All right, three two one, Hi, this is William Ramsey. Welcome to William Ramsey Investigates on tonight show. I have a very special guest. His name is Gary Mease. He's the author of a number of books on the West Memphis three, very thorough, first person referenced information on this notorious case of the West Memphis three. The titles of the two volume version are Blood on Black and Where the Monsters Go. They're both available on Amazon. They have
excellent reviews. But Gary's also been doing a very informative podcast. The title of the podcast is The Case Against and it's Gary measmeecee and he's currently on podcast number forty nine. He's mostly focused on the West Memphis three, going in detail and rebutting so many of these false narratives and false positions of many of the West Memphis three are innocent or Terry Dunnett types. But he's got some great titles on there. One is Rough rebuttal Id Comedy, Vera's
Rough Stuff and The Rough Deception. So we're going to go in detail all about that. But Gary, are you there?
Yes, I am William.
Awesome, Well, thanks for agreeing to the interview for people who don't know your background or your familiarity with the West Memphis West Memphis three. Can you talk a little bit about yourself and your first person knowledge of the case.
Well, I don't want to overstate it, but I worked at the Memphis Commercial Appeal from two thousand, I mean nineteen eighty to two thousand and eight. I did not personally cover the case during that time. I'd never try to give the suggestion that I did. And I also and then from twenty ten to two thousand and fourteen, I worked at the West Memphis Evening Times. I was the managing editor there from almost all that time, and I did cover a number of matters there dealing with
Damien Echols. There was some litigation going on in twenty thirteen. So I'm quite familiar with the area. And needless to say, I really have a long background in journalist and I primarily consider myself to be a print journalist. But I am doing some podcasting that sort of thing, gotcha.
But the Commercial Appeal did some very detailed of many many many articles correct on.
That's correct, William, And in fact, they wrote the original book was written by three journalists from the Commercial Appeal, not me, but three guys, Bart Sullivan, Mark Periskia, and Guy Reel. During the time when all this was going on, I was sitting at a desk that was literally probably ten feet away from the Metro desk, so I heard
stuff going on all day long. Guy Reel probably sat almost directly across from me, so I had quite a few conversations with him, as I recall, and heard many conversations with other people about the West Memphis Three during that time. It was a big, big case. It still is. We're going to be talking about Bob Ruff And I was rewatching his for the third time, which is kind
of a slog honestly to get through three times. But I was watching again today his ID network shows and he describes West Memphis is basically falling into this terrible state. He seems to blame it on this crime. I'm not sure West Memphis is actually worst shape now than it was in nineteen ninety three, but it's not because of the you know, they are known and they hate the idea that they're known for the West Memphis Three and
basically not known for anything else. But if they're in morse shape now, then they were in nineteen ninety three. It's arguable they're not. It's not because of the West Memphis three case. It's there's there are lots of other factors that would play into that.
Do you recollect the title of the Perisqueia book the real book? Because Blood of Innocence, Blood of Innocence, right, and it's very it's almost never referenced by West Memphis three supporters like I had to actually go through the footwork to find out that it actually existed.
Yeah, it's out of print, has been for a long time. It was somewhat outdated almost as soon as it appeared, because it was really written on the fly. It was written while the case was going on, and it was put out very quickly. And so all the all the stuff that's going on since with the celebrities, the Paradise Lost movies, et cetera, et cetera, it simply doesn't touch on that and a lot of things we now know because we have access to fuller records than they did then.
They simply didn't have access to at the time, so it showed some of It's just an example of how journalism has changed with the difference in the Internet, because I can tell you I know those guys. Those are Sullivan and Peri Ski in particular as a first right reporter, journalists all the way around. Good guys gotcha.
So I mean they did a good job. I mean there are some pretty I remember it being kind of very lurid in some of the first person accounts, but it was also voted down on Amazon. I think there were significant a number of people who only give it one star as not being like a truthful version, something that happened to me as well on Amazon. But the you know, kind of getting back to the original, what drew you to start the book and can you talk
about your research? I take it you've obviously looked through all of the Callahan materials, except.
I was working in West Memphis, and I was very I mean I was familiar with the case. I remember trying to work out all the family relations back in nineteen ninety three and being very challenged by all that.
