podcast

The West Memphis Three and the Satanic Panic Era

This case has lived in my head for months.

I have walked the murder site, recorded every psychic hit in real time, and chased every lead that crossed my path. I have read court documents, sifted through old news clippings, and replayed the Estes sessions until the voices felt like they were speaking straight into my bones.

The West Memphis Three story is more than a murder investigation. It is a portrait of small-town fear, a study in how a community can build a monster out of kids in black shirts while the real killer stands in plain sight. It is a reminder that justice can be buried for decades under rumor, panic, and willful blindness.

Along the way I have shared my own connection to this case: the parallels to my teenage years, the psychic impressions that came fast and hard, the unsettling sense that the land itself still remembers. I have traced every step from the night of the murders through the trials, the false confessions, the decades of appeals, and the long fight for freedom.

We will start with the current events and then move through the details of the case, including a full timeline, before diving into the psychic investigation and my own conclusions.

A Chronicle of the DNA Testing So Far

Before the current round of testing began in 2025, the case had already gone through several key forensic updates that reshaped the narrative.

2007: First Major DNA Review
In 2007 the evidence from the original investigation was retested using more advanced mitochondrial DNA methods. The results were striking. A hair found in one of the shoelace knots used to bind Michael Moore was not a match for Damien Echols, Jason Baldwin, or Jessie Misskelley. Instead it was consistent with the mitochondrial DNA of Terry Hobbs, the stepfather of victim Stevie Branch. Another hair recovered near the scene matched the profile of David Jacoby, a friend of Hobbs who was reportedly with him the night the boys disappeared. These findings ruled out all three teenagers and placed attention on people close to the victims.

2011: Plea Deal and Release
Despite the new DNA evidence, Arkansas prosecutors did not reopen the case. In August 2011 the West Memphis Three entered Alford pleas, maintaining their innocence while acknowledging that the state had enough evidence to convict, and were released after eighteen years in prison. The hair evidence remained untested beyond the initial 2007 work.

2024: Supreme Court Ruling for New Testing
Efforts to revisit the forensic evidence continued. On April 18, 2024, the Arkansas Supreme Court ruled that new DNA testing could move forward on a broader set of crime scene items, including the ligatures, clothing, and additional hair samples. This decision overturned previous denials and set the stage for a fresh look at the evidence with the latest technology.

2025: Preparing for the Next Phase
In August 2025 a judge authorized the new round of testing, ordering that the shoelaces, ligature hairs, and other critical items be sent to modern forensic labs for analysis. This testing is now underway and represents the most comprehensive examination of the physical evidence since the murders.

These steps from the 2007 retesting to the 2011 Alford pleas, the 2024 Supreme Court decision, and the 2025 court order form the backbone of the forensic record to date. They show a clear shift away from the original suspects and open the door for the newest DNA work to either confirm or challenge everything we thought we knew about the case.

Arkansas Supreme Court Clears New DNA Testing in West Memphis Three Case

After three decades of legal quiet, a judge in Crittenden County, Arkansas, gave the green light on August 1, 2025, to dig into the “mysterious box of evidence” in the West Memphis Three case. That means the shoelaces used to bind the three murdered boys are getting re-tested with modern DNA tech specifically M-Vac, which vacuums skin cells from fibers.

The decision follows a 4-3 ruling from the Arkansas Supreme Court that a lower court was wrong to deny Damien Echols’ request for new genetic testing. In 2022, a judge had blocked the testing, saying state law didn’t apply because Echols was no longer in custody. The state also argued that Echols’ plea deal barred him from asking. The high court rejected both claims.

“We appreciate the (Arkansas Supreme Court) giving this ruling and hope we can now once and for all solve this case, clear our names and find the person responsible for carrying out these horrendous crimes,” Echols said in a statement. “This is monumental.”

Dan Stidham Finally Spills in His New Book

The former defense attorney for Jessie Misskelley Jr. has finally dropped his tell-all A Harvest of Innocence and it lands like a punch to the gut.

This is not a dry recap of the West Memphis Three case. Stidham has been sitting on information he says he could not share in the past because it might have put people in danger. Now he is a judge and free to speak. The book opens with a blunt line: “The killer is alive today. I am sure of it.”

Stidham teamed up with two retired FBI profilers, one of them a co-author of the official profiling manual. Their conclusion is that the murders were not the result of satanic panic or a coerced confession. They believe the killer could have been a long-haul truck driver. The crime scene was within walking distance of a truck stop along I-40 and Stidham treats that as a significant detail.

The book covers the toll the case took on him personally. He writes about years of nightmares, anxiety, and public hostility. He revisits the 2007 partial DNA match to Terry Hobbs, stepfather of one of the victims. That lead was never pursued to formal charges.

Stidham believes new M-Vac technology could finally pull genetic material from the original items in the case. He calls this the best opportunity in decades to identify the real killer or clear the lingering suspicion around the convicted men.

For Stidham, the process of writing A Harvest of Innocence was also an act of release. After finishing the book, he says it was the first time in decades he could sleep through the night.

The Murders in Robin Hood Hills.

This is a rewritten chapter from my book Eerie Arkansas.

In 1993, three teenagers from West Memphis were accused and later convicted of killing three eight-year-old boys in what police called a satanic ritual. The accusation was unsubstantiated. The evidence was weak. The convictions eventually collapsed.

On May 5, 1993, Michael Moore, Steve Branch, and Christopher Byers were reported missing around 7 p.m. by John Mark Byers, Christopher’s adoptive father. Search teams focused on the Robin Hood Hills area, where the boys had last been seen. The next afternoon, parole officer Steve Jones spotted a single black shoe floating in a muddy creek. Minutes later, the bodies were found naked, hogtied with their own shoelaces, and their clothing tangled in branches. Two pairs of underwear were never recovered.

