The West Memphis Darkness

Were the West Memphis Three victims of a biased community or rightful convictions? Join us on Saki Toobi as we unravel the chilling case of the West Memphis Three with my good friend Jay. We dive into the controversial trials, scrutinize the integrity of the police investigation, and debate the powerful role of public hysteria. Jay passionately argues that the three teenagers were unfairly targeted, while I challenge this view by examining the evidence and questioning claims of prolonged police interrogation. Together, we explore the broader implications of this case on justice and potential miscarriages thereof.

In this episode, we dissect the tangled web of allegations, alternative theories, and societal influences surrounding the West Memphis Three. From the reliability of evidence and the impact of media narratives to the behaviors of key figures like Damien Echols and the alleged satanic undertones, every aspect is under the microscope. We also delve into the mysterious involvement of individuals such as Terry Hobbs and Mark Byers, questioning whether a community conspiracy played a role. Tune in as we challenge prevailing narratives and delve into the deeper psychological and societal elements at play in this perplexing case.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:13

Hey everybody, welcome to Saki Toobi. Imagine being a teenager thrust into the center of a gruesome murder case that captivates the nation. Now picture the evidence against you is largely based on public hysteria and a coerced confession. This is the chilling reality of the West Memphis Three. Today we'll delve into the controversial case that shocked the world, unraveling the complex web of legal battles, media frenzy and the fight for justice. Get ready to explore the depths of a true crime story where innocence and guilt are far from clear-cut.

Speaker 1: 0:52

Hey everybody, it's Ditto, we're back. I'm here with a special guest and I'm psyched about this one man, oh man, one of my best friends ever in life, jay. Hey, what's going on? There we go, we're here. What have you been up to, buddy? What's your latest? Same old Working Kids Life, taking up dog shit and throwing it in another pile. Yeah, I hate that. That's how I go. Put in a pool, which means I'm throwing money away now.

Speaker 1: 1:19

So we are here today to discuss WM3 and the nature of it, and you and I have very different opinions on this, which is going to be crazy. I still don't know exactly what your opinion is. My opinion is it's cohesion or collusion, that small white bread infested town. They all stick together and they picked three kids to just destroy. So you think the kids were targeted, absolutely the reason. I think that is because Damien Echols was the smartest person out of all of them. He was 18. He's smarter than the adults. So we're talking about West Memphis, arkansas West Memphis, arkansas, that's correct.

Speaker 1: 2:09

And the three eight-year-olds that were savagely murdered, disoriented and left to die in a ravine. And they basically convicted these kids with zero evidence. And the one person that did it was a guy with no credentials Allegedly. No, he has no credentials. It's not alleged he has no credentials. But you're saying the guy that did it, he was the one that said all that stuff that led the jury you know the six people in the box to believe that Two juries it was two juries. Well, the first one, the first one, did not convict. Yes, they did. Sorry, they did. So two juries were assembled, two trials were conducted and on both trials the verdict was guilty life in prison or death sentence. That's correct. The first trial they held the youngster for 12 hours with zero legal representation. The kid's IQ was 72. Well, that isn't evidence and that's what they built their entire case on.

Speaker 1: 3:14

Well, so there are police reports that document the happenings in the stations and things like that that claim that he was interrogated for 12 hours is not based on a fact or a record or anything like that. Where there's not a record at a police station that he said he was. You're talking about Jesse and Miss Kelly. That's correct. He said he was Right. He gave a statement. He said that he saw the kids do it. He did say so. Which one is right and which one is wrong? Who's right and who's wrong where? No, I said which statement is right and which statement is wrong.

Speaker 1: 3:51

Are you talking about just his confession? I'm saying that they had him in the interrogation room for 12 hours with no legal representation, and then they took his statement and used it. But that's the part. But you're saying that he wasn't in that room and there's evidence that would say that he wasn't in that room for 12 hours. Right, okay, where's the? Where's that evidence? The evidence is a lack of evidence where, if someone's brought into a station, there's a police report for your attendance there and what took place there. There is no record of attendance by Jesse Miskelley, where he was held in a room for 12 hours, Then how can you have a statement. He can give a statement and still not be in a room for 12 hours. So where was he? He could have been just brought in. Is there evidence of where they took the statement from, I would imagine. Well, where is it? They have evidence that he wasn't in the room for 12 hours, but they don't have any evidence that he gave a statement outside of it.