But I was working in West Memphis and I got a copy of the letter that Todd Moore Todd and Dana Moore and Harry Hobbs had written to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences complaining about the potential nomination of Paradise Loss three for this Oscar nomination, and I was reading through there and I suddenly was hit very deeply by the idea that these four people had really been abused by Hollywood and they did get any
relief from Hollywood at that point. And the more I looked at it, I said, you know, there's only been
one side of this case that's been told. It really deserves and I tried to be as objective as possible, but I take, I do take the position that they're guilty, and rightly so, just based on the evidence and everything I've been seeing up to that point was with the possible exception of the first Paradise Lost movie, which is somewhat ambiguous, you could draw maybe, I mean I thought they I still thought they were guilty after seeing that movie,
but everything that had been produced since gave the impression that they're just terribly wrongfully convicted and this is a terrible miscarriage of justice, and some other somebody else did it, and this is and this is a continuing thing. This is what Ruff is doing now, is he's continue knewing this idea that that oh, this is a terrible miscarriage of justice. Surely somebody else did it, and we just have to get outraged enough and we'll solve this problem rightly.
I was outraged enough at that time that I took it upon myself to begin doing some heavy duty research on it. And I was I was busy working at the time in a very taxing job and had a lot of personal responsibilities and so forth beyond the job. So it took me quite a while to get around finishing up the book, but I started it very soon after that, very soon after reading that letter.
Right, and that was and I don't think that that was the paradise. It was the third one in the series.
But it never it was the third one yet.
It didn't receive an award, but it was up against and that was kind of one of the confusing things for me to look at the case, too, is what is this Hollywood involvement and what's going on with this kind of thing? And you know, why are they blamed buyers? And then Hobbs two and three, he said, there's definitely some head scratching going on, at least for me, But maybe we can talk about how like I know that you and I had talked about rough he has done
this kind of series where he addressed it. Then he went and worked on some case in Texas, and now he's come back and he's called it the Forgotten West Memphis Three, as if the children are forgotten. And now he's kind of readdressing this. And they did this show on Oxygen and you've definitely been been addressing that. Can you talk a little bit about what your kind of initial impressions were?
Right, Well, you know his conclusion, okay, just grew out of his podcast, and the conclusion of his podcast, among other things, was that he felt that the West and he doubled down on this with Jim Clemeni this weekend, that the West Memphis three, all three of them had these alibis that were just so good that they couldn't possibly have committed the crime, and so therefore it was incumbent upon him to go out and seek the real killers. Well, none of those alibis hold up. All the ones that
were presented in court were demolished. The ones that weren't presented in court don't hold up either, right, And I could go into a long detail about all that as well.
Let's do that. Let's look at all three because Eccles said he was on the phone. Baldwin's attorney didn't profer an alibi, and Miss Kelly said he was at a wrestling match. Can you address each one of those in turn?
Well, Eckle said. Eccles at the trial made two albis. One he testified he was on the phone, and his family testified he was on the phone. He did not bring forward the witnesses that would have corroborated his testimony, Jennifer Bearden in Hollywood, George and Heather Cliet, who was Jason Balin's girlfriend that he claimed he was talking to, because none of their statements to police backed up his story. They all said they weren't talking to him in this
crucial time frame. Really, they didn't talk to him from about four point thirty or so in the afternoon until at least nine to twenty at night, impossibly much later. And they tried to call him at home and he wasn't at home, which means that you know, he wasn't at home. His grandmother said, he's not at home. Now he had this other family visit that he supposedly went on.
And it turns out that the time stamp that was used for that, most prominently was the little girl said that her boyfriend had a concert within that same week, and it turns out it was two weeks later and cast doubt on that. The missus Gelli trial. He had two alibis attempt at Albis. One was a series of police calls involving a slapping incident of this child. He was supposedly at the scene of the police calls. The
problem is is the police who knew him. Three different police officers testified said he wasn't on the scene so much for that alibi wrestling, he had a long list of people. He really had over a dozen people he had testified for alibis. He had a lot of people testifying in the wrestling match. The problem is is when they brought forward, oh yeah, we went May fifth, nineteen ninety three, when we went to Dias, Arkansas to this
old theater and did this wrestling match. The police went and checked with the owner of the wrestling of the theater and it turns out that receipt that they camed for a needed sign to use the theater for the night they were using the wrestling uh they were going to have the wrestling match was dated the week before and not the date that they were claiming who it cast down on the wrestling match.
