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An addition to the website,
7/15/2015. I've done some further investigating into the "books" written by the cult expert, Dale W. Griffis. I present the research here. Other recent additions, July 2014. I decided to add a page regarding the remarkable story surrounding Kent Arnold, jury foreman. Three or Four Days. I've added a page regarding an oddness in the numbering and the signatures around the autopsy. May 5, 2013. Twenty years - a personal perspective. Poor Chris, Michael and Stevie. You deserved better, you deserved justice. I began to be seriously interested in this case twelve years ago. At that time, it had both immediacy and an air of impossibility. How could the police, in this day and age, pursue demons at the expense of an ordinary investigation? Why didn't they have extensive interviews with the parents of the victims? Even if they did not consider them as suspects they possessed invaluable information on suspects, lurking strangers and what they had seen during their search that night. Among the six parents and step-parents who lived with the victims only Mark Byers underwent a lengthy interview, this two weeks after the crime. Terry Hobbs stated both family and co-workers believed he was guilty from day one and continued to believe him guilty after the trial and convictions of the West Memphis Three. This family in-fighting led to him shooting his brother-in-law. And yet Hobbs was not interviewed at all in the months after the crimes. Remarkably, in spite of the intense scrutiny this case has received over the years, this open secret, these accusations, stayed within the family. In contrast, the police interviewed school children about rumors, traveling to Mississippi, Marked Tree, Arkansas and other locations to add their stories to a score of tales from local children. How could they have been so willfully incompetent? How could Detective Bryn Ridge have heard Jessie Misskelley's confession and described it as "so close to perfect that we have to believe it?" The confession was at best muddled, virtually free of information, or more specifically, information provided by Misskelley. In contrast, Detectives Ridge and Gitchell did describe injuries, weapons and the geographic location of the crime. The role of Dr. Dale Griffis, the so-called cult researcher sworn in as an expert witness first interested me in this case. Initially, he seemed to me to be a blowhard. Investigating him further, he proved to be a first class charlatan. His claims to expertise, his misinformation about cults, were comical. How could people not see through him the moment he opened his mouth? He represents the symbolic center of this case. The Satanic panic of the late 80s and early 90s was as ridiculous as the hundreds of other conspiracy theories which lurk at the corner of our lives. In this instance, however, conspiracy madness reached out to ruin the lives of three innocent teenagers. The prosecution and the judge played fast and loose with ethics in order to shove this case through. They had to rely on evidence not presented to the defense in advance and to the testimony of young children of partially overheard conversations. Those in authority never seemed to consider the alternative explanation for why the case was weak: the accused were innocent. Over twenty years have passed. With the additional passage of time, to me, this case seems to have become a distant history, relevant to another day, to be added to the stories of Salem and other hysterias. These feelings belie a reality, this case isn't irrelevant. The injustices presented here echo in other forms and, if we don't learn from the past, we repeat it. Another seminal case of the time, the Central Park "wilding" case has fallen apart. Although four individuals confessed, all have been set free. For those in New York, this case was second only to OJ Simpson in terms of local consciousness. And it was all a lie. This case consumed about ten years of my life. I have undertaken two personal trips from Puerto Rico to visit West Memphis to look for evidence. I have scrutinized the case in agonizing detail. I have compiled lists of addresses, reconstructing everyone in the neighborhoods determining where they moved afterwards and checked whether they appeared in National Sex Offenders lists. I humored myself, telling myself I had become someone like those who obsessed about Jack the Ripper. For years this case teased me with more and more information coming out. In the meantime interest in this case grew from a sizeable group of insiders sharing information into a national and international cause célèbre. The West Memphis Three were released from prison. Finally, they are allowed to pursue their lives. I've moved on. Over my years of involvement in this case, I became married and have had my first child, now five years old. In the past two years, I've set this case aside, not following developments, not updating these pages. I have focused the same amount of time on writing. I have sold one novel, A Predatory Mind, (see bottom of page for description) and am working on another. On these pages I present a large amount of research regarding this case. In terms of the information presented I am not responsible for most of the unique findings, just for their compilation and for the research which goes in to filling in the details. This was probably the first murder case that became crowd-sourced in its investigation. Thousands, perhaps tens of thousands of pages of source material are available online. In light of that, my contribution sometimes seems small. My heartfelt thanks to those who helped pore over these documents and all of those who have dedicated so much time to this case. I hope that, in spite of the increasing haze of the years, justice may yet be found. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- This website intends to be a thorough investigation of the matters surrounding the disappearance and murders of Steve Branch, Christopher Byers and Michael Moore. All told this site has approximately 160,000 words, equivalent to a 700+ page book. Many of the pertinent topics are covered here. Others are not. With few exceptions, this site does not endeavour to follow the latest developments and legal machinations of the case. This site does not primarily deal with the West Memphis Three. While this site does discuss the injustice committed against them, it is more directed to the crime against the murder victims. There are no photos of the dead children or their injuries on this site. It is best they are remembered as they were in life. Recently, two new documentaries regarding this case have been produced. Paradise Lost 3: Purgatory by Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky is the third in a series of documentaries that have, as a whole, advocated the innocence of those sent to prison. These documentaries are one of the primary reasons this case has maintained such a high level of national attention. West of Memphis, a documentary by Amy Berg, further investigates the dysfunctional justice surrounding this crime telling the full story of injustice. I was interviewed for this latter documentary.
INTRODUCTION This site is dedicated to the brief lives of Steve Branch, Christopher Byers and Michael Moore. These pages are dedicated to finding the truth about their deaths in West Memphis, Arkansas that took place on or about May 5th, 1993. The gruesomeness of the crime made it sensational nationwide news. With the subsequent arrests and trials and the allegations of occult sacrifice the notoriety increased. The media followed the story with countless reports and articles. The story became the fodder of Geraldo and Maury Povich. Three teenagers were charged with the crimes. Each pleaded innocent. After a pair of trials remarkable in their strangeness, each was convicted. But the story didn't end there. Through two books and two documentaries, websites, multiple episodes of TV true crime shows, and the interest of prominent and famous people the convicted have achieved a celebrity status as "The West Memphis Three." In this case there are unhealed wounds as deep as those made on the victims. For those who believe in the innocence of the convicted, there is the belief in an ongoing injustice and that the actual murderer has gone free. For those who believe in the guilt of the convicted, the unceasing publicity of the convicted steals the focus from the victims. This is especially true for the families of the victims who live with the constant memory of the pain of the tragedy. This log is dedicated to the community of all of those touched by this crime. |
Log of Pages Sources and Resources Principles of this website IndexMOST RECENT ADDITIONS.JULY 15, 2015. I look at Dale Griffis's Runes, Glyphs, and Alphabets.JULY 14, 2014. The discrepancies in the
autopsy report are examined.
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