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Well, I need to complete the trilogy, so I watched Paradise Lost 3 again. It is the finale to the West Memphis 3 documentary. This did not parallel The Devil's Knot book exactly, but it did bring up new points that the book did not.
While it took the guilty blame away from John Mark Byers, it instead placed it on Terry Hobbs, a stepfather of one of the slain boys. There are definitely some suspicious circumstances surrounding Terry, but I think he would have needed help and could not have done it alone. Therein lies the DNA evidence that was found at the scene - DNA from Terry and DNA from a friend of his, whom they do not talk about in this documentary. (Why not?)
This documentary shows footage from the deposition where Natalie Maines's (Dixie Chicks) lawyers question Terry Hobbs and Gary Gitchell under oath. This was very interesting. Terry is clearly lying his ass off and stating so many inconsistencies. I think he thought he could make a few bucks off of a celebrity, but it didn't work out that well for him. He came across as MORE worried about his name being defamed than the murder of his stepson!!! Hmmmm....now what does that say? I like that John Mark Byers forgave Damien, Jason, and Jessie and turned to their side to fight for their freedom. But I also like that he then railroaded Terry Hobbs - I especially loved his poster board display that he created about Terry's innocence vs. guilt.
I wish this had focused more on Terry and his story. Does anyone know if there are books or docs out there that have more info on him? I know he wrote a book, but I honestly don't want to read it because I'm sure it's full of inconsistencies like his deposition. Like this documentary doesn't really go into a lot of detail about the fact that Terry "disappeared" and left West Memphis for a couple of weeks right after the murder. It also doesn't talk about the pocket knife that his wife found in his belongings that their son ALWAYS carried with him. I got a weird feeling from Terry's brother, too, like he might know something and is covering up for him. I mean, why else would the brother so adamantly claim that Damien, Jason, and Jessie were the killers? He's trying to push the attention back to them and off his brother.
I liked the introduction of evidence, DNA, and experts in this. I especially love criminal profiling but wish the FBI criminal profiler would have been given more screen time to list out all the traits of the killer(s). Maybe I need to find a book on criminal profiling 101. Any suggestions?
So, if you're going to watch Part 1, make sure you watch Parts 2 and 3 to get the full picture and drop a comment below to let me know what your thoughts are on who did this!
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