Right and then yeah, sorry Jason.
And then Jason Baldwin has claimed he didn't offer an alibiic trial. He since claimed he was talking on the phone to girls. The same girls. It's actually say they don't didn't talk to Jason that evening at all. It's
the same three girls. And he also claimed, you know, he he played I went to Walmart with Ken Watkins, who gave actually his friend, little friend Ken Watkins, who actually gave a statement to police that Wren totally experience with everybody else, including Jason Baldwin, and gave another statement to police that Damien Echols had actually confessed to him and uh and then passed and then failed a polygraph
who's a double negative polygraph. He denied that the story he was telling was true, which meant it was true and so he would have been a great witness for Jason on the stand, and otherwise he really didn't have an alibi. He just makes a claim that he does well.
He's actually after his conviction. I think since he's been out, he's made to claim that there was the Asian kid. I think his name was Dan nam Or whatever.
Don nahm Right, don Nam was supposedly at the at the Walmart as well. Don namb gave a statement to police and said he'd seen Damien Dominique Tier, who was Damien Eckles's pregnant girlfriend at that time, in Jason Baldwin that afternoon, and then he promptly retracted that statement, said he was mistaken, it was a different day.
Right, And that's in the court files, like there's actually a written station by them saying he was wrong. So it's remarkable that that the Baldwin is using that as an excuse when it's directly contradicted in writing in a police statement.
Right. Well, what's what's even more remarkable is Damien Echles particularly mentioning these girls, and they gave they continue to give the States and Rule thirty seven hearings and so forth. I think Jennifer Beard has given at least three statements after the convictions. Uh, and she doesn't really change her story in substance, and it does not give Damien Eckles an alibi.
So so so Ruff is saying there's these ironclad alibis that are contradicted by the court record than statements in court that were that were overturned. But it gets even worse than that. I mean, what other glaring problems are in these rough podcasts or the shows.
Many other there are many other problems. The big the big problem is is he's basing his whole investigation now on He says he's not interested in getting new statements, new witnesses. He is banking everything on forcing the prosecuting attorney, Scott Ellington, to turn over evidence to be retested for DNA. The problem with this is the problems are manifold with this. Number one, Bob Ruff has no standing to do that. Number two. The only people who might have standing to
do it theoretically are the three killers. And they signed an agreement in twenty eleven there and with their Alfred Plea that all these leagues actions are over with, And it could be argued that they might actually abrogate their legal agreement for their release if they file additional legal actions on this right.
So they're still under probation. If they filed additional legal actions that go against the agreement they signed with the best attorneys possible, they'll go back to jail.
They could. I mean, you know, and you don't know what's going to happen when you go to court. So it depends on what mood the courts and right, right and and so. But in theory, they could do that. The theory, the theory, there's the theory. In theory they could have done that anytime in the last nine years. They haven't done it. The only one I could really see it potentially doing it Eccles doesn't want to be bothered with it because he thinks he's got more important
things to do. Miss Galley really just doesn't want to be bothered with any of it. Jason Baldwin would make sense. It's the only one who might be willing to do that, but he had the opportunity to do that for the last nine years. Another big problem with this is this
is redundant. They went through years and years of legal actions to enable them to get access to a list of items for new DNA testing, and well all the way back really at the turn of the century, and then it went up to and they finally, you know, they kindly got approval of that, and then it went
through a long many more a much longer process. In twenty eleven, they were coming up we know they had basically nothing on a lot of the DNA as of July because Moreoverett wrote a story about their attorneys meeting their attorney, Patrick Bankott, one of their attorneys, Patrick Banker, meeting with Dustin Daniel, who was the Attorney General of the State of Arkansas, and Binker's telling Justin McDaniel, they're coming up empty empty on the DNA, so that you
know their evidence. You're hearing was going to be based on the chance of retrial was going to be based on potentially two major issues. One one would be new evidence, specifically DNA evidence evidence, and the other would be uh jury jury misconduct, but only for eccles In Baldwin. Miss Kelley would not be able to claim any kind of relief for jury misconduct in eccles In Balwin's trial. So if there was no new DNA evidence or other new evidence, then he had no basis for going seeking a new
trial whatsoever. Right So of course, so of course Miss Kelley would have wanted to get taken the Alfred Cleave.