Police initially said the boys had been beaten and sexually assaulted based on injuries to Christopher Byers. The other two victims had no genital injuries. Autopsies showed Moore and Branch drowned, while Byers died from multiple injuries.

The Victim

Steve Edward Branch
Eight years old, blond hair, 4’2″, 64 pounds. An honor student who lived with his mother, Pam, and stepfather, Terry Hobbs, one of the last people to see the boys alive. Last seen in a white T-shirt and blue jeans, riding a black-and-white bicycle.

James Michael Moore
Eight years old, 4’5″, 55 pounds, brown hair. Considered the leader of the trio. Known for wearing his Boy Scout uniform everywhere. Lived with his parents, Todd and Dana, and his older sister. Last seen in full uniform, riding his green bike.

Christopher Michael Byers
Eight years old, light brown hair, 4’0″, 55 pounds. Believed in Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny. Lived with his mother, Melissa, and adoptive father, John Mark Byers. Last seen in a white long-sleeved shirt, blue jeans, and dark shoes. He was on foot.

The Accused

Damien Echols
Eighteen, self-proclaimed Wiccan, with a record for vandalism, burglary, and shoplifting. Wore black clothing, listened to heavy metal, and read Stephen King novels. His probation officer believed he led a local satanic cult. Echols had dropped out of school, spent time in a mental institution, and was living with his parents in a trailer park.

Jason Baldwin
Sixteen, good student, gifted artist encouraged to study graphic design. Minor trouble with the law, mostly with Echols. Lived in the Lakeshore neighborhood.

Jessie Misskelley Jr.
Seventeen, low IQ, quick temper, poor school performance. Not close friends with Echols and Baldwin but knew them. Known for starting fights. Dropped out of high school and lived in Highland Trailer Park.

The Timeline

May 5, 1993: The Day the Three Boys Go Missing

2:55 p.m.: School ends at Weaver Elementary.
3:01 p.m.: Michael Moore walks home and meets his sister, Dawn.
3:08 p.m.: Steve Branch walks home with his mom and his sister, Amanda.
3:11 p.m.: Christopher Byers is supposed to be home.
3:18 p.m.: Michael changes into his Boy Scout uniform.
3:28 p.m.: Michael goes to Steve’s house to play.
3:33 p.m.: Steve and Michael leave on their bikes.
3:44 p.m.: Christopher goes to Steve’s house and watches The Muppet Show with Amanda.
3:51 p.m.: Michael and Steve play in the southeast part of the neighborhood.
4:02 p.m.: Christopher goes to look for Michael and Steve.
4:07 p.m.: The three boys meet on South McCauley.
4:18 p.m.: The boys are seen in Jamie Clark Ballard’s backyard.
4:30 p.m.: The boys are seen on Barton Street with another neighborhood boy.
4:31 p.m.: Christopher heads home and climbs in through a window.
4:32 p.m.: Narleen Hollingsworth almost hits two boys with her car.
4:36 p.m.: Michael goes home to look for Christopher.
4:43 p.m.: Michael and Christopher are seen on Wilson, playing.
4:48 p.m.: Steve arrives home late. He was due at 4:30 p.m.
4:55 p.m.: Michael goes to Tray’s house.
5:03 p.m.: Christopher skateboards with his neighbor, Lakeisha.
5:10 p.m.: Steve is likely at home.
5:14 p.m.: Michael is on Holiday Drive with the fourth boy from earlier.
5:20 p.m.: Christopher is picked up by his father and taken home.
5:30 p.m.: Christopher is punished and told to clean the carport.
5:36 p.m.: Michael is seen playing near the woods.
5:43 p.m.: Michael and the fourth boy talk to Alan Bailey Jr.
5:50 p.m.: Michael goes to find Christopher.
5:56 p.m.: Michael and Steve find each other on Wilson.
6:00 p.m.: The boys are seen on Fourteenth Street, headed toward Goodwin.
6:02 p.m.: Christopher and Bobby Posey walk to Carlos’s house.
6:07 p.m.: Michael and Steve play near the entrance to the woods.
6:11 p.m.: Christopher goes to Carlos’s and learns everyone is on Goodwin.
6:17 p.m.: Christopher heads toward Goodwin to find his friends.
6:20 p.m.: Dana Moore sees all three boys together.
6:22 p.m.: All three boys are in Devil’s Den.
6:30 p.m.: The boys cross the pipe bridge.
8:00 p.m.: John Mark Byers calls police to report his son missing.
8:30 p.m.: Byers searches the woods for the boys.
9:00 p.m.: Dana Moore and Pam Hobbs call police to report the boys missing.
Between 9:30 and 10:00 p.m.: Narleen Hollingsworth tells police she saw Damien Echols and another boy near the Blue Beacon, on the edge of Robin Hood Hills.

The Murder

May 6, 1993

From 1:00 a.m. to 5:00 a.m.: Medical examiner Dr. Frank Peretti later says the murders likely took place during this window.

May 6, 1993

6:00 a.m.: Chief Inspector Gary Gitchell announces the boys are missing and that search efforts will continue.
1:45 p.m.: Officers find a body in Robin Hood Hills. Three bodies are recovered.
4:00 p.m.: The coroner arrives and declares all three boys dead. They were in a ditch about 150 yards from the Blue Beacon Truck Wash under about two and a half feet of water.

The Autopsies

Trigger Warning: The original wording is clinical and graphic. This is a condensed summary. It still describes injuries. So, if you are sensitive to this kind of content then skp this part and move on to the rest of the article.

