New Development in WM3 case — Terry Hobbs saw them last

The defense team for Damien Echols issued a press release today claiming  there are new eyewitnesses.

ArkansasMatters.com reports the West Memphis 3 story here.

An excerpt of the release is as follows:

Three eyewitnesses have come forward and provided sworn statements that they saw Steven Branch, Christopher Byers and Michael Moore with Terry Hobbs, the stepfather of Steven Branch, at 6:30 p.m. on Wednesday, May 5, 1993, immediately before the time the boys disappeared. Hobbs was calling loudly at the children and ordering them to return to his house. The new evidence establishes that the last person who had custody of the three boys before they vanished and died was Terry Hobbs. Jamie Clark Ballard, who lived only three doors down from Terry and Pam Hobbs, has supplied a sworn affidavit, as have both her mother and her sister.

I am in the New York Times today

I was interviewed last week by the New York Times regarding the community feelings towards the West Memphis Three (WM3) trials.

The portion of my interview that made it to the press is as follows.

To Shaun Hair, 30, who left West Memphis for college after the killings, it was a jolt to hear friends and neighbors begin questioning the verdict. “I was like, ‘That’s stupid, quit buying the hype,’ ” he said.

But when Mr. Hair, who returned to the area in 1999 and now works as a criminal defense lawyer, re-examined the case, he found it troubling. “If I were the defense attorney,” he said, “I would want a retrial.”

The point of the interview was to gather information about the feelings of the community these many years later.  Read the whole story here.

My point was basically that we in Crittenden County do not have any stronger feelings about the case than people in Nashville or Seattle.  We see it on the news and that’s the end of it.  Some people feel strongly. Some do not.  Regardless of what we believe about the case, I do not believe we identify to the case because of our community roots.