And that was and there was like the hearing was December, right, they were let out in August, yes, so there was an upcoming hearing. They had spent all this time there was a statute that was passed in Arkansas that allowed for the opening of a trial if there was new, incriminating or evidence that would tend to get somebody off the thing. And that's really what the lever that they focused on in the appeals process to get back to that point in twenty eleven, right right.
It was particularly DNA evidence. But the thing is is they had they had the opportunity granted to them to test new DNA evidence. They had the new DNA evidence tested, but guess what, Nobody knows what the results are except for like an allusion to the results in a more Leverett story, they nobody knows what those results actually are. The defendants have the defendant the killers haven't released it
to the public. Bob Buff skirts around the issue of even asking for what those results might be, and you would think they might have, you know, if they do nothing but just show well, there's no there was no sign of the Westminster three in any of this DNA evidence, but we don't. We can't find anybody else either. It would show something, but so far we have seen nothing on that front four and nine years now, and the court is not going to look kindly on that.
I would think, yeah, and they I mean, but they say they're more than willing to have this pr approach that they found a care that is Terry Hobbs. They claim to initially consistent, but they don't mind that that kind of bleeding over into we found Terry Hobbs here on the scene, and then therefore that conclusively proves he did it, which is really a stretch.
It's a huge stretch. And because it's micochondrial DNA, it's only consistent with a small percent it's consistent with a small percentage of people in the world, but it's still millions of people any way you cut it. And even if you cut it down to just who was in West Memphis at the time, we're still talking about hundreds of people in West Memphis who would be a match for the michondrial DNA. And that's probably not even understating it.
With you know, pop with the population being you know that some common ancestors, you know, ancestry in certain areas. You know, I'm not trying to get into cousin marrying in Arkansas or anything, but it's just the fact that the gene pool gets smaller and smaller. These smaller backward areas, so there would be more matches rather than few as compared to say general population over the United States at all overall, so it doesn't prove that it's Terry Hobbs there.
They also drag David Jacobi, who was Terry Hobbins's alibi witness, into this, and he had a hair that was found at the scene with a similar sort of mitochondrial DNA match, and he was really crucified in the West of Memphis movie, which was produced by one of the killers, Damien Eccles. He's one of the producers obviously not the one. And uh and but you know, not exactly an objective source. And so the question becomes for at this point without if if for Bob Ruff to pull this to get
his audience. I mean, he's you know, he's got tears in his eyes. Yeah. Three, he's all but screaming, not not on the phone, but you know, away from the phone. He's all but screaming at Scott Ellington for not returning his phone calls and so forth. Number One, Scott Ellington just got elected judge. He takes office in January. We're having a corona. We're having We're having a corona virus shutdown.
Right now, everything's less than it usually is. And on top of that, two weeks ago, Jonesborough, which is where Scott Ellington lives and where his offices are, was hit by a devastating tornado. So Scott Scott Ellington has bigger problems than some boob podcast or from Poonantville. He shut it up there and demands to see evidence he's not entitled.
To see, right, with really no credentials. He's just a self described investigator. I think he was a fire investigator or self claimed But yeah, it's very interesting. And I saw him crying at the beginning, and it was really just an appeal to emotion. It wasn't sensible, and uh it was you know, I just knew that it was going to be the start of something grim, that this this is the way it started.