Christopher Michael Byers

Cause of death: multiple injuries. Manner of death: homicide. Carbamazepine was present in his system, a drug used for epilepsy, nerve pain, and bipolar disorder. No blood or semen was found in his mouth or anus.

Byers’s body arrived nude. His hands were bound to his feet in a hogtie with shoelaces. Right wrist to right ankle with a black lace. Left wrist to left ankle with a white lace. His head was blood-soiled. His body had dried mud, leaves, and debris.

He had scrapes and bruises on the right ear. Abrasions on the right eyebrow, left eyelid, left ear, nose, and lips. Bite marks on both cheeks. A laceration on the top left scalp with soft tissue hemorrhage. Multiple fractures at the base of the skull.

His anal orifice was dilated. The penis, scrotum, and testes were missing. There were abrasions and contusions on both buttocks. Bruising on both legs and parts of the lower back. Wrists and ankles showed yellowed bruising from bindings.

Full report: http://callahan.mysite.com/wm3/autcb.html

Michael Moore

Cause of death: multiple injuries with drowning. Manner of death: homicide. No drugs were present. Head blood-soiled. Dried mud and debris on the body. Wrists bound to ankles in a hogtie with black shoelaces.

There were scrapes on the nose. Swollen contusions on the left cheek and lips. An egg-shaped swollen bruise with smaller lacerations on the front right side of the head. Another egg-shaped bruise behind the right ear. Smaller scratches on the lower face and jaw. Multiple bite wounds on the tip of the tongue.

He had multiple skull fractures. The right side of the brain was swollen from hemorrhage. Scratches and bruising on the right neck, shoulder, and chest. Scratches on the left neck and left abdomen.

The penis had no injuries. The anal orifice was dilated, with no internal injury found. The scrotum and testes were intact with no injuries. An egg-shaped bruise was on the left knee. Purple bruising marked ankles and wrists from bindings. Scrapes and abrasions were on the back and buttocks.

There was evidence of drowning. About two milliliters of water in the sinus cavity. Hemorrhaging in the throat and chest. Lungs were swollen with frothy fluid.

Full report: http://callahan.mysite.com/wm3/autmm.html

Stevie Branch

Cause of death: multiple injuries with drowning. Manner of death: homicide. No drugs were present. Body covered in leaves, mud, and debris. Blond hair with blood in it. Genitals were intact. Body arrived nude. Hands were bound to feet in a hogtie. Right wrist to right ankle with a black lace. Left wrist to left ankle with a white lace.

There were scratches and abrasions on the right ear, over the right eye, and down the right cheek. Lips and gums were bruised and swollen. A dome-shaped cut was on the left eyebrow with scrapes and bruises down the side of the face.

A large swollen abrasion with overlying scratches was on the left scalp. Fractures were at the neck and base of the skull, radiating from the left side. Scratches were found on the chest and lower left leg.

The lungs were swollen and filled with a bloody, frothy liquid. The sinuses held a bloody water-like fluid. Wrists and ankles were swollen and yellowed from bindings. No sperm or sexual fluid was present on the body or in any orifice.

Full report: http://callahan.mysite.com/wm3/autsb.html

After the Murder

May 7, 1993

Juvenile officer Steve Jones and Lieutenant Sudbury question Damien Echols about the deaths. They take no notes.

May 8, 1993

Detective Bill Durham and Investigator Shane Griffith question Damien Echols and Jason Baldwin. Both say they have never heard of the murdered children.

May 10, 1993

Lieutenant Sudbury and Detective Bryn Ridge interview Damien Echols without a lawyer. He takes a polygraph. According to Ridge’s notes, Durham reported that Damien was untruthful and that the polygraph indicated involvement.

May 12, 1993

Police interview Pam Echols. She says Damien was at home the night of the murders, on the phone with two girls from school.

May 19, 1993

Vicki Hutchinson, a neighbor of Jessie Misskelley, claims she went with Echols and Misskelley to an esbat in Marion, Arkansas. She says Echols drove. She describes ten other people dressed in black with faces and arms painted black. She claims the gathering turned sexual. She says Echols drove her home afterward.

May 27, 1993

Police interview Vicki Hutchinson again. She says Echols and Misskelley are involved in cult activity. Her son, Aaron, tells police he often played in Robin Hood Hills with the murdered boys. He claims to have seen five boys in the woods singing to the Devil and doing adult sexual acts.

June 2, 1993

Hutchinson takes a polygraph. Police say she is truthful.

June 3, 1993

Police interview Jessie Misskelley under false pretenses. They mention a $35,000 reward for information. Misskelley denies involvement in the murders and denies ritual activity. After hours of harsh questioning, he changes his story. He begins to tell police what they want to hear. His account has major errors, including stating the murders happened during the day when they happened in the evening. Police steer him to match case details, then record his confession. Original transcript: https://www.dpdlaw.com/jessie-misskelley-jr-confession/

June 3, 1993, 9:00 p.m.

Police obtain search warrants for the homes of Damien, Jason, and Jessie.

June 3, 1993, 10:30 p.m.

Damien, Jason, and Jessie are arrested and charged with three counts of capital murder.

Satanic Panic

The Satanic Panic was not a brief moral flare-up. It was a sustained campaign of fear, amplified by television, talk shows, and police training seminars. It criminalized people based on aesthetic, religion, and rumor, and it created investigative standards built on suggestion instead of fact.

Between the early 1980s and the mid-1990s, thousands of claims of “satanic ritual abuse” were investigated across North America. Most were unfounded. The structure was always the same: a child’s story, coaxed or implanted through suggestive therapy, was treated as absolute proof. Accusations became convictions in the court of public opinion long before a trial began.

