The Hobbs Family Secret

[Ausgirl]

I think I can come up with a few reasons to find it dubious.

- It's all hearsay and rumour. If hearsay and third-hand anecdote holds no value in the court of supporter opinion in the WM3's case, it must also be problematic in the case of Hobbs or it's just hypocrisy. You don't get to have your cake and eat it too.

- Hobbs seems like a real *advertiser censored*, and I can see how some people might feel motivated to see him put away.

- Why didn't these people come forward immediately? It wasn't about a drug deal or burglary - this was triple child homicide. I'd be calling the police before they could finish the sentence. Who sits on info like that?

Reasons I find for believing the statements:

- Hobbs is a violent SOB, a drug taking liar, killer, child abuser and wifebeater and even if Pam hasn't the wit to leave him alone for good, he is a realllly good suspect. One certainly worth hardcore investigation back then, and failing that, right now.

- Who washes the curtains, when a child is missing?


- Oh, and the hair. Secondhand transfer -- bit of a stretch, IMO.

 

[Compassionate Reader]

I don't believe that the friends of Michael Hobbs, Jr. heard "The Hobbs Family Secret" until shortly before they did come forward. Yes, it's hearsay and, in some ways, very similar to the "softball girls." IMO, the big difference is that these new witnesses are adults, not 'tweens, and one of them claimed to have actually heard Hobbs "confess" to his brother. I'm inclined to believe that this "confession" occurred some time after the 2007 mtDNA revelations, but I don't know for sure. It's just a thought. Regardless, even if these statements, taken under oath, are fabrications, it doesn't really lessen the real possibility that TH is the killer and certainly doesn't change the fact that he was never properly investigated!

 

[reedus23]

I think I can come up with a few reasons to find it dubious.

- It's all hearsay and rumour. If hearsay and third-hand anecdote holds no value in the court of supporter opinion in the WM3's case, it must also be problematic in the case of Hobbs or it's just hypocrisy. You don't get to have your cake and eat it too.

- Hobbs seems like a real *advertiser censored*, and I can see how some people might feel motivated to see him put away.

- Why didn't these people come forward immediately? It wasn't about a drug deal or burglary - this was triple child homicide. I'd be calling the police before they could finish the sentence. Who sits on info like that?

Reasons I find for believing the statements:

- Hobbs is a violent SOB, a drug taking liar, killer, child abuser and wifebeater and even if Pam hasn't the wit to leave him alone for good, he is a realllly good suspect. One certainly worth hardcore investigation back then, and failing that, right now.

- Who washes the curtains, when a child is missing?


- Oh, and the hair. Secondhand transfer -- bit of a stretch, IMO.

It may very well be dubious, but I'm not talking about whether or not these statements are sufficient or even could be used to support a conviction. I'm not saying whether or not the statements are even truthful. Rather, are they sufficient to justify an investigation. So I see no hypocrisy in it. Could the rumor mill/hearsay statements justify an investigation into the WM3 or Echols? Sure. But the hypocrisy comes into play in refusing to investigate TH based on similar types of statements.

 

[madamehdivision]

Wow, so I'll be frank with y'all.

I suffer from mental illness. I was even hospitalised earlier this year for four weeks. I'm still receiving constant supervision.

BUT HERE'S THE WIERD PART

I'm not a violent person and am not pre disposed to violence. Quite the opposite actually.

Just because someone is mentally ill, it doesn't automatically qualify them as a potential murderer. Yes, I am aware of DEs medical history. But I fail to see how this history means he must've done it.

 

[kyleb]

It doesn't, and nobody here is suggesting it does.

 

[Ausgirl]

Well, to be accurate - a few people HAVE suggested it.

I am pretty confident that nobody presently posting would be so thick as to point to the file and say 'look, he was mental, so he's obviously guilty'. but I may be wrong...

I think what people DO consider is that -within- those medical files lies reports of Echols' prior violent behaviours, particularly against other kids, and IMO that's not an irrational thing to do.

 

[Ina Cognito]

Ina Cognito, didn't you read my post?

You really should if you are wanting to have that answer questioned.

I'm simply amazed that there are supporters who still ask about his diagnosis when it's readily available for them to go check out. It's pretty shocking.

You'll also find that within those documents where the satanic ideas came from.

I think some people have a problem reading a simple question, and giving a simple answer. I asked

I was specifically asking you what you think/understand/feel Damian was diagnosed with as a mental illness. ??

Now, as far as I know that question cannot be answered in Damian's mental health history files unless yourself and others were interviewed and your opinions were entered into the file itself? Why don't you answer it for me from your point of view as I do not recall specifically asking you that question. Oh, lol, I know exactly where the satanic ideas came from and it wasn't Damian.

 

[Ina Cognito]

I think I can come up with a few reasons to find it dubious.

- It's all hearsay and rumour. If hearsay and third-hand anecdote holds no value in the court of supporter opinion in the WM3's case, it must also be problematic in the case of Hobbs or it's just hypocrisy. You don't get to have your cake and eat it too.

This isn't a courtroom and most investigators are not simply looking for clues or leads that can only be used in a courtroom. Often a small, insignificant comment or rumor can lead to a break in a case. I like to hear viable comments and rumors so that I may consider them myself and whether they are worthy of investigation or to be disregarded. Contrary to some opinion I don't care who they refer to.

 

[Ina Cognito]

Wow, so I'll be frank with y'all.

I suffer from mental illness. I was even hospitalised earlier this year for four weeks. I'm still receiving constant supervision.

BUT HERE'S THE WIERD PART

I'm not a violent person and am not pre disposed to violence. Quite the opposite actually.

Just because someone is mentally ill, it doesn't automatically qualify them as a potential murderer. Yes, I am aware of DEs medical history. But I fail to see how this history means he must've done it.

Thank you for your honestly in sharing that :seeya:, you are also exactly correct.

I can't even get anyone to answer what their personal impression of Damian's "illness" is yet they want to point at is as evidence of something....

 

[Ausgirl]

This isn't a courtroom and most investigators are not simply looking for clues or leads that can only be used in a courtroom. Often a small, insignificant comment or rumor can lead to a break in a case. I like to hear viable comments and rumors so that I may consider them myself and whether they are worthy of investigation or to be disregarded. Contrary to some opinion I don't care who they refer to.

I do agree with you there.

But what I was actually saying is that I often see the reports of (let's just say, for example ) Damien's violence toward animals pooh-pooh'ed as nothing but hearsay, along with a lot of other "John told Jill that Fred told HIM..." sort of comments. And fair enough.

So it makes no sense to me that "George said that Jill told him.." comments are suddenly more valid, when pondering Hobbs.

My point was, cherry picking doesn't help anything. No matter what 'side' you're on.

Of course that doesn't mean (and I was not saying, at all) those points can't be discussed.

 

[kyleb]

But what I was actually saying is that I often see the reports of (let's just say, for example ) Damien's violence toward animals pooh-pooh'ed as nothing but hearsay, along with a lot of other "John told Jill that Fred told HIM..." sort of comments. And fair enough.

That's not fair though, as for example Joe Bartoush's signed statement that "I was at Lakeshore Trailer Park with Damien Echols when he killed a Black Great Dane" doesn't fit the definition of hearsay, just like Pam Hobbs deposition stating that "Terry was violent and he hit me twice" is not hearsay. Both are in fact witness statements, and there's nothing fair about pretending otherwise.

 

[Ausgirl]

Sure.

But that is NOT what I was saying.

Or doing, for that matter.

 

[LordYAM]

was the great dane statement used at trial? I always thought it sounded like a lie or half-truth that got you your 15 minutes

 

[Mrs G Norris]

Great Dane: http://callahan.8k.com/images2/joebar2.jpg

"On 10-27-92 I was at Lakeshore Trailer Park with Damien Echols when he killed a Black Great Dane. The dog was already sick and he hit the dog in the back of the head. He pulled the intestines out of the dog and started stomping the dog until blood came out of his mouth."

Great Dane via Heather Cliett: http://callahan.8k.com/wm3/img/heatherc1.html

“[Heather] States that one time at the skating rink Damien told her that he stuck a stick in a dogs eye and then jumped on it and then burned it.”

Frog: http://callahan.8k.com/wm3/img/clreport.html

“Damien likes to put sharpened sticks through frogs to see how long it takes them to die.”

Cat: http://wm3truth.com/damien-echols-profile/

Blood of Innocents (p 222) recounts a May 31, 1993, meeting between WMPD officer Bryn Ridge and two friends of Echols. (The BoI passage seems to be based on a police report of the meeting; the Callahan case archive doesn’t include such a document.)

[Garrett Schwarting] and [Murray] Farris told police they had talked with Echols in Farris’s home two weeks after the murders, where the strange teen told them some incredible stories.

Echols once placed gasoline on a cat, put a bottle rocket up its rear end, then lit it. He kept a collection of animal skulls and occult paraphernalia. He once placed a young boy in a noose until the boy turned blue and nearly passed out.

Cat skull: http://westmemphisthreediscussion.yuku.com/topic/2805

Chism said Echols often brought a cat skull to school, sitting sullenly in classes. Chism said Echols once flunked a business course the two students took together, compiling a ''zero average'' in his tests and graded papers. ''While everyone else was working, he was just playing with that skull,'' Chism said.

Clarification on skull via Damien's Mom: http://callahan.8k.com/wm3/pamh2.html

FOGLEMAN- ALRIGHT. DO YOU KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT DAMION HAVING CAT SKULLS AND CARRYING THEM AROUND?

PAM- IT WASN'T A CAT SKULL. IT WAS A DOG SKULL.

FOGLEMAN- ALRIGHT. WHERE WAS THAT?

PAM- IT WAS HANGING ON MY CLOTHES LINE IN THE BACK YARD WHERE I MADE HIM LEAVE IT OUT THERE TO DRY BEFORE HE CARRIES IT TO SCHOOL.

FOGLEMAN- OKAY. LEAVE IT OUT THERE TO DRY. WHAT HAD HE DONE TO IT?

PAM- HE FOUND IT ON THE SIDE OF THE ROAD.

FOGLEMAN- OKAY, BUT I MEAN, WHAT DID IT NEEDED DRY FROM?

PAM- IT JUST SMELLED BAD AND I MADE HIM HAND IT OUT THERE IN THE SUN.

FOGLEMAN- OKAY. AND YOU DON'T KNOW OF HIM CARRYING A CAT SKULL AT SCHOOL.

PAM- NO.

FOGLEMAN- OKAY. DO YOU KNOW OF HIM HAVING ANY OTHER SKULLS?

PAM- NO.

FOGLEMAN- OKAY. DO YOU KNOW WHY HE CARRIED A DOG SKULL TO SCHOOL?

PAM- UM, HE HAD TOLD ME THAT HE WAS GOING TO CARRY IT TO SCHOOL FOR, SOMETHING LIKE THEY HAD SHOW AND TELL. OR SOME TYPE OF SCIENCE PROJECT.

FOGLEMAN- OKAY.

 

[reedus23]

And if I tell you my brother used to be a woman, does that automatically make it true?

 

[Ausgirl]

Thank you very much much, Mrs. G - I truly wasn't asking anyone to do that for me, but I do appreciate that you went to the trouble.

Okay, I am on painkillers today and so all my posts will be emotive and rambly and personal, just fair warning, lol...

But I used to collect bones and skulls as a kid/teenager. They fascinated me, I don't know why. A lot of other things did, too, but that was one of the weirder things. I even had a human skull -- one of the medical ones that can be taken apart, nothing sinisterly obtained, though owning it wasn't strictly legal as I was not a med student and had no permit for it -- ANYways.. I never harmed an animal, I just found 'em and cleaned them up. Never on the clothesline, for goodness' sake. But I did this, too. And I am a nice person, really I am, LOL.

It's not the bones, therefore, that interest me as much as reports of --cruelty-- which might be an entirely separate issue (I could NEVER harm an animal like that, omg never..).

And I do see a couple of comments up there that concern me. The cat and rocket thing, I know that's a common thing for boys to do, or was in my home town, Even otherwise nice kids did this, I never understood it, and didn't think much of the ones who did it (I love cats) but they weren't little serial killers. Even poking a dead dog with a stick is a pretty ordinary thing for a kid to do, and I bet there's more than one kid in that town who has done such a thing.

What I'm looking at as an overall picture, though. I do think Echols was quite capable of acts of cruelty, but that's just a loose opinion -- I think all of these things reported cannot be taken as concrete factual proof of anything that isn't 'normal' for a lot of boys (and some girls), as revolting as most of it is.

eta (oops forgot to say): BUT I would NOT be surprised at all if Echols was indeed cruel to animals, given his behaviour toward other human beings.

 

[Ausgirl]

Oh yeah - and was gonna say -- if we're looking at prior acts as proof of propensity to cause harm to the victims...

Let's compare Damien fighting girly with his fingernails and maybe being cruel to frogs and cats, to Terry Hobbs guilty of shooting a man in the guts, breaking his wife's jaw, assaulting Mildred French in her shower and other acts of violence.. well, I would like to see a comparative list of violent acts, just to put Damien's in perspective with other suspects.

Not that I think Hobbs is guilty, just a good suspect among several. Who have charges like raping their stepkids for four years and 3rd degree battery DV...

And NO I am not asking anyone to make that list, I'm just too bombed to do it today and making a note to self, so don't anyone get nasty about that.