Speaker 1: 4:54

I'm not saying that. All I'm saying is that if they brought Jesse Miskelley down to the station to catch a statement or to get a confession out of him, or whatever, so be it. But the claim that he was held in a room for 12 hours, that is still a speculation or it's not documented. There should be a record that shows there should be a record. Of course, yeah, but there's no record that shows he actually just gave a statement for no reason, right, however? So how do you believe either one? Well, I think the this is just the tip of the iceberg. It is. It's a detail, like a minute detail. I'm just saying there is another side to the story that says if he was held in a police station for 12 hours, that there would be a record of that holding for 12 hours. I believe he gave a statement and in that statement there was a confession.

Speaker 1: 5:52

Your belief doesn't really equate to anything positive. I'm not saying it's my belief that that happened. Okay, I'm just saying I've heard, listened to a lot of testimonies on this case, read a lot of things about it and I've heard multiple times that the claim that he was held for 12 hours is not like a legitimate claim because there is no record of him being held for 12 hours. Where did you hear this? Multiple places. I wasn't, you know, I wasn't Anything substantial. Is there any documentation of it? No, because I again would say it's a lack of evidence whatever. However, we're talking about here. He said she said touching Sure Bottom line. He gave a confession of guilt, recalled details of the event, things like that. If you were held in an interrogation room for 12 hours against your will, would you say whatever you could to get the hell out of there? Sure, I hope you keep that mind frame later when we talk about the IQ test my IQ is low we can talk about the IQ test. My IQ is low.

Speaker 1: 7:07

Now, jesse Miskelly confessed five times, not just the one time in the interrogation. He's confessed five times, two times. It's recorded Two times. It's recorded Two times. It's recorded. Okay, so he's only confessed twice. No, you can't say he confessed five times. There's records that take place outside of a video camera. So on video he confessed two times. So it's two times. He did it confessed, but there's record of him confessing five times. There's record of anything five times.

Speaker 1: 7:43

If four out of five dentists prefer Crest, sure, sure. But that argument could go on and on and on about all of your science that you've ever heard. It's not science. It's like four out of five thousand dentists prefer Crest. But there's five recorded instances of his confession. Two of them are recorded on video. The two that are recorded, those I will take into account. You have to take the other ones into account because they are also recorded, in the same way that your taxes are recorded. That your taxes are recorded, they take your ledger or your documentation of it. That is accepted, as you know. Same with an office, same with a lot of things If you record your instances on paper or whatever. So let's just say, one of his confessions took place between and this alone is very, very, very uh, you know, creates a lot of skepticism and everything is.

Speaker 1: 8:44

One of his confessions took place from the courthouse where he was found guilty and was he confessed on the travel to the jailhouse. That's a little odd. He confessed to a murder. It's odd in the, not in the way you want it to be odd. It's odd in the opposite direction. Why there? Why are the only two people that heard it were probably the two police officers in the car and it was recorded. It was recorded. They create an incident report from every transportation. I'm sure they don't come with. Every single transportation comes with. Oh, the guy admitted it on the way to, on the way to prison, guys already going to prison. What the hell's he got to lose or gain or whatever? He's being transported to the jailhouse. He has an iq of 72 guilty. Well, funny, you should bring that up. But hold on, I don't want to jump there yet.

Speaker 1: 9:32

All right, five confessions, two recorded, one of them recorded, you can find it. His lawyer spent 15 to 20 minutes trying to get him to not confess to it and then he confesses to it. In that confession they talk about, one of them makes a claim. One of them recalls that the boys were hogtied and Jesse corrects them and says well, this boy wasn't hogtied, he was only tied around his wrists and blah, blah, blah, whatever. But the point is his legal representation was pleading with him not to confess and he felt maybe his simplicity and his IQ, maybe he's less serious, he's not that smart. He may not be smart, but maybe a simple person says hey, I know what's right and I know what's wrong and I know what's the truth and what's not the truth, and I can only tell you what I know and that's maybe his simplicity doesn't work in his favor the way you'd like it. I will in this particular instance, I will give you that. Sure, 100.