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Alright, folks, buckle up for a wild ride through the twisted origins of Satanic Panic and its unsettling resurrection in today’s world. In Part 1, we’re dissecting the hysteria that gripped the 80s and how it’s managed to slither its way into the present day through QAnon, the Trump presidency, and beyond.

For full show notes and links: Satanic Panic Reloaded – From the 80s to QAnon and Trump

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Michelle Remembers

In 1980, Michelle Remembers was published. Michelle Smith and her psychiatrist, Dr. Lawrence Pazder, claimed she had been abused by a satanic cult as a child. These memories were “recovered” through extensive regression therapy sessions.

The accounts were dramatic. Human sacrifice. Murder of infants. Rituals involving the Pope. The book was a bestseller. Pazder and Smith toured the country and appeared on major talk shows. They presented their case as fact and positioned themselves as experts in identifying and combating ritual abuse. Pazder went on to advise police departments and consult on investigations.

Later fact-checking found no evidence to support any of the book’s claims. Dates did not match documented events. People named in the book were proven to be elsewhere at the time. No physical evidence connected to any described ritual was ever produced. The book is now regarded as fictional, but at the time it was treated as a manual.

Barbara Snow

Barbara Snow, a therapist in Utah, adopted a similar approach. She conducted interviews with children in which initial denials were met with repeated questioning, leading prompts, and positive reinforcement when the child gave a story that matched her expectations. Over time, children produced increasingly elaborate accounts involving witches, blood rituals, and sexual abuse.

These statements were not spontaneous disclosures. They were products of repeated, guided sessions in which the interviewer had already decided what the “truth” would be. The resulting “testimony” entered legal cases as if it were factual eyewitness evidence.

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Grab your favorite beverage and settle in as we journey back to the wild and paranoid days of the 1980s Satanic Panic. We’re talking over 12,000 cases of alleged satanic sexual ritual abuse—completely unsubstantiated, of course. The McMartin trial? Oh, you bet we’re diving into that circus.

For full show notes and links: The McMartin Trial ⚖️ The Satanic Panic of the 1980s Part 2

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The McMartin Preschool Trial

The McMartin Preschool case began in 1983 when a mother reported her son was being abused by a teacher. The physical symptom cited was difficulty with bowel movements. Medical examinations found no physical signs of abuse. The mother was later diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia.

Despite the lack of physical evidence, the accusation led to one of the most expensive and longest criminal trials in U.S. history. Over 350 children were interviewed. Many alleged acts included underground tunnels, animal sacrifice, and trips in hot air balloons to undisclosed locations for ritual abuse. Actor Chuck Norris was named in some accounts as a participant.

Only 41 children testified. The interview techniques used by investigators were later discredited for being highly suggestive. In recorded sessions, children appeared confused, contradicted themselves, and at times seemed to be guessing at answers to please the adults questioning them.

The trial lasted seven years and cost $15 million. It ended with no convictions. All charges were dropped.

From Satanic Panic to QAnon

The themes of the Satanic Panic did not disappear. They adapted. Allegations of secret cabals abusing children migrated from preschool basements to online forums. QAnon recycled familiar elements: hidden tunnels, elite figures engaging in ritual abuse, and a small group of “truth-tellers” claiming exclusive knowledge.

Instead of paperback memoirs and daytime talk shows, the new conspiracy culture uses social media platforms, livestreamed “testimony,” and influencer marketing. The pattern is the same.

Children are positioned as the ultimate victims.

The accused are described as powerful, unreachable figures.

Believers are told they are part of a select group who “see the truth.”

The structure fosters fear and reinforces a savior mentality in the audience.

The Trial

une 4, 1993

Authorities hold a press conference and announce they have arrested the killers. They say they are confident.

June 7, 1993

The three defendants are assigned lawyers.

June 9, 1993

Eight-year-old Aaron Hutchinson is interviewed. He says he saw the three boys being killed.

August 4, 1993

Pretrial hearing. Damien and Jason will be tried together. Jessie will be tried separately. Judge David Burnett rules that Jessie’s confession tape can be heard at all trials. All three will be tried as adults.

September 1993

The prosecution interviews families of the defendants and other witnesses under oath.

November 10, 1993

Judge Burnett schedules Jessie’s trial first in January. Damien and Jason will be tried in February.

November 17, 1993

Police hire divers to search the lake behind Damien and Jason’s trailer park. A nine-inch serrated blade is found behind Jason’s trailer.

December 30, 1993

The defense interviews the Hutchinsons’ neighbors. They say Aaron was playing in the trailer park the day of the murders. He was not near Robin Hood Hills. He could not have witnessed the killings.

January 18, 1994

Jury selection begins for Jessie’s trial.

January 26, 1994

John Mark Byers is interviewed about a knife that has blood from Christopher and himself on it.

February 5, 1994

Jessie Misskelley is convicted of one count of first-degree murder and two counts of second-degree murder. He is sentenced to forty years and sent to a facility in Pine Bluff, Arkansas.

February 17, 1994

Jessie is pressured to testify in Damien and Jason’s trial. He makes a statement under oath accusing them.

February 18, 1994

Jessie withdraws and decides he will not testify.

February 19, 1994

Jury selection begins for Damien and Jason’s trial.

You can get the trial transcripts here: West Memphis Three Trials: The Transcripts

February 28, 1994

Opening arguments begin.

March 17, 1994

Jury deliberations begin.

March 18, 1994

The jury finds both guilty on three counts of capital murder.

March 21, 1994

Sentencing. Jason receives life in prison. Damien is sentenced to death, scheduled for May 5, 1994. Jason is sent to Pine Bluff. Damien is sent to death row in Arkansas.

May 1994

All three file appeals.

February 19, 1996

The Arkansas Supreme Court upholds Jessie’s conviction.