Uh well, no, a lot of it, A lot of it's very I found it. I found it more humorous the first time I saw it, because it was so bumbling in and eft. But his you know, he he has this whole thing about he's going to do what he calls the victimology. I have nothing against with this in theory, but The idea is, you look at the behavior of the boys leading up to the killings, and this will give us some insight into why these boys
are dead. Well, it's going to give very limited insight into that, because everything that happened to get them into the woods at six point thirty at night that particular day had very little to do with what happened when they got to the woods. The you know, this is not about who they talked to that afternoon, or he makes a big deal, he contradicts even what's on the record. But you know, he brings up a new guy. He says he was the last one to see them going
into the woods. Well, who I mean, honestly, who cares? Who cares? They were seen going into the woods about six thirty? Who cares? Who was the last one to see that? He brings up the so called fourth boy who supposedly went into the woods with him. That he brings up this poor George Taylor fellow, who seemed very confused. And this went on for agonizing men in after a minute with rough plane to the cameras, acting like he's
a big investigator, pushing this guy around. And it turns out and the executive producer or whoever was on the scene with him. They basically saying, you know, that's enough, let's stop this. You on and on and on.
Bag he followed down that trail. But it turns out that guy was either lying here he couldn't have been the fourth person. So why did you clear that in the show? Is it incredible?
Right? Right? Why put that in the show? It's a big It was speaking of red Herring's going to use that tournament's a big red hearing. He is. His idea of a red hearing was bow Jangles, Mister bo Jangles, who supposedly was at a what was the name that's been given to this guy who went into this fried chicken place that night, had blood on him, had mud, went into the ladies restroom, acted deranged, and you know he's a mile a mile and a half or so
from the crime scene, and it's an hour or so later. Well, you know, he went to a lot of trouble to prove Oh yeah, if he ran down this muddy ditch and in late evening or night, yeah, he could have gotten there in time. Well what's and then he concludes, but he couldn't have done it anyway, So he went all this big demonstration to show mister bo Jangles could show up at the restaurant just to go, well, take any difference because he didn't have anything to do with
it anyway. I concur with his opinion on that. But you know, it was all a big show. He makes a big show out of not being able to contact Jesse mus Kelly Junior only had Apparently all he had to do was just do some realm like basic research and hunting. You know, he's going to hunt him down a little bit. But it wasn't as if it was going to take Charlotte Colms to figure that out. And in fact we see it's really that hard. He just
didn't put that much work into it. And then he puts in all these phone calls to Ellington and he's continually getting mad about Ellington not being on the phone, to the point his producer says, you know, he's a producer. Starting to have problems with the attitude, so you know, but that's his personality. His personality has a great deal to do with it rubs me the wrong way. It has a great deal to do with the show. But the fact is is, when I say there's a deception
going on there. The deception is that he thinks he's going to be able to do something about this case. I don't think he actually thinks that. I don't think he's that stupid. I think he wants to deceive his audience and get them outraged and up all round up bother Scott Allington, and he's hoping that maybe the State of Arkansas blink and actually hand over the evidence. But they're not going to do that, and then this case is going to go away again.
Hey man. He calls his like listeners the bob Ruff Army. So like these guys, he's like deliberately like just like you said, he's deliberately kind of riling them up and trying to get him involved in like it's a crowdsourced investigation, which is terrifying. I mean now, I mean if you go like his first case, which was ad Nan Saied, like that was conclusively you know, put down on appeal. The highest court in Maryland basically said hey, this is
a guilty thing, and it just went away. There's nothing that stuff. So this won't be the first time.
Apparently Rough in that particular season, apparently Rough did what he does, which is he went out of his way to make uh High's boyfriend at the time. Don I think that the guy's name, I'm not. I mean, I don't. I know the case a little bit, but don uh Rough went out of the way to make him look without specifically accusing, and make him look like he's the one who actually committed the crime. And it turned and it was all based on some sort of time stamp at a some sort of photo.
Yeah, it was like a glass place, right. It wasn't a glassware place right.
