The deputy signed an agreement stating that, if they did, Byers would not be charged with possession. The causes most high-profile moment came in 2000, when Trey Parker said the slogan at the MTV Movie Awards while collecting an award for Best Musical Sequence. Byers said he was concerned that "they were going to accuse him of smothering her." The two pleaded not guilty at their arraignment in October. He stated he continued CPR until the EMTs arrived and took over. As the first in a trilogy of Paradise Lost films about the case, the 1996 movie was a stunning example of cinma vrit, as directors Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky embedded themselves with the prosecution, the defense, and the families of both the slain and the accused to put human faces on a heart-wrenching tragedy, as well as highlight the overblown worries of satanic rituals and murderous cults that proliferated throughout the 1980s and 90s. There also were issues with other details he provided, including how the victims were bound and whether the boys were raped. The cult part of the Commercial Appeals headline signaled how the case would be defined by both the media and prosecutors. Waser wrote, "They went to bed, spent time talking, had intercorse (intercourse) and went to sleep, at approximately 2:30PM they went to sleep". Growing up and over a 6 foot trellis and trailing back down to the ground, this plant looks incredibly healthy with no leaf loss anywhere. Rollins not only gave interviews to keep the effort alive in the press, he organized a string of benefit shows and released an album featuring Iggy Pop and Chuck D, with proceeds going to the defense. The sheriffs is now investigating an explosion and subsequent fire that destroyed 1976 Dodge Travelmate motor home that was parked in Atwoods driveway.). The great irony of the 18-year quest to free the West Memphis Three is that it didnt begin as a crusade. He returned to the Byers' home on March 31st, 1996 to interview Ryan. The second time he requested a towel. They saw the same thing you did. At approximately 9:40 that night, Witt and eight other officers organized a search at the Byers home. No, he said, according to a transcript of that interview. While a Sharp County deputy took a statement from John Mark Byers and got his permission to search his home, Witt began taking notes about the condition of Melissa Byers body. (Echolswho is in better health today, though his eyesight has degenerated and he has premature arthritis from his time in solitary confinementin particular has maintained a relatively public life, through the five books hes published, performing magic for Patreon subscribers, and making TV appearances to discuss other cases he sees as similar to his.) How many people from this familyhave died / been murdered??!! According to her family tree, she married Kelly T. Hale on April 30, 1999 in Texas. The murder charge was filed after the child told a school counselor on Nov. 29, 2017, that she saw her mothers body in the basement of the familys home in the 2400 block of College Avenue. The two boys who had exchanged words, reportedly over a girl, now found themselves in a vicious fight, with Byers companion using the folded knife in his hand as what the boys called a fist pack. However other needle marks were evident. He says his dad and Berlinger werent seeking notorietydocumentaries certainly werent a means to get rich or famous in those days. The idea, Berlinger says, was to tell a story of disaffected youthabout kids killing kids., There was no reason not to believe the press, Berlinger says. That story line would make up the bulk of 2000s Paradise Lost 2: Revelations, a rare sequel for a documentary, especially before the streaming era proved that true crime series like Making a Murderer and The Staircase could maintain audience interest for years. Thats one of the reasons Im arresting you.. You need corroborating evidence.. A quarter-century later, what does the documentary tell us about citizen activism, the criminal justice system, and the Satanic Panic of the 1980s and 90s? With over 63,000 Facebook followers, 58,000 Twitter followers, 35,000 Arkansas blog followers, and 70,000 daily email blasts, it's clear that our readers value our great journalism. The documentarians found me in one of the worst things a person could go through, Baldwin says. There is a lot of suspicion surrounding him, especially in light of what's happened to his stepfamily in these past 3 years. Hicks had gotten Hobbs down on the ground, when Hobbs reached into his pocket, pulled out the gun, and shot Hicks in the abdomen. In 1996, Melissa Byers died. By 2005, Rollins himself had raised $100,000 for the cause. He said, Stay where you are. That same year, Byers was arrested and charged with terroristic threatening for an assault on his former wife. Byers also said that Ryan had spent the night at John Mark's brother-in-law's house. I think we were the first internet sleuths, but we were not internet sleuths.. Metz responded by asking Byers why he didnt call an ambulance. Please also read our Privacy Notice and Terms of Use, which became effective December 20, 2019. But then the verdicts arrived: Both Baldwin and Echols were found guilty on all counts, just like Misskelley had been six weeks before them. There have also been several high-profile incidents of laypeople reinvestigating decades-old cold cases in more rigorous, journalistic ways and helping bring them to a resolution. We made a promise early on that we would never pretend to be law enforcement or detectives, Sauls says. Even without a smoking gun, the circumstantial evidence was enough for a conviction in a place like Crittenden County, Arkansas. Paradise Lost is a narration-free documentary filmed with a journalistic remove. Metz had been one of the last people to see Melissa Byers alive. On Nov. 6 police in Memphis responded to a call that someone had been shot at 4460 Kerwin St., the home of Pamela and Terry Hobbs. Berlinger says that after months of filming, the parents of one of the victims raised the issue of payment. Nor was the Dilaudid mentioned on the page listing the medical examiners findings. [31]Other needle puncture wounds were present in the groin area, on the wrists, and the feet. He advised that when he left, he almost flipped his car over he left so fast, spinning gravel. It was clear that Paradise Lost was resonating. how did melissa byers dietooting and mitcham fc former players. Melissa's return to the home coincided with her son's. He was just taking in the enormity of the defining event of his life to that point, which had been committed to film and was now playing for him inside the cavernous, auditorium-style visitation room. Misskelly and Baldwin were sentenced to life in prison, and Echols, who was identified as the ringleader, was sentenced to death by lethal injection. The mother of one of the three boys murdered in West Memphis died, but investigators have yet to figure out how. Traces of one of her prescribed medications, an anti-seizure medicine used to treat post-traumatic stress syndrome, were present, as were traces of lithium, a medication that had been prescribed for her to treat manic depression. Dan Stidham, the original attorney for Misskelley, who would also work on Baldwins and Echols appeals, says he has the answer. Melissa left her husband to live with her parents and had only been living at home for two to three weeks before she passed away. When West Memphis police questioned Byers two weeks after the boys murders, they asked him about this undercover work and people who, as Byers put it, maybe would be vindictive.. The evolution of how the teens were perceivedon behalf of both the filmmakers and even part of the defense teamis captured on camera early as Stidham and his colleagues began to consider whether Misskelleys confession had been coerced. (Chief Medical Examiner). x\IoFp_ qw!%J&aE)%l6z[{"A~_w GD3N=l~>}+9g;^ b'#y|S,Zx~ok>~bB'4DkDt. They said the boy with him lived at Cherokee Village. The answer seems obvious. They found marijuana in a closet of the master bedroom and on a night stand in the other bedroom. If convicted, each could receive a sentence of from three to 10