1996

The HBO documentary Paradise Lost: The Child Murders at Robin Hood Hills premieres. The website wm3.org launches. A movement to free Damien, Jason, and Jessie begins.

December 23, 1996

The Arkansas Supreme Court upholds Damien and Jason’s convictions.

June 17, 1999

Judge Burnett denies Damien’s petition for a new trial.

December 1999

Damien marries Lorri Davis in a Buddhist ceremony in prison.

March 2000

Paradise Lost 2: Revelations premieres. The film raises questions about whether John Mark Byers could be the killer.

February 2001

Damien’s attorney files a petition for a writ of error coram nobis with the Arkansas Supreme Court, arguing Damien should not have been tried in 1994 due to his mental state.

April 2001

The Arkansas Supreme Court rules in Damien’s favor and sends the petition back to Judge Burnett for consideration.

2002

Devil’s Knot: The True Story of the West Memphis Three by Mara Leveritt is published.

October 2003

Vicki Hutchinson recants in an Arkansas Times interview. She says she lied. She says police told her she could lose her son if she did not give them satanic stories about Damien, Jason, and Jessie.

2007

DNA evidence is tested. No DNA from Damien, Jason, or Jessie is found on items from the crime scene. A hair found in a shoelace knot is consistent with Terry Hobbs.

July 2008

Evidence shows the jury foreman in Damien and Jason’s trial discussed the case with an attorney before deliberations and pushed for conviction.

September 10, 2008

Judge Burnett denies a new trial, saying the DNA evidence is inconclusive.

November 4, 2010

Based on the DNA record, the Arkansas Supreme Court orders the lower court to grant a new trial or exonerate the defendants.

August 19, 2011

Damien, Jason, and Jessie are released from prison under an Alford Plea. They maintain innocence while acknowledging the state had enough evidence to take the case to a jury.

2012

The documentary West of Memphis premieres.

In the years since their release, the case has stayed alive through a steady stream of appeals, legal motions, and Freedom of Information requests aimed at overturning their convictions outright. Damien Echols has been the most public, writing books about his time on death row, touring for speaking engagements, and continuing to push for new DNA testing on remaining evidence. Jason Baldwin co-founded an organization dedicated to wrongful conviction cases and has kept a lower profile, focusing on advocacy work. Jessie Misskelley has largely withdrawn from public view, occasionally giving interviews but living quietly in Arkansas. Despite continued legal efforts, no court has vacated their convictions, and the Alford Plea remains in place. For supporters, the fight has shifted from freeing them to clearing their names entirely.

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Ready for a deep dive into one of the most infamous and heartbreaking cases of wrongful accusation? This episode unpacks the story of the West Memphis Three—teenagers from West Memphis, Arkansas, who were wrongfully accused of killing three boys in a so-called ritualistic murder.

For full show notes and links go to: The West Memphis Three – Unraveling a Miscarriage of Justice

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I Got Art Class. They Got Prison. Why This Case Haunts Me.

This part of the blog post is based off of the podcast above.

I live in Arkansas but I’m from Southern California.. I’m gonna give a little bit of background about me and why this case is very personal. Then I’m going to get the psychic and paranormal. Cuz that’s what I do…

Putting together the podcast and writing about this had been hard for me. I have researched this case so much. Not just for my podcast but also for my book: Eerie Arkansas.

When I did the podcast, I sat on the information for two months because I’m like, how do I incorporate the psychic part of me into this without fucking up this case? I think this case is really important to talk about and from a completely different angle and not just about who did it.

I am the same age as Damien Echols. I think we’re a few months apart. I’m born in February of 1974, and he was born in December of 1974. We come from the same GenX mold and the same kind of shitty background. This is something that chills me to this day. We were not the same but we were similar enough for it to wonder what my life would have been like if I weren’t somewhat protected by own misguided choices.

The murders happened in May 1993. I had just graduated high school in June of 1992. I’d had a really hard time with high school. I don’t understand why people say that high school is, ” the best years of your life.” Fuck right off with that. High school was a major fucking problem for me.

I was super highly creative, but I was also a goth kid slash punk kid. I dyed my hair a lot of different colors. I was definitely an outsider.

I went to a remedial school for a really long time because I didn’t do well in regular high school. This was my choice. I was called into the principal’s office one time for my big mouth and choice in black clothing. I told him that I wanted out of his stupid school and to send me somewhere else. He put me in the remedial high school as punishment.

But I felt really comfortable there because I was with all these people that just didn’t quite fit in. And I’m like, finally, I fit in somewhere.

I had a history teacher who was allegedly wealthy, and he lived up on a hill. He had a disease where he couldn’t be out in sunlight very long. We called him our vampire teacher, and he was so cool. He had relics from his travels in glass cases. Not fake stuff. Real things he had procured himself. The windows in his 1980s trailer classroom were adorned with fake stained glass to keep the light out. It helped fuel the vampire narrative to the point that a lot of kids thought he was immortal.

Every week on a certain day—I forget what it was, it was a Thursday or Friday, I can’t remember—but he would let one person from the class bring in music that they liked. And then everybody would listen to that music that day. Me and my friends would make mix tapes of all punk and goth music and annoy everyone in the classroom with it.

The same teacher asked us one year what we wanted to do as an additional project. We all decided that we wanted to do a haunted house for Halloween. He let us make a haunted house in the showers of the gymnasium. He let us pick out themes and concepts for each room. We had a costume contest. My friend and I won first place for our costumes that year. We dressed up as vampires in renaissance costumes.

I had an art class with a really chill teacher. I found a six-foot-long old mirror and I wanted to make a giant Ouija board from it.

My art teacher asked, “Have you ever etched?”

And I’m like, “No, I don’t know how to etch.”

