Viable Suspect: Terry Hobbs - #2

Oliphant

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Hello everyone!

I have just begun reading threads on WM3 so I am far from as knowledgeable as others here.. Ask me anything about the McStay's and I could tell you minute detail.. But having taken a recent interest, I read something today that makes a lot of sense and I was wondering if Billy Wayne Stewart has been a topic of discussion, and his confession of knowledge of the murders from 2013 has been posted anywhere in the forums? It really does make the most sense to me, although I could be more well read upon forum opinions on the WM3..

Hoping that I can post this here - This is the Affidavit from Billy Wayne Stewart, Sr. in regard to the murders..

http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projec...am-hobbs-and-john-mark-byers-court-filing.pdf
(Source: http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/memphis3/WestMemphis3Account.html)

I am interested if there has been discussion on this at all in the boards, and if it is the first time it has been brought up or not? I realize it could have been discredited somewhere along the way.

MOO on the fact that as atrocious as it is, it makes sense and I don't know why this man would have any reason other than a conscience to bring it into record.

It also occurs to me that in one confession of the other younger boy (AH?) forgive me.., the most outlandish part (five men doing what men and ladies do in the forest) was the most truthful part and most likely discarded piece of information.

Thanks for your time! :seeya:
 
Billy Wayne Stewart was already in prison when he made this confession, having been convicted of (if I remember rightly) drug dealing (which he accuses LG of, conveniently). Can't remember if he was convicted of anything else, but I want to say he was.

Now, why would a guy, already in jail for a drug offense, accuse another guy of selling drugs...hmmm, let me think. :crazy:

Hardly the type of guy you want to trust.

Not to mention: just think about the story for a second. The 4 individuals, who had never met before in their entire lives, not only decide to engage in homosexual activity together (none having been proven to ever have such tendencies), but then to also all commit an atrocious murder together within an hour of meeting each other.

If TH and DJ would have killed TH's own son for simply seeing him smoke some grass, they would have killed LG and BL for also being witnesses to the boys' murders, even if they (LG and BL) had helped.
 
First off, I completely agree with it being incredibly strange that TH never even checked in with PH during the evening of the 5th. Although I don't know if Stevie ever paid his mum visits at work it wouldn't have been completely out of leftfield considering that Catfish Island was more or less in the same neighbourhood as where they lived. Some time during the evening you'd surely start considering every possible option as to where the boys could've gone.

Would it have made a difference though? Well, that depends on your stance in regards to possible perps. Say TH called PH at 7 and she immediately started searching the woods -- that would've screwed with the prosecutions theory of the WM3 committing the crime at that very time. They wouldn't have been able to frame the WM3. TH has made statements saying that people where out in the woods searching at around 7 o'clock on four wheelers and what not, but that was once the WM3 was convicted so it made no difference.
However, if you believe in TH as the perp/a possible perp the whole point is moot -- by 7 o'clock the crime would've already been committed.

The Billy Stewart affidavit, and the 4-perp theory, has been discussed to some length in several threads. Most, if not all, find the scenario less than likely.
 
I'm reading a little about the time of death. Something baffling to me is how mostly everyone has said that the TOD was somewhere between night thru to the wee hours of the morning. Was there an estimate by the coroner?

I don't see how the children could have been held captive for that long without one of them escaping or at least screaming their head off and having someone hear them. It makes a little more sense if you believe the woods was only a dumpsite, but I'm thinking the kids were probably killed during daylight hours. Hauling three bodies in darkness would require a flashlight, and that's way too conspicuous considering people were around the area for the search.

I'm just thinking out loud.
 
I'm reading a little about the time of death. Something baffling to me is how mostly everyone has said that the TOD was somewhere between night thru to the wee hours of the morning. Was there an estimate by the coroner?

I don't think the coroner gave an estimated time of death, as I can't find anything in the coroner's report about it. I think it is really hard to give an exact estimate of TOD, because the bodies were positioned in the water, and all kinds of factors play a role in how fast the decomposition goes (bodies in water decompose less quickly than bodies that are in open air, but it also depends on temperature). Personally, I think TOD was in the early evening hours (probably when it was still light) of May 5th and that the bodies were put in the water shortly afterwards.
 