Right, No, I think it was a It was a photo photo. I can't remember the name. There was a big chain. I just can't the name right now. I don't follow him. I don't listen to his podcast. I haven't listened to his podcast than was smsis three. But so he has a history of doing this. He has a history of really uh he talked talked to Terry Hobbs. We know he talked to Terry Hobbs. It's supposed to be an author record interview, and then he talks about what was said at the off the record interview, which
just unethical. He doesn't care. He brings in a child of two of the parents who's having some sort of dispute with her parents about something has nothing to do with the Westminphis three except that they're related to the victim, and has a big interview with her and just basically smears people. He smears people, and because you know, he gets and then he attacks the police, the prosecutors, the judges,
and he keeps saying how they're corrupt. He keeps saying there hasn't been a real investigation up to now, which is the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard. It was a police investigation, police invested investigation. They had a really good I don't I mean the guy been cut all sorts of corners. Ron Lax was in there very early on for the defense as a private investigator. He did a lot of stuff. I don't think he was doing the right thing, but he was being an advocate for
the defense very early on. And of course after the movies came out, they had this huge, huge amount of money available to them, and they've had all sorts of investigators, attorneys, experts available to them for years and years and years, and yet all these questions persist because the questions ultimately aren't answerable by anything except they're guilty. So We're going to keep bringing this up again. We're gonna bring this up again. Let's cast doubt on eyewitness statements, less cats
doubt on this witness. For that reason, that business Jesse Muskelly can confess ten times, that's one way to count it, or five times is another. Like he's really officially got five different confessions, which means he goes to an appeals court. What's the appeals court gonna do. They're gonna look at this guy's fast five times and say, oh, yeah, you deserve another trial.
Guy, right, Well, you know the thing is they never mentioned this gary is that it had did go The case went to the Supreme Court of Arkansas and they affirmed the lower court. So that's already happened. That that appeal not on the DNA, but just a standard appeal was looked at by another court.
Yes, yeah, the durn The lower court did turn them down on the DNA, but the Supreme court did back to approve that. But the lower court, you know, of course it was appealed. It was a death penalty case, went went to the Supreme court. There the Supreme Supreme Court didn't have any problem with it. That you know, there's been no, uh, you know, major ethical uh probes of.
The great point excellent points, Yeah.
Are the are the police? The police made mistakes with this. I have yet to read an account of a major police investigation of a big, really you know crime that's really sort of way out of the out of the loop, you know, like a Manson murderer or a son of Sam or whatever, you want, something that's so far out. And this is one of those cases where the police didn't make major mistakes, but ultimately, because they kept doing their jobs, they honed in on who the perpetrator was.
It just took them a while. And that's what happened here. It wasn't a matter of picking Damien Epicles out immediately because he was wearing a black T shirt.
Right, that's the old argument, the laser focused or the Damien echles what do they call it, the zone or whatever. But it took him a month to actually arrest him, right June, May fifth to June third, right.
May fifth, June third. By June ninth or ten, they already had him pegged as a really their best suspect because number one, he had been seen, he had we had eyewitnesses who'd seen him walking away from the scene of the crime. He gave some really really bad answers, really suspicious answers to an FBI questions off an FBI checklist. He kept changing his his alibis. Even early on, he
was changing his alibi times. He failed a polygraph. Then he refused, He threw up, he refused to continue talking to He.
Said, let me, He told the cops, let me talk to my mom and then I'll tell you everything. And then he talked to his mom and.
Cleaned up right. So, very early on they had good reason to suspect him. With a polygraph, an eyewitness sighting, and a two disastrous interviews with police, they already had good reason to suspect him. They were waiting for more evidence. They continued looking at other people. There were dozens of people that were polygraphed that had nothing to do with Damien Eccles, even Marl Leverett, even I think it's in you know. The ID network also did a horrible version
of this. Maybe it was an the ID Network where she talks about all the other people that were looked at as potential suspects. She does get some things right, she doesn't get much right. She does It's not that she doesn't get things right, but she deliberately leaves things out and slants things to make it look like the West Memphis three. He couldn't possibly have committed these crimes in which, you know, if you slant the evidence enough, yeah,
they look innocent. It's the same old story with the Paradise Lost movies. Right.
Just something I'd like to touch on is can you talk about Bob Russ's animal predation theories and why there's real problems there?