She was like, “You’re gonna learn how to etch. I’ll buy the etching stuff and I’ll bring it here, but you have to follow the directions and figure out how to do it.”

I’m like, “No problem.”

She’s said, “And you have to learn how to stencil in order to do this.”

I’m like, “Okay.”

I took it as a fun challenge and worked on it for weeks. I had to hand-do all of the letters and the numbers and made a stencil for this giant six-foot Ouija board. I had to learn how to etch. But I was happy because I was being creative and fueling my passion for the paranormal.

The OUIJA board DID work btw.

I took it to one of my friend’s houses and we put it on her coffee table. There were four or five us that used the board almost every day after school. We used a whisky glass as a planchette. It worked a little bit too well and I think one of the members got rid of it. I’m not sure though. I put it out of my mind.

But my point is this: If I had not had that kind of acceptance where I was allowed to be me and do my crazy ass projects, I probably would’ve gone the way of Damien Echols and Jason Baldwin. I probably would’ve been in and out of jail. I probably would’ve been vandalizing and stealing things.

I was doing a lot of drinking that I probably shouldn’t have been doing. My parents weren’t around. I started going to clubs at 14 and I had a fake ID. There was a lot of Boone’s Farm and hiding out in the woods behind my house. Drinking too much and not caring about the consequences.

I had a lot of traumas, and I numbed myself as much as I could. I came from a bad home situation. It could have been a whole lot worse if I had been in a place like West Memphis, where they did not cater to my out-of-the-box thought process and my strangeness.

The Kids They Were, The Kid I Was

Jason Baldwin and Damien Echols were best friends. Seventeen and eighteen. Always together. Trading books, music, and inside jokes about how much Arkansas sucked when you were a weird kid in a small town. They were into Stephen King. Into Metallica. Into anything that felt like an escape hatch from where they were born.

They weren’t angels. They did small-town stupid stuff—shoplifting, vandalism, skipping school. The kind of crap you do when you’re restless and broke. Damien had already dropped out. Jason was still in school but spent most of his time at Damien’s trailer or dragging Damien back to his house. Jesse Misskelley was more of an acquaintance. A kid they knew from the neighborhood, the way you know someone you pass in the hall. “Hey, what’s up?” and then you keep moving. He wasn’t in their inner circle.

Damien called himself Wiccan. He read Aleister Crowley. He studied witchcraft the way teenagers’ study anything forbidden, obsessively, theatrically, not always responsibly. He thought it was cool. He was curious. He was experimenting.

What sticks out to me, looking back, is that all three of them were poor. Their parents were absent, working long hours or drowning in their own problems. They didn’t have the scaffolding that keeps kids grounded. And when you grow up without support, you make your own culture, sometimes with books and music, sometimes with trouble.

Damien was smart. Brilliant, really. But he was depressed. Diagnosed with mood swings, hallucinations, grandiosity. He even spent time in a mental institution. To me, that grandiosity reads like a shield. When you’ve got nothing, you inflate yourself to survive. Later in life, after prison, Damien became articulate, cultured, and unshakably grounded. But in 1993, he was just a poor goth kid in a trailer park with a pregnant girlfriend and no safety net. That’s what made him dangerous not to society, but to the cops. He fit the story they wanted to tell.

And this is where I can’t separate them from me.

I wasn’t into Metallica. And I never called myself a witch. But my best friend did. She was Wiccan, or at least said she was, and she was the one who helped me use the six-foot Ouija board I built in art class. Spirit communication fascinated me. I didn’t think of it as “the occult arts,” but that’s exactly what it was. I wanted to talk to the other side. I wanted proof there was more.

What I did do was wear black. Every day. And that was enough.

At my first high school, the clothes were basically an arrest warrant. I wore a dog collar once and got hauled to the principal’s office like I’d brought a gun. I was called gross. A whore. Too weird to exist. At a party, a football player spit in my face because he said I didn’t belong there. Weeks later, he asked me out. That was the pattern. Public humiliation, private desire. The jocks and the popular guys mocked me where everyone could see it. Then turned around and tried to date me or sleep with me when no one was looking.

It was relentless. And it could’ve crushed me if I hadn’t found my way into that remedial school. That place saved me. It gave me art, freedom, and weirdos who understood. It gave me permission to be who I was without spitting in my face for it. Without that, I could’ve been Damien. Or Jason. Or Jesse.

The difference between me and them wasn’t character. It was geography. And a hail mary.

A Paranormal Investigation of West Memphis

Field Notes: The Trip, The Energy, The Readings

This is a truncated transcript from my podcast. You can listen to the full episode here.

It started as a simple drive to Kentucky and turned into a full-on paranormal GPS snafu. What should’ve been a straight shot became endless loops around West Memphis, the car stalling, directions flipping, something unseen tugging us back.

Interview with Stephanie [Transcript]

We’re gonna talk about what happened to us during our trip to Kentucky. We’re going to Kentucky or Tennessee. I don’t even know anymore. We stayed on the Kentucky side, but a lot of what we did was in Tennessee.

So what happened?

Stephanie: We were on our way to Tennessee, Kentucky, and we had met up in Little Rock at a friend’s house, and I got in with you and your son, and when you’re driving from Little Rock to Tennessee or like Kentucky, where we were going, you take I 40. Then you turn north at Beth Memphis. So, you never go into Tennessee.

You actually go up through Missouri and into Kentucky, and once we got to that loop that takes you north, got stuck and couldn’t get out of that area that you missed it How many times? Three or four times I think we went and we had to turn around and go back. And then you missed it again. Then we had to turn around.

Heather: Yes, like GPS was not being my friend either. It kept taking me around in a circle and it was a very weird circle just up and over bridges.