First of all - Hello Lethalmatthew! So great to see your post!

When I was thinking about places the boys could have been attacked I hadn't realized that Hobbs house backed onto ten mile bayou. I understand there was a bit of a junkyard behind Hobbs' house. Another poster - I believe it was CherLockholmes who pointed out what was behind Hobbs' house. The boys could even have been playing in part of the junkyard behind T.H.'s house.

Anything could have happened behind T.H.'s house and there were areas to hide the bodies.

Peretti did give an estimate of t.o.d being between 1:00 and 5:00 a.m. during testimony. However the water from the ditch wasn't tested and Peretti does say this is an estimate. Because of the dual lividity it would seem that the Discovery ditch was not the murder site. So many indications show that the bodies and clothes were brought to the discovery site and left there.

The pattern on S.B.'s leg indicates that it had been pressing against something to make this pattern. Nothing at the discovery site was found that could have made this marked pattern. Before his body was moved, S.B.'s leg could have been pressed against something in a shed or machinery. Something had to have made that mark. I believe it has been posited that the pattern is similar marks that rebar would have made. In any event there was something that his leg pressed against for hours that made that patterned mark.


Everything else does add up to T.H. being a viable suspect - he demonstrated narcissistic rage behaviour, the violence he showed towards P.H. and what led to the death of her brother certainly indicates this. Assaulting and threatening his neighbor - breaking into her house and assaulting her when she came out of the shower - the rage he showed because she reported his domestic violence to the police. Even D.J. - his alibi denies some of the times that T.H. insisted he was with him. T.H. had the rage (motive) to violently attack someone because he considered an injustice against him (his stepson would not listen to him to come home) - and the opportunity because there were many periods of time that T.H. was unaccounted for.

He left the area for a few weeks which is suspicious as well. He did not work with the police by showing up for an interview which I find very odd. If a member of my family had been murdered I do believe I would be almost camping out at the police station - working with them - racking my brain for anything that could help solve the case. The police did not interrogate T.H. as they did with J.M.B. This is incomprehensible to me.

However what throws me off is the green-vegetable matter found in S.B. during the autopsy. If he had eaten green beans at his house then he would have had to be
deceased within so many hours of eating that. If that is so then T.H. seems the most likely suspect.
 
If S.B. ate the green beans that his mother prepared that would mean that he returned to his house and ate the green beans. It would also mean that T.H. was there or in that area. If S.B. did return home to eat those green beans that his mother prepared for dinner then T.H. is the most viable suspect.
 
It took me a long time to find Dr. Peretti's estimated time of death.


Ford: I`m asking you to tell this jury, in your opinion - in your opinion, based on what you have read, what is your opinion as to the time of death? What time?

Peretti: Well, based on what I know, it would be um - as a very, broad range - between 1 and -- 1AM and - you know, 5-7 in the morning.

Ford: 1AM to 5AM Thursday, May the 6th.

Peretti: Yes.



Here is the link:

http://callahan.8k.com/wm3/ebtrial/frankp.html
 
Thanks a lot for that! Two questions:

At which hours were people searching the woods?

And does someone have an aerial map of the Hobbs home with the dumpsite in view?
 
Thanks a lot for that! Two questions:

At which hours were people searching the woods?

And does someone have an aerial map of the Hobbs home with the dumpsite in view?

I believe the woods were first searched from about 8:30 PM onwards (after JMB reported his son missing to the police). The woods were pretty much constantly being searched until around midnight, I think. I always have trouble finding out at what time which woods were being searched (the woods at the end of McAuley Drive, or the woods at Goodwin Avenue?). During the night hours, I don't think anyone was searching in the woods, until about 5-5:30 AM, when several police officers arrived (forgot their names, though). So if anyone dumped the bodies at the discovery ditch, it would have happened before 8:30 PM, or in the night hours, IMO.
Here is a map of the neighbourhood with TH's house and the discovery ditch.
West Memphis.jpg

NOTE: if you click on the picture, it will get bigger :)
 
Thanks Lethalmatthew! It was a google maps photo which showed the back of T.H.'s house backing onto ten-mile bayou. I believed it showed a junkyard as well.
 