Speaker 1: 10:32

So there's five, two recorded, one is under under, uh, advised not to. One was on the way to the prison, one was on, one was by an inmate. So an inmate comes and the inmate gave a statement. The inmate gave a statement because Stop, stop, right there, unless it's from that guy, stop Once it goes. Third party, forget it. I believe it even less than I believe you saying there's five, okay, so the two that are recorded. If it's his voice, gotcha, there's no way to defend that. Like, okay, but a guy, somebody else, saying something that he was told, nope, absolutely not. Money talks All right. Do you think there's money exchanged between the inmate, two inmates. I don't think there's money. But let's say, you know you gotta do five years. In a year you tell the story, you're out in five months.

Speaker 1: 11:24

You ever seen Shawshank Redemption? I've seen a lot of movies. It's not a guilty man in Shawshank, remember that. Say hey, what are you in for? Ah, lawyer, fucked me Right. Remember that scene? Yep, so I don't see a guy going to prison unless he realizes I got caught. I'm here, I got nothing to hide. You know what the funny part is? There's probably a lot of innocent people in prison, I'm sure, because the guilty people take pleas. Sure, sure, that's how fucked up the justice system is. Yeah, I agree with you there. But anyway, back to what you were talking about. Well, let's skip to the IQ thing. So there is record to that. I could be speaking out of school here, but I believe it's recorded. Because they were doing the IQ test with him.

Speaker 1: 12:09

He was told by his legal team that if he was to score low enough on the test that they wouldn't be allowed to give him the death penalty. That is literally kind of contradicting yourself. What would you do? What would I do? You did a murder and you know you did it. You're a simple man, you know you did it and someone comes to you and says hey, you're going to trial. If you found guilty, you could get the death penalty. However, if you score low enough on this test right here, they can't give you the death penalty. However, if you score low enough on this test right here, they can't give you the death penalty. They can only give you a sentence. What would you do If you're a simple man? You're being told exactly what to do, which doesn't make you guilty. You're told what to do and you can't think for yourself enough to say okay.

Speaker 1: 12:54

When you have all these people, hold on, because this will become important later on. When you're that low of an IQ, you become 80?, 72. He had an IQ of 72. I heard it was between 70 and 90. It was 72. That's what he scored. And if you have a 90, 70 is borderline mental retardation. That's where they start to go, like you are literally.

Speaker 1: 13:18

Well, jesse Miskelly held down regular jobs. He had relationships with women. Are you saying that he went to school? Are you saying that other people with a low IQ can't do that? I'm saying that. Why is that like a thing. Well, I'm just saying I think if you have a low IQ, where you're still a functioning adult, I think you still recognize right and wrong. I think you still recognize right and wrong. I think you still recognize, you know, but you panic in a different way and you're likely to do something that you normally wouldn't do.

Speaker 1: 13:47

If these people that you think are better than you or more important than you are telling you to do something, you're more likely to do it, even in a car, with two officers that are already bringing you to your house. They're police officers. When you were younger, didn't you do what the police officer said? The two police officers transporting him to jail. He's already been convicted. I don't think the police officers have any interest. Why are they interrogating him anyway? He wasn't interrogating him. Then how did he give a statement? They give an incident report of things that took place on their ride. On their ride. That's the questionable point there. He's saying on the ride I killed those kids, I got convicted, I'm guilty, I did that shit. That's what the police officers are saying. Show me where he said that. They're just transporting him, we're going to get into it. Yeah, you're right. You're right. I can't show you where he said that you can't. So it's not provable.

Speaker 1: 14:43

What I will say to you is it was the entire town. Do you know that Jesse Muskelly enrolled in college classes once he was released from prison? Yes, so it wasn't that dumb, whatever. So somebody lied about something. There's so many lies here that it's so wrong Like out something. There's so many lies here that it's so wrong Like you can't go one way or the other. But I will tell you one thing that did happen the shroud. Terry Hobbs did it. Terry Hobbs did it. Hold on, hold on. There's no doubt. Before you go any further, before you go any further, please keep in mind a few things.

Speaker 1: 15:17

This scene of this crime was investigated by people FBI agents, detectives that have been doing their jobs for 25 years. They investigated a crime scene, they put together evidence. They then took testimonies, they took word from the locals, people that lived in the town. They took that's my point, just hear me out they took other evidence of the boy's characters and things involved in their lives and all this stuff and based on this evidence, and then they went to a courtroom and in that courtroom two lawyers went head-to-head. A jury decided in two separate cases that these older boys committed these murders. Hear me out. Where did they get the jurors from? Just hear me out real quick. They found these kids guilty, these boys guilty, in two trials. Now, based on that, we're arguing whether or not these boys that were found guilty two times and given death sentences and death row, and were found guilty by juries of their peers on two occasions, based on evidence that was collected at the scene of a crime, compared to evidence that were found in these boys' homes, lives, their, their families, all these things, and that's why these boys were convicted.