Stephanie: And we finally got north, but we were on an access road or something and we were trying to get back on the interstate and your car died like on the highway. I forgot about that.

Heather: At that point it was like, what the hell is going on? Why can’t we get out of this area? Why can’t we leave? It was very weird. And the GPS was being weird and I was missing things or the GPS was saying the wrong thing or it was turning off, or one time I just missed the turn. But it was because it was being so confusing.

It was saying, go left, and then it was saying, go right, and I was like, which way am I going? I don’t know. I was so confused. But it turns out we were within a mile of the murder site the whole time. I think you were talking about something was trying to get your attention at that point too. Yes. I remember when I do psychic stuff, I don’t really go into a trance, but it’s like that.

I get pulled, I don’t know how to explain it, but I was getting pulled and I was like, what the hell is going on right now? It was trying to make itself known.

We were within a mile. We were like just circling it. Like the kill site was even the middle of the, where the I 40 was. So, we were literally going around it in a circle.

Stephanie: the whole area is really weird ’cause I’ve been through there three times in the last few years and every time I go through there, there’s something weird that happens or like my stomach gets all messed up. Temperament of people in the car changes. There’s something really strange about that area.

I don’t know if it’s the energy from that or if it’s something else

Heather: Didn’t you say you stayed at the Holiday Inn Express right in West Memphis.

Stephanie: We’ve stayed at the hotel because that’s where my husband gets points for work and I just remember that one being weird.

It was like a new construction, but it was already a rundown and there was like cigarette stains in the elevators. I remember thinking, this is so weird. Why is this so bad? Why is this so run down? When they’re advertising that it’s a new hotel, it’s just like a weird feeling with everything around there

I don’t know if they were oil field workers or some sort of, a bunch of guys that did manual labor kind of population of the hotel. There was a lot of work trucks and things like that, so it wasn’t like a family friendly, just happy go lucky kind of hotel.

Heather: The hotel we stayed at was part of the Wyndham ’cause I. do the same thing for the points. Like they’re usually pretty clean and nice. It was just like, whoa, where the hell are we? It felt very rundown. The same thing you were saying, we were in no smoking room and there were like holes in the bed and stuff and then they were renovating, which is weird too. On the days that were there, the taking mirrors and stuff out of the room.

Stephanie: On the days that were there, the taking mirrors and stuff out of the room. The minute that I got there I was like, Ugh. Like my stomach dropped and I just couldn’t get outta that mood and I was really grumpy for the rest of the trip. To be honest, the next day we were being nitpicky with each other, like I was feeling very insecure and I hated everything and everybody, I think that’s how my husband was when we stayed there.

’cause the night before we had gone over the river into Memphis and had dinner. My high schooler at the time was throwing a fit, whining about wanting to get home because he was tired of being with the family and he needed a break. And my husband just got pissed off and he was pissed off the entire time and the next morning we got to a huge fight about something.

I don’t even know what it was about, but he was so pissed that he didn’t even stop through Arkansas. We were going to stop and like dig for crystals or to find like a diamond fleece or something to dig and he just kept going straight through. We were driving back from Florida, so we had gone from like Florida to Georgia to Nashville, like this huge trip.

No problems until we got to West Memphis. There’s something weird about the energy there.

On-Site Psychic Impressions

I went to the murder site with my recorder on and let the energy speak. What follows is not a recap. It’s the word-for-word transcript of my psychic impressions in real time, exactly as I said them at the scene.

“Since I’ve come into the town and I’ve been feeling a little off and a little weird. Really weird energy here. I’ve been avoiding going to the site even though that’s why we came here. I’m usually just the opposite of this. Usually, I look forward to go to these kinds of sites. This one is really bothering me though, and I don’t know why.

I just wanna say, this is a, allegedly. This is what I got. This doesn’t mean that it’s gospel. It doesn’t mean that I’m telling the truth. It doesn’t mean anything really. Check out the case. Make sure you do all of your research.

Don’t take this as what happened. This is my psychic impression of it based on me standing there where it happened. Something about somebody’s left knee. Somebody who was bringing the kids here had something wrong with their left knee. They had some kind of issue with the left side of their body, like they had some kind of injury.

They were walking the kids and there was something about some kind of pain. The person that did it either was in sports or they had some kind of injury. Injury, like football injury or something where they were there tackled or they were thrown down on the ground and they had some kind of surgery or they had something having to do with their left knee.

There was two people that brought the kids. It wasn’t just one person, it was two people. The kids were alive when they got here because I see them being walked here either by gunpoint or something because Lacerations. Knife. Knife point, maybe. Knife point. I think they were. Walked from over there because I see three kids and two people, so there’s five people total.

It’s dark though. It’s like almost dark or it’s like dark of night. The other thing that I’m seeing is that they were spanked or they were like beaten. It started out as a punishment. We have a punishment that goes bad where the one kid gets punished and then the other kids, because they’re already trained for this kind of stuff, stand back and all three of them are really afraid of whoever this person is.

There is one person that did the beating and the other person, I don’t know why they’re there, but they are and they’re just going along with it because that’s what they do. We have one major angry person. He has something having to do with the military. He’s got some kind of military background because he goes into this rage and he can’t get out of it and it has something to do with some kind of trauma or some kind of background with with the military, he feels very out of control.

So there’s this like very angry person and then there’s a second person. I wanna say he’s Mexican or he has darker skin, or he has dark black hair. I

I don’t think he intended on killing the kids though. That’s what I’m getting confused about. There was intent because they were left tied up. Why would you walk three kids this way to the river, to this creek? Because it’s secluded. I don’t think the intent was to kill though. What I’m seeing is they were beaten somewhere else at somebody else’s house.

