understand the reaction that they saw on film, how did you How is it explained to you by understanding his character? How could you explain to somebody to say, listen, you just don't know what this this can all create, and that presentation is much different than the man that I know.

pretending that they were the lost mental sperience. He told me that he went to the hotel bar waved to the filmmakers and got drunk, and someone there and shoots him. But did Mark Buyer start to get drunk to a blow a part of pumpkin and effigy, No burning the graves and effigy. He's a very very emotional guy. And I will say at this point, but I met his entire family, and I took his dad who the pass away, and mom his dead mom passed away, with his brother,

sisters and nephews and everything. And he's the only one that's even remotely the way he is. I mean, they're this just average, you know, with old Arkansas, and they're nice, decent people. He had a good upbringing. In fact, in his mind he said that he might have even been a little spoiled. But when he boredom apparently started him getting into trouble as a teenager, was not about to do there. And Mark Tree, Arkansas population I think they're down to three hundred uh and so he but things.

He didn't get into a drug dealing thing, just marijuana, but he was into it for a while and he's gotten caught a couple of times and a but he needs to go on to Parish Parish Junior College, South Perish a jeweler school and he got his degree in horology and he opened up He started working in the South and that this was in his early twenties. He was pretty straight, just going around collecting jewelry from people

that needed to repair. He got married once and I did he produced two children, didn't last what's long after that, and then he shortly thereafter met Melissa the Fur and marry her and they opened up the jeweler store together in West Memphis. But you know, I guess he just

had a little crooked bent to him. You know, you know, some people have to do things that aren't quite on the up and up, like the Roleck's watch incident, where he had as a jeweler, he was able to get some Rolets watches sent to him on on spec and he would tell them in the jewelry store well, and he planned it that he would said that he never received them, and he sold the two watches to somebody

in Cherokee Village. He eventually got out of that, and that was right around the time of the murders because what he ended up using the money that they had raised for him, because he said, he said publicly he didn't have enough money to bury his sign. So there was there was a fund that churches had started and for all three victims families, and Mark had to use that money to pay off the jewelers so that he

wouldn't press charges. Now, any other time they probably would just arrested them, but because of what was going on, they wouldn't pay it off. And so it was little things like that. Uh, then we asked the murders. I think I think things got worse for him. Uh. You know, his wife was, you know, an opioid addict, and you know, he drank it and smoked all the pot and when they went to their exile up in Cherokee Village, they just it was a perfect place for them to find

trouble and they found lots of it. It was that really that led to, uh, you know, a succession of crimes and arrests that led to his being in prison and nineteen ninety nine. So you know, that's my take on it. You wouldn't You wouldn't know that the Mark before the murders and the Mark now are different than the guy in between. If you men, Mark buyers now you think he's my star around and he is.

And also if you look the third one, he's not featured anywhere near as prominently because uh, he didn't have like a nut, but they wanted to and they and they had one. Joe at one point, I claimed and that he didn't pay people to be in movies, because in the documentary you're not supposed to pay people and maybe pay their expenses for interview maybe, but he paid lots of people, and Mark included, and he got him in front of a bunch of people at a benefit

and said, yeah, we don't pay people. And I called him out on that. He walked it back. But yeah, I think it's more than more than the need to exonerate himself or rehabilitate himself. I think they didn't with money. That's my opinion.

say like this. The KGB accused him on film of murdering his life, and yeah, you know it was a really a really amazing thing for someone to do. They didn't they didn't even know him. Uh, and they did it based on something Marion Leverett had written. But uh, there was a investigation. Mark consisted on an autopsy because he knew what people were going to think, uh, Budgiet Uh And I give In the book, there's a section on Melissa's death and what the many things could have

been that caused her death. You know, she was ob she smoked, she was a drug user.

But they didn't think of you know that. They just decided they were going to start shooting questions at him on screen to plant the seed in other people's minds. And that's why to this day, I don't forgive the kg B. I don't give a crowd, but they did to uh to the West Memphis three. But what they did, Smart Buyers, was cruel.

think they can overturn things with the president. So the thing is is that, as a cautionary tale, what would you say, because you're the person that saw this, what and you went through this entire time with things changing and perceptions changing, facts being revealed, and still your assessment, what's the cautionary tale here?

And I'm talking about the journey too. You know, I don't know what was in their minds, but I would have to guess that they were predisposed against the defendants. But but you know, and also we have you have some things that you're not going to be able to avoid, like this crew in West Memphis at the police department. You know, there were some good guys there, there were some talented guys there. There was a lot of people

who were not up to the task. They didn't know how to handle evidence, they didn't really know how to interview. So they talked to unreds of people. But how many of them did they disqualify by trying to implicate them?

It wasn't an evil thing on their part. It was just really sloppy because they talked to Pam and they let Pam talk for the both of them. And you know, that might be okay if it's you and me and our neighbor, but these are you know, these are two victims, and more often than not, they have something to do with the prime, specially in the depth of a child. So for them to not interview him as an excuse and they have no excuse for it either. I mean, if you ask him today, no, we just missed it,

and they did. They just missed it. And that's that's emblematic of how this whole investigation went. Very good. Some guys not so much.

the storm here and things change completely. So it really is accompanies this the entire trial and all of the hysteria and then the post trial and like you say, a very profound and unprecedented movement in the way people were released from prison and the result despite the legal decision, it was really how you could transcend the legal courts in Arkansas with Hollywood and some rock musicians. So it's

quite interesting. And also I wanted to ask if people are interested in contacting you, do you have a website? Do you do Facebook? And so they might see some of the other material.