Well, Number one, it's not based on it's not really based The idea is that he's claiming that all the wounds were caused except for some wounds to the head were caused by animals. Uh, there's been some medical experts for the defense. He said basically the same thing Warner Spitz claimed for his story to make any sense. Warner Spitz, who was a very well known forensic forensic pathologists, literally
wrote a book on it. He claimed that his theory was that large dogs somehow dragged the bodies out of the ditch after death, slammed their heads against trees, and then put somehow they ended up back in the water. That is the scenario that would have had to have happened with doctor spits. There's some other people who aren't quite that outrageous. But the idea is is that turtles would have eaten the would have caused these kind of wounds.
Rough a lot basing a lot of what he's doing on his experiment in which he dropped a couple of chicken cars carcasses in the middle of the day in warm weather down into the large drainage value called Timmu vayu that ran by the killed side. He came back four hours later in the chicken cars carcasses were eaten, apparently by turtles. All well and good. The problem is is the large drainage ditch is not where the boys
were left. They were left a small It was a it was a relatively small muddy ditch, and it was also a drainage ditch that emptied into that larger ditch, and it was about two feet two to three feet deep, deeper in some places than others. There may have been some turtles in there. I don't discount the idea that maybe some predation went on, but you know, there were some real problems. The boys were smashed down into the mud,
which means that turtles would not have access. The boys were placed in at night, which means that turtles feed generally during the day, and when they drained the ditch,
they found no turtles. When that during the day, when they the turtles would or nearly been feeding, the woods were full of people searching for the victims, which means even if the turtle there were turtles there and they were active, they wouldn't stayed active for very long because basically they run away if they see They're very very observant, and if they see a sign of a person, they're gone.
And you know, the turtles have suddenly grown into giant prehistoric beasts too. I think that was the director of West Memphis called them giant beasts. And there's real problems. I mean, we know. But the interesting thing is Spits never disagreed with the findings of the state forensic examiner. I think was Parretian. There was somebody else sitting in with PARRETI it wasn't just him.
Oh he did. He did. Some of the others didn't, but he did. He said all three boys drowned. The problem and this is a big problem with the animal predation theory. H two of the boys drowned. They were also beaten horribly and scrapped up in otherwise stab Steevie Branch was stabbed in the face. Christopher Byers had died of multiple injuries, according to Peretti, and he apparently bled out. He had virtually no blood left in his body, so he didn't drown, and so it raises a question of
how the injuries. If you believe in the animal predation, then you have to believe that the animals attacked him in such a way that he bled out before his body was placed in the water. It just simply makes no sense. What does make sense is that they're in the water, they're bleeding. Maybe a few small preatures come up, and you know, you use your imagination on that. But there's blood in the water and attract some small predators.
I don't think that's even that unlikely. But as far as the major wounds, it just doesn't make It doesn't make any sense, and it doesn't hold up with the evidence. The adding further to this, if you just simply look at how the wo the wounds they're not they don't look like I mean, there's a lot of the wounds that are marks that are left from a knife that would be exactly some exactly it's probably the same knife.
But if it's not the same knife, it was a very similar knife to the knife that was found behind Jason Baldwin's how known as the Late Knife in November of nineteen ninety three.
And like heavily serrated, it's like a very strong solution, right, and.
If it's great, take that, put that across your skin and you will have thing that will look like scratch marks. But you can see the difference between an animal scratch marks and scratch marks made by some mechanically made device. And if you look at the autopsy photos for those who really want to look at some really terrible, terrible photos, those are horrible. If you look at those where you're seeing our wounds that are left by some sort of
mechanically made device and not buy an animal. And I'm not an expert on that. I'm just saying what I'm just seeing what I see.
Gary, we are at forty five minutes. Is there anything that you'd like to add or promote or anything I missed?
No, I mean we could I could go on about this for quite a while, but we covered the big things. William I do appreciate this. I appreciate your other work. Know you you could. I saw your interview with Operaman the other day, ed the other day. He's a great host by the way, but you know you could. You could for the hour two so it's it's you know, but thanks for having me on. I do appreciate it.
Well, I'm glad that you made it. And people need to get your books Blood on Black where the Monsters Go, very reasonably priced on Amazon. Tons of information, and you've got forty nine episodes on your podcast, The Case Against So Counting counting right, so people go check those out again. It's Gary mess Emmy e. C. Thank you so much, Gary
Thank you, William, bye bye, by bye bye