They go from somebody else’s house to here and he walks the kids here and that secondary person is just following along and drinking and he’s high as fuck and he’s sure, whatever you wanna do, dude, let’s do it. These fucking kids are in my way kind of thing. But he doesn’t really care. The kids are freaked out because they’ve already been beaten.

Three of ’em got beat for it and he takes them into this area. This was all wooded area, by the way. It’s not wooded anymore. The I 40 was already here. But it probably wasn’t developed as much as it was or wasn’t. The kids are freaked out. They don’t know what they’re gonna do. He’s done this before with them.

This is not the first time. This is not the first time he’s taken them here before. Same kids. This time it just went bad. This is a father figure. These are older gentlemen, I’m gonna say they’re in their twenties, late twenties, early thirties.

One of them again, football or an injury, like a high school injury or something to the left knee. ’cause as soon as I said that my knee stopped hurting. Then the other one, military, something about a butcher or some one of them. Worked. I keep seeing a butcher like a pig, or somebody who worked with knives knew how to filet.

Maybe it’s just that they went fishing a lot or something. I don’t know. There’s something about being able to filet things. It was like a hunting knife is what I’m seeing.

All I see is one of the kids getting stabbed or fighting. There’s like something about being. Stabbed or fighting back then they’re being held down. I think they were beaten until they were, they passed out and then left and then they were thrown into the river and just left.

I know that two of the kids drowned. I know that for sure. The other kids died from fighting back though from, and that was stab. One of them was stabbed. I feel a stabbing blood, like a loss of consciousness and hitting the ground. The hog tying came because it was an old thing that this person had done before to animals or so there’s gotta be hunting or something like that to leave one of the legs left out.

That’s, there’s something about hunting because it was all on instinct. After that. We have to get rid of the bodies. We have to do it. I don’t know why he took off the clothes of the kids again, the river. It’s a secluded, okay, 93. This is a secluded area. There’s not many people coming out here. This river, it had just rained upstream somewhere of this creek.

The water’s gonna rise and wash everything down the river down into the Mississippi and then out somewhere else. That’s what they were hoping. There’s one kid that gets killed. So now the other two have to go because they’re witnesses. We go into full, uh, autopilot. This is what we do with animals. This is what we’re gonna do with kids because he doesn’t see the kids as human.

He sees them as the words that are coming up, sorry, is pieces of shit. They’re just stupid pieces of shit. And we’re glad to get rid of them because they just fucking bother me all the time. They’re always in my fucking space. They never listen. They deserve this because the stupid fucking little kids are always getting in trouble.

The beating at the house wasn’t enough and they’re not learning their lesson. So this is what has to be done. There’s this sense of just pure calculation that I’m getting.

I don’t see it being a mom issue. I do see the moms knowing that there’s abuse happening and turning a blind eye, not wanting to deal with it.

Whoever did this has a record. Whoever did this has abuse in their past. Whoever did this is abusing other people around them. This is not the first time, and I bet you anything, I a hundred percent bet you he’s killed before it was too easy. Maybe he’s just killed animals, but he’s killed. He’s killed and it’s easy for him.

He doesn’t even think about it. It’s almost like he goes into a rage and it just happens afterwards. He, he shouldn’t have made me go there. Look what you made me do. Total victim. What you mean? I keep coming this way and I could see them walking. I can see them walking. I can see them taking the kids. The kids are afraid.

The kids are trying to talk to each other. They know they’re gonna get in trouble. They’ve done this before. There’s some kind of sexual thing to this. It’s not because he’s into boys and it’s not because sexual gratification, it’s a power thing. He’s very rough in bed. He’s very much about power in bed.

So either he has rape fantasies or he is into like strangling or he’s into auto asphyxiation, or he’s into smacking people around. Or he could be into anal, but like without lube, like dominance control kind of situation. But to that point where it’s not fun anymore, like where he likes to hit doing sex, the energy is still here.

Closing Thoughts

I mention the Estes Sessions. They are in the podcast episode above if you want to hear them.

After everything I have read, heard, and felt, here is where I land.

This part of the story is my opinion. It is not proof. It is not a verdict. When I put all the pieces together, the names from the Estes session, the psychic hits at the site, and the repeated mentions of hair all point in one direction.

Terry Hobbs.

During my other psychic impressions I kept saying “hair.” In the Estes Sessions, I said the names Michael, Mark, John, and Mark Byers. Later I learned that a hair linked to Terry Hobbs was found in the evidence. Jackie, a name that surfaced in the Estes session, turned out to be his father. Hobbs had a military background and worked as a butcher. He fits the details I saw: the rage, the precision, the familiarity with knives, the energy of someone who has killed before. When I let the visions play out, it felt like I was seeing through his eyes.

I believe his wife knew and looked away. I believe Mark Byers suspected. I believe the police had a sense and chose not to act. In my view, the town found it easier to blame three kids in black shirts than to face a predator in their own neighborhood.

This is only my take. I cannot prove it. Maybe you will read the same articles, listen to the same tapes, and see someone else. But after months of research and that night standing in the dark where the boys died, I am ninety percent sure he was involved.

The West Memphis authorities have resisted new DNA testing. Evidence sits unexamined while the official story stays convenient. From the beginning it was simpler to call it Satanic Panic than to admit that the real killer lived down the street.

That is the part of this case that will not let go. People can be cruel. Systems can choose the easy lie. And justice can stall for decades while everyone pretends it is over.

That is where I will leave it. My experience. My vision. My opinion. Take it, question it, follow your own instincts.

Want more true crime, paranormal investigations, and deep dives into unsolved mysteries? Explore my Blog or listen to the NVus Alien Podcast for more strange cases and firsthand investigations.