Viable Suspect: John Mark Byers

laurensmom

New Member
Joined
Mar 5, 2009
Messages
177
Reaction score
1
I was hoping we could discuss JMB for a bit....Larry you said in another post you had spoken to him so maybe you can offer some insight.

I've said a few times before that I am currently reading everything again. I was just about to jump the fence and run to the non side after reading more on Damien. Then I came across something else.

I remember thinking it was strange when Melissa Byers died without a known cause. Apparently I didn't read more about it or I have forgotten.

Did you know:

that Melissa had 13 bruises on her arms/shoulders found in the autopsy
(source Callahan)...she also had contusions on her skull.....

JMB had the following run-ins with le:
several bad checks
threatening to kill ex-wife
drugs
theft
it wasn't until he sold zanax to an undercover police officer did he finally do time....well.....15 months

police were called when he was still living at home with his parents because they were afraid of him-he also threatened the responding officer

according to the neighbor that he called to help with Melissa-he thought her death was due to a drug overdose but worried they would accuse him of smothering her

Melissa had discovered his affair with Mandy Beasley and asked for a divorce the same day she died.

JMB claimed they had intercourse then fell asleep - he woke up and she was not responsive---yet the autopsy states there was no sign of intercourse.

Melissa's own parents claimed JMB beat her.

In PL2 JMB stated (when asked about trouble with le) that he had gotten a dwi after his wife was murdered.

In the autopsy report there were needle marks covered with bandaids.

According to Beasley, after breaking up with JMB....she had been told by him that he had hypodermic needles in the drawer that he hoped the investigators would not find. She also passed away a few years later - I can't find the cause of death.

Now where does this fit in with Christopher.........JMB admittedly whipped him with a belt the day he went missing. Hard enough that the autopsy report showed the mark consistent with a belt buckle.

According to a friend of Ryan--JMB's other stepson---he once saw JMB badly beat Christopher...Ryan told him it happened all the time.

None of his stories coincide with any of the people he says he was with at certain times the night of May 5.

That's it for now........if I have something wrong just show me-just trying to figure this all out.
All sources came from Callahan and from the find the missing website. Also a few from jivepuppi.com another wm3 site.....I need to read it more to make sure it is not biased. Most of what I stated here I could fine the same thing on Callahan if I looked hard enough.
 
Larry you said in another post you had spoken to him so maybe you can offer some insight.
Be happy to.

As I said, I'm more than willing to have a civil, rational discussion with anyone here - as long as they remain honest.
I remember thinking it was strange when Melissa Byers died without a known cause.
Not me.

Upon reading her autopsy and the overwhelming health issues noted, I'm actually surprised she lived as long as she did given her lifestyle in the end.
Did you know:

that Melissa had 13 bruises on her arms/shoulders found in the autopsy
(source Callahan)...she also had contusions on her skull.....
Yes, I was aware of this.

I was also aware of the fact that both her and Mark were IV drug users. (Dilaudid being their drug of choice - which was also present in her system at autopsy.

JMB had the following run-ins with le:
several bad checks
threatening to kill ex-wife
drugs
theft
it wasn't until he sold zanax to an undercover police officer did he finally do time....well.....15 months

Actually, the list is longer than that, and he has done time more than once.

according to the neighbor that he called to help with Melissa-he thought her death was due to a drug overdose but worried they would accuse him of smothering her
Yes, he has told me this is what he thought.
Melissa had discovered his affair with Mandy Beasley and asked for a divorce the same day she died.
Melissa was aware of his infidelity long before her death.

In the state she was in during the final months of her life, I doubt she particularly cared.

JMB claimed they had intercourse then fell asleep - he woke up and she was not responsive---yet the autopsy states there was no sign of intercourse.
Since they had both shot up, you can pretty much write off the intercourse.
Melissa's own parents claimed JMB beat her.
Since he was arrested for using a cattle prod on his first wife, I can't imagine anyone questioning whether or not he abused his partners.

Look, there is no question that Mark Byers was a snake - he's a violent, alcoholic, drug addled, uneducated redneck racist.

During his last stint in prison, he became a quasi-member of the arian group GFBD to "keep *advertiser censored* off him" as he put it.

But there simply wasn't a window of opportunity for him to have committed this crime, and the evidence against him was just as fabricated as the current evidence against Hobbs.
 
Dilaudid---yes I read that and couldn't for the life of me remember the name of the drug...I even had to google it-never heard of it! I also read about the GFBD.

Great responses-thanks for the info........I'm gonna keep reading :)
 
Here's an interesting note in regards to Mark's history of spousal abuse.

At "criminal, profiler" John Douglass's request, Mark called Hobbs and secretely recorded it in an effort to assist Douglass with his "profile".

Mark went on and on about how Hobbs all but confessed in this secret recording.

Unfortunately for him, his current wife Jacki accidentally sent the recording to an admin on our board so we posted it, and the local media ran with it.

Needless to say, it didn't incriminate Hobbs at all - quite the opposite, it made Mark out to be the back-stabbing snake that he is.

You can download it here:

http://wm3hoax.downonthefarm.org/board/mp3/mark.mp3

Incredibly, Jackie was suddenely hospitalized days later for a mysterious illness.
 
Thanks Dirty Larry, I find your posts very insightful and interesting to read. So many supporters would prefer Mark to be the guilty party. He is a redneck, violent, attention seeking bully and as such, makes a great scapegoat. Unfortunately, he is clearly not guilty of this particular crime.
 
^ the fact that they've switched from JMB to Terry Hobbs (and even Mr Bojangles) weakens the argument somewhat also IMO.
 
Yes, Jackie is still with him.

She's a cheerleader for the "Hobbs did it" team.
 
Just listened to it, how strange, and he even asks Terry for advice about how to get himself out from under the shadow of suspicion ... right as he's scheming to have Terry take over the role.
 
JMB whatta guy!!! jmo

FACT: In October of 1994, John Mark Byers was charged with “contributing to the delinquency of a minor” in Hardy, Arkansas. The assailant was riding with John Mark Byers in his truck when they pulled up next to John Shaver, Jr., the assault victim. Byers acknowledged that he’d instructed his passenger to get a pocketknife out of his car and fight with it, holding it closed in his fist. The teenager reported that Byers had told him, “That’s the way to do it.” Byers reportedly told Hardy’s police chief, Ernie Rose, that as the fight ensued, Byers stood by his car with a .22 bolt-action rifle pointed at the ground in order to assure that the fight was “far” and warned the onlookers to “stay put.” The assailant beat the other teenager with a closed knife in his fist to the point where John Shaver needed to be hospitalized with a concussion. Source: Atria Books: Mara Leveritt, Devil’s Knot, p. 390, 2002.

more at link
http://www.midsouthjustice.com/informant.htm
 
Just listened to it, how strange, and he even asks Terry for advice about how to get himself out from under the shadow of suspicion ... right as he's scheming to have Terry take over the role.
And Terry offers his support.

Sickening, isn't it?
 
As I said before, I'm happy that a victim's "parent" is able to cash in on the controversy, and take a few coins from Lorri's pocketbook.

But It's sad that Mark had to stoop to the level of selling the memory of his dead stepson for a little liquor money.
 
It was mentioned that JMB is as viable a candidate for the murderer as TH. I agree that JMB acted strangely during and shortly after the trial. Much of that, according to him, was due to grief. I agree that he had a shady past. So does TH. Not only does TH have a shady past, he has some very strange recent actions. When he sued the Dixie Chicks, he was finally interviewed by the WMPD. The deposition is on callahan.

http://callahan.8k.com/hobbs_pasdar/hp_depositions.html

It's in two parts. The video (at least part of it) is on youtube, too.

http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=terry+hobbs+interview&aq=1

It's in several parts, too. What I find interesting is his body language throughout the interview and his reluctance to really answer questions. I hesitate to say this because I don't have links to verify it, but I know that I've seen somewhere depositions from Pam Hobbs and members of her family that document his abuse of Stevie and Amanda, his child with Pam. Also, he shot Pam's brother, Jackie Hicks, Jr. Some time later, Jackie died from complications of the gunshot. I'll research more and see if I can find the links. I've read so much over the years that I lose track of where I've seen things. I only bring this up to point out that Terry Hobbs also has a violent history. Before the murders of the little boys, a woman named Mildred French claimed (she actually made a deposition about this for the Pasdar case) that Terry broke into her house (he was her neighbor) and fondled her breasts when she was coming out of the shower. This was because she reported him to the police for beating his wife (the one before Pam) and child. I'll see if I can find the links on these depositions, but I have read them somewhere.
 
John is the odd ornament on the Christmas Tree but I personally do not think he killed Chris,Steve or Michael.
 
^ the fact that they've switched from JMB to Terry Hobbs (and even Mr Bojangles) weakens the argument somewhat also IMO.

Why does "following the evidence" weaken anyone's argument?

To some of us, at least, JMB seemed a possible suspect not because he acted oddly on camera, but because we were told the forensics showed that his son was the target of the most violent attack, so violent, in fact, that it seemed to reflect a very personal resentment.

Once so many experts on predation called that conclusion into question, and another parent's hair was found tied up on a child not his own, shouldn't we expect people to begin to wonder about that second parent?

That a position (that the WM3 are guilty, say) is defended most dogmatically tells us nothing about its veracity.

***

As for Bojangles, he will always haunt this case, even if the WM3 are someday released and another suspect convicted. Bojangles is the one person we know what bloodied on the night of a vicious crime, he was poorly investigated, and what little evidence was collected was lost.

(I'm not saying I think he did it, BTW, just that poor police work will always leave us with questions about him.)
 
Seeing as how Paradise Lost 2: Revelations spent the bulk of it's runtime casting suspension on John Mark Byers without ever even addressing the issue of where he said he was when the police originally investigated him, I can't help but suspect they knew they were pointing their fingers at an innocent man and simply avoided looking into anything which would prove as much. That said, I wondering if anyone here might have explanations other than deliberate misdirection to offer for consideration, either quotes from the makers of the film themselves or simply alternative speculation.
 
Seeing as how Paradise Lost 2: Revelations spent the bulk of it's runtime casting suspension on John Mark Byers without ever even addressing the issue of where he said he was when the police originally investigated him, I can't help but suspect they knew they were pointing their fingers at an innocent man and simply avoided looking into anything which would prove as much. That said, I wondering if anyone here might have explanations other than deliberate misdirection to offer for consideration, either quotes from the makers of the film themselves or simply alternative speculation.

I do not believe they spent the bulk of runtime footage casting suspicion on John Mark Byers. They are documentarians not investigators, meaning they go where the story leads them to merely observe. JMB led them there and they filmed it. With JMB's super sized personality, he played his way into suspicion while other possible suspects quietly waited in his enormous shadow. Documentaries, by and large are character studies in a specific situation or event. One should never confuse documentaries with investigative reporting. All three Paradise Lost films are focused on the characters in this particular tragedy, not investigative work.
 

Members online

Online statistics

Members online
197
Guests online
1,429
Total visitors
1,626

Forum statistics

Threads
589,952
Messages
17,928,094
Members
228,013
Latest member
RayaCo
Back
Top