Thanks a lot for that! Two questions:

At which hours were people searching the woods?

And does someone have an aerial map of the Hobbs home with the dumpsite in view?

Well, the whole issue of when the woods were actually searched depends on who you ask... I believe TH has stated (in the Dimension Films interview?!) that he was out there searching in the afternoon, i.e. before 6 PM (and, more importantly, before the boys were even considered missing), and that there were plenty of people out there with him -- some on four wheelers. Correct me if I'm wrong on that one though, it could have been a litter later but still much sooner than the accounts of others.

The woods were searched throughout the night, BUT IIRC there was a gap between approx. 4 and 5 AM. Parents, relatives, neighbours, and others involved in the search had gone home, and there were no police out searching during the night (due to miscommunications) until Slater and Boskey searched the woods at around 5-5:30 AM like Lethalmatthew mentioned.

IMO, the victims were attacked and rendered unconscious in or near the woods at around 7 PM but did not actually die until much later (Peretti might actually be right about something...). The ditch where the bodies were found was a dumpsite. Hence the lack of evidence present at the scene and the dual lividity patterns present in the victims' bodies. At some point during the night, most likely in the wee hours of the morning when no one was searching the woods, the perp/s moved the bodies to the ditch. They knew no one was searching because they themselves were most likely involved in the search efforts.
 
I don't recall TH saying he was searching those particular woods before 6 pm, but I also can be wrong. I know that he and Pam drove past MM's house on the way to drop Pam off at Catfish Island and that was around 4:30 pm. My memory (which isn't infallible) tells me that he was not searching "in depth," but rather, driving around certain spots to see if he saw him.

But I agree that the woods were searched all night, practically. JMB in particular places himself in those very woods at incredibly suspicious times. He puts himself and RC (who never corroborated this, by the way) driving his truck around the Blue Beacon, honking and searching around 11 pm to Midnight. He also says he searched the whole RHH from 8:30 pm to about 1 am. He also places himself again in the exact area where the bodies were found, at 4:30 am, per jivepuppi (http://www.jivepuppi.com/john_mark_byers_2.html):

"I was out looking until 4:30 a.m. I walked within 10 or 15 feet of where the bodies were found and I didn't see them," Mark Byers, father of one of the victims said." West Memphis Evening Times, May 7th, 1993. Note: It is unclear how Byers knew where the bodies were found to within fifteen feet inasmuch as the entire area had been cordoned off. The time he finished searching that night is in contradiction of his 5/19 statement of searching until "probably 2 or 3 o'clock."

But we know that groups of people were searching those woods, all throughout the night, at least off and on. PH and TH together place themselves there at 11 pm; RC and his friends place themselves at Devil's Den (near the Goodwin entrance) and the pipe bridge around 9 or 10 pm. JMB places himself there from 8:30 pm and of/on until 4:30 am. Timothy Cotten was seen near the area the morning the bodies were found (covered in mud and water) that morning because he up and decided to join in the search for the boys after having just applied for a job at the Blue Beacon that morning (yeah, seriously). The 2 officers were searching there around 5 to 6 am. And these are just the people we know of....there were other, multiple people that were searching these woods throughout the night and early morning. My point is the window that the killer would have to dispose of these bodies here is quite small, either way you look at it.

I agree Graznik that the killer dumped the bodies here because he knew what was going on with the search. I actually think that he chose this spot because he knew it had already been searched and figured that perhaps it wouldn't be searched again, which would have been a smart move. Assuming this, I feel as if he not only knew it was searched by the family and many others, but he particularly knew that it had been searched by the two officers -- Slater and Bosky. He figured that since the police thoroughly searched the creek, that they wouldn't need to do it again and would look elsewhere.
 
I agree Graznik that the killer dumped the bodies here because he knew what was going on with the search. I actually think that he chose this spot because he knew it had already been searched and figured that perhaps it wouldn't be searched again, which would have been a smart move. Assuming this, I feel as if he not only knew it was searched by the family and many others, but he particularly knew that it had been searched by the two officers -- Slater and Bosky. He figured that since the police thoroughly searched the creek, that they wouldn't need to do it again and would look elsewhere.