Speaker 1: 16:47

Terry hobbs his name comes up by nobody other than these documentary makers have posed that idea based off of just conversation. They they didn't do an investigation. They didn't have FBI agents scrubbing this. Did you ever watch his dispositions? I don't care. Depositions, depositions. But keep in mind this we're both fathers. Imagine one of these. Something of this nature happened to your kid or one of my sons. Okay, in what seems to be, from my perspective, a satanic ritual, these boys were brutally murdered. I'm not debating it was satanic or not it was, I'm just saying this happens and then somebody while in your, could you imagine the state that you would be in? And then someone comes and suggests well, maybe it was you. Terry Hobbs was not in that state, I think. If we're talking IQs and things like that, I think Terry Hobbs Byron did the exact opposite of what I would have thought. Mark Byron is as guilty as Terry Hobbs. Mark Byron killed his wife, mark Byers Byers. Yeah, mark Byers. Mark Byron killed his wife, mark Byers Byers. Yeah, mark Byers. Sorry, mark Byers killed his wife because she knew what happened.

Speaker 1: 18:04

I've heard that almost everybody involved in that whole situation is dead today. How about that? Almost everyone. So what does that say to you? It doesn't say to me that these two hillbillies corroborated this huge thing and then killed everybody involved. That's the point. It was satanical. It was, and you were right. And it was the entire town. You think the entire town was all satanists, abso-fucking-lutely. That is completely. I wouldn't call them satanists, but I'm saying what you're saying now. But they were all in it together and they covered each other's backs.

Speaker 1: 18:40

What you're saying now is a completely different perspective and, from anything that I've heard, that's what it was and it's the opposite of what Hollywood and the supporters and all that stuff is the opposite of that. What they're saying is this is such a conservative town, these are such Christian square folks that, just the sight of these kids in their long hair and black t-shirts those are the ones that do it and try and get away with it. Well, that is a fresh perspective that I've never. I will tell you one other thing. I don't know if the kids didn't do it, but they didn't do it alone. I would say that if they were actually part of the church or anything like that, or they knew these two men, byers and Hobbs, they were talked into going along with it, which may explain why Jesse Miskelly was able to describe things. But they were forced, kind of like primal fear. Sure, that's what I'm looking at here. This is the way I would equate this. I don't think the kids had anything to do with it.

Speaker 1: 19:49

Damien Echols is too well-spoken. Out of that entire town, that entire backwood town, one of them could speak well, and that was Damien Echols. Sure, the rest of them Mark Byron, mark Byers. But maybe Damien speaks very well and maybe he's the most intelligent guy in the group. You ever hear about laying it on too thick? Sure, sure, mark Byers. What about Damien Echols? He didn't do anything, but did you watch his persona in the courtroom and things like that. He was basically telling the courtroom that he did that. I didn't take it as he did it. He kind of sat there and said look, I've looked at it.

Speaker 1: 20:29

They brought up Aleister Crowley in the middle of the second one against the other two kids. What does Aleister Crowley have to do with anything? Aleister Crowley has everything to do with everything. Why? Because Aleister Crowley have to do with anything. Aleister Crowley has everything to do with everything. Why? Because Aleister Crowley? According to who? According to the court case? Okay. And why does he have to do it? Because Damien Echols is a student of black magic. He says repeatedly that his life's purpose is one of his goals in life he wants to become the greatest magician, magician, magic with a K, to become the greatest magician that's ever lived. What does that have to do with? Like what, if we believe, theory, religion, anything? What does that have to do with Wiccan? It's tough to categorize, because Wiccans don't want to hurt anyone. Sure, sure, I mean I. If you're going after witches, then you're going to lose that one, because they're all about natural nature and procuring life.

Speaker 1: 21:27

I think Damien relied. I do find his name to be dubious. Yeah, that's a change name very close to the events too. Michael. Before that, yes. And then, when I asked, so Damien has an MO. It's like whenever he's so he tries to be very obvious. You know, he laughs at the victim's families. He carries a very arrogant persona in the courtroom. I mean it's very hard to watch his antics in the courtroom. I found it easier to watch his antics than everyone else's. Honestly, I did not. I was really. I was.