Are you saying that the bodies were dumped there after Slater and Bosky had searched the creek?
 
Are you saying that the bodies were dumped there after Slater and Bosky had searched the creek?

Good question: not necessarily -- I was just offering a possible scenario as to why this area could have been chosen. It is possible that they could have been, but personally, I don't believe they were. I feel like the bodies were there when Slater and Bosky searched the area and they simply missed them; and were perhaps somewhat embarrassed that they both missed them and/or perhaps half-azzed the search (and didn't want to admit it). I think that the killer still could have figured the area was safe to use as a disposal site because it had been searched by people throughout the night, even before Slater and Bosky searched it; so he felt it wouldn't be searched again.

Either way, necessity and convenience was why this site was chosen, in my view. It was close, inconspicuous enough, and (perhaps) viewed as "safe" (since it had already been searched by volunteers and family).

I believe this because it's hard for me to fathom someone both doing this and getting away with it in broad daylight (i.e. 7 am onward)....but then again, desperation and luck can never be counted out here.
 
I don't recall TH saying he was searching those particular woods before 6 pm, but I also can be wrong. I know that he and Pam drove past MM's house on the way to drop Pam off at Catfish Island and that was around 4:30 pm. My memory (which isn't infallible) tells me that he was not searching "in depth," but rather, driving around certain spots to see if he saw him.

But I agree that the woods were searched all night, practically. JMB in particular places himself in those very woods at incredibly suspicious times. He puts himself and RC (who never corroborated this, by the way) driving his truck around the Blue Beacon, honking and searching around 11 pm to Midnight. He also says he searched the whole RHH from 8:30 pm to about 1 am. He also places himself again in the exact area where the bodies were found, at 4:30 am, per jivepuppi (http://www.jivepuppi.com/john_mark_byers_2.html):



But we know that groups of people were searching those woods, all throughout the night, at least off and on. PH and TH together place themselves there at 11 pm; RC and his friends place themselves at Devil's Den (near the Goodwin entrance) and the pipe bridge around 9 or 10 pm. JMB places himself there from 8:30 pm and of/on until 4:30 am. Timothy Cotten was seen near the area the morning the bodies were found (covered in mud and water) that morning because he up and decided to join in the search for the boys after having just applied for a job at the Blue Beacon that morning (yeah, seriously). The 2 officers were searching there around 5 to 6 am. And these are just the people we know of....there were other, multiple people that were searching these woods throughout the night and early morning. My point is the window that the killer would have to dispose of these bodies here is quite small, either way you look at it.

I agree Graznik that the killer dumped the bodies here because he knew what was going on with the search. I actually think that he chose this spot because he knew it had already been searched and figured that perhaps it wouldn't be searched again, which would have been a smart move. Assuming this, I feel as if he not only knew it was searched by the family and many others, but he particularly knew that it had been searched by the two officers -- Slater and Bosky. He figured that since the police thoroughly searched the creek, that they wouldn't need to do it again and would look elsewhere.

In the interview with the WMPD in 2007 TH states he entered the woods with DJ at around 6/6:30 PM (so a little later than I remember but still quite early on). He also states there were people there on four wheelers and all sorts helping them look for the kids.
http://callahan.8k.com/pdf/t_hobbs_interview.pdf
This also contradicts the prosecution's timeline (just in case anyone reading was wondering...).

Okay, so there's no one in the woods from 4:30 AM until what... 5:30 AM? Roughly, considering people might be off by 15 minutes (or more...) here and there. The window would be very small indeed, but clearly it was sufficient.

I'm intrigued as to who your possible perp is! I agree with you that a possible perp must've been in on pretty much every move the searchers made -- more or less -- but I'm not sure as to how they would know about Slater and Boskey searching the area. Furthermore, I believe the victims bodies may or may not have been present at the time S&B searched the woods. I find it equally possible that they simply did not see the bodies as the bodies being dumped in the ditch after them searching it. You'd want to trust them when they say they're positive the bodies weren't there, and that they would've seen them if they were, because the statement isn't self-serving at all. However, if the perp had not yet dumped the bodies, it leaves a very small window of opportunity to do so in the early hours of the morning. The longest, "safest" gap in the timeline is after JMB leaves the woods, and before S&B conduct their search.

Oh, and we should definitely not discount the importance of luck. I'd say whoever did this has gotten away with it for so long, they must indeed be one "lucky" b*#tard.
 
Graznik, good to see you posting regularly again. I'm not seeing it in the report you posted where TH says he was searching the woods at 6 pm (I read from page 9 to page 13) -- maybe it's somewhere else in the report? But either way, you're right: he does say, in one report, that he was searching with Jacoby around 6 to 6:30 pm. I can't find the exact report where he says that, but it's still confirmed nonetheless on Jivepuppi's page (which I find highly credible): http://www.jivepuppi.com/Terry_Hobbs.html

Yes, there would be a window there from when JMB exits to when Slater and Bosky enter. A small window (an hour or less), but a window nonetheless. I suppose there would also be similar windows (an hour or less) throughout the early morning.

My main suspects are the following:

1) OB Jr./OB Sr./OB Jr.'s brother (lived right next to each other on W.E. Catt, and had trails connecting both their back yards through RHH all the way down to the discovery site; they would need to cross the bayou at some point to access the Blue Beacon Woods, of course, but nonetheless -- trail right from their back yards would be the perfect route, assuming the crime took place at one of these residences; and OB Jr. states he saw the boys that evening). They would have chosen the discovery site because they wouldn't want to bury the bodies anywhere near their own backyards, and the BBW was both the furthest and most convenient area they could inconspicuously access, without having to take any roads or passing the Mayfair Apartments.

2) Tim Cotton. He states he was going to the Blue Beacon the morning of the 6th to apply for a job there; and upon hearing that the boys were missing, up and decided to join in the search. Talk about a convenient explanation. Although I find it hard to believe that the bodies were dumped in the BBW after Slater and Bosky, if anyone did it, it would be the guy who witnesses saw covered in mud and drenched in water exiting near the discovery the next morning (NOTE: there, like pretty much evertything in this case, is a discrepancy when witnesses saw Cotton muddy and soaked; according to Jivepuppi, it either happened around 10 to 11 pm or the next morning http://www.jivepuppi.com/strangers_on_bicycles.html). Here is the report of him being seen at night: http://callahan.8k.com/images/t_cotten/tim_cotten_tip.JPG
 
Userid, thanks for the info on Cotton. I have never heard about him and I have followed this case for quite some time.
I could not read one word on that report, btw. LOL
 
No problem, U2. If you think this report is illegible, there are ones 50 times worse, believe me. This one is actually one of the best as far as legible handwriting goes, sadly. If you really want to get frustrated, try reading this report (another on Tom Cotton): http://callahan.8k.com/cgi-bin/i/images/t_cotten/cotten_t_tip_01.jpg

This is how I read the previous report I posted:

Received a call from Sally Brady and Gina Riccio about the nite the boys were missing Wednesday nite and they were out driving around trying to assist in locating the missing boys. They advised they saw Tim Cotton from Lake Shore riding a bicycle that was green and yellow go into Robin Hood Woods at dead end of McCauley and as they were driving around Goodwin about 45 minutes to an hour later they saw him again coming from the other end of Robin Hood and was wet and muddy all over and they heard him tell some of the search and rescue people he had fallen into the bayou and was going home and change clothes. They said he was a weird acting guy and just wanted to check him out. he was seen going in woods around 10 pm and coming out around 11 pm.

Basically, these 2 ladies saw him go in at the pipe bridge (Mayfair) into the exact area where the boys would be found. Then an hour later, they saw him exiting -- but where they saw him exiting exactly, is somewhat of a mystery. It sounds like they saw him exiting at the Goodwin entrance to RHH -- the very entrance the boys were last seen -- since they were driving down Goodwin at the time they saw him. So basically, you have this guy entering the scene where the bodies where found; and exiting the scene where the boys were last spotted. And he was wet and muddy. Coincidence????
 

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