Speaker 1: 22:09

First of all, I was very put off by how, through all the documentaries, through all the support from Hollywood, through everything, all everybody seems to care about is Damian Echols, jesse Miskelley and Jason Baldwin. Nobody talks about Christopher Byers, the three kids. That's right. That's where I was going after this. No one says anything about that. Why is that? Because I think this is I'm with you, this is how they covered it up. Nobody talks about the kids that were killed and that's where I was going to get to at some point. I was going to try to hit you with it when you didn't see it coming, but you did it first. You got me with it. But, yes, why aren't we talking about the boys that were murdered? Because I think this is a, it's a town wide cover up. It's not the three of them.

Speaker 1: 22:59

I think it's a battle of beliefs. I think it's a battle of two different houses that have different belief systems and I think it'sa bunch of perverts that got their jollies off and used the guys of the church to get away with it and cover it up. Well, the hard argument about that is that Aleister Crowley, black Magic, a lot of these occult beliefs. You do realize that Aleister Crowley gave more back than he took. He was rich, he was flamboyant, he was like Elton John, I don't care what he was, his foundation of, that's what he did with his. Call him a philanthropist or whatever. I'm sure you know somebody like Jeffrey Epstein has probably got a grocery list of charities and things like that that he contributed to and that he donated to. That's a fair statement right there. Sure, that's a fair statement. It's a fair assessment for a statement. Fair example. I got you there.

Speaker 1: 24:00

But my point in that is that Alistair Crowley's beliefs and the things that he was doing, okay, had a lot to do with just living for yourself. Okay, not, you know. So I know that's normally what you're supposed to do. I disagree, it's okay, but there's two schools of thought. Okay, there's one school of thought that says we are all here and the best we can do would be to figure out how to get along, how to enjoy life together, how to coexist together and spread love from one person to the other. That's actually just common sense. There's another school of thought that says and this is one of Alistair Crowley's mottos, and probably the motto he's known most for is do as thou wilt. That basically states if you enjoy it, you do that, and it doesn't really matter who's being affected by it, how it's affecting other people. You live for you and do you. That's 100% true.

Speaker 1: 25:07

So think about that from the perspective of, say, someone who's into doing terrible things to children, well then, prove they did terrible things to children. All I'm talking about is the theory and the philosophy of Aleister Crowley. I get where you're coming from. If someone was into, let's just say, doing terrible things to children, violence or sexual things involving violence, they were interested in doing things like that. There has to be a train of thought involved in that that says this is what I'm into, I don't care how it affects these children, these children's families, this is what I like, I'm going to do it. So that goes perfectly along with all of these beliefs in the Aleister Crowley books, his philosophies, his teachings was we're getting into perspective and narrative? No, we're not. Yes, we are. No, we're not Because these are very pertinent points in this case.

Speaker 1: 26:06

No, they're using Aleister Crowley to prove this, which I could say I need to go out and do something good for somebody. And that's what Aleister Crowley is actually saying Do what thou will, right? So if I want to go out and help people, I can go out and help people and it doesn't matter. No one's going to stop me from helping people. You're right, you're not wrong. You can take it the other direction, which you're going in now. So you can't use Aleister Crowley's statements as evidence, as this is what would happen. All that I'm saying is that there is a belief system involved here, where, when you couple that with black magic, there is a belief system that's involved here. There is, and you and I both know this, but there are key players in this. It's not even black magic. There are key players in this.

Speaker 1: 26:55

It's the end of episode one, the first part of this whole thing. It's, it's, it's it's. It's the end of episode one, the first part of this whole thing. This is a two-part episode, so check out the next one next week. All right, guys, stay tuned. Thanks for listening. Talk to you later, saki Dumi. Hey everybody, it's Ditto. Thanks for checking out our show today. Hope you enjoyed it. If you did, subscribe to us, we can hook up, interact. You can tell us what you like about the show, talk about what you don't like about the show, give us information and insight. We'd appreciate it. We only want to make the show better for you guys. Also, if you get a chance, head over to someassemblynet. That's our sponsor and you can really do some business. All right, as always, everybody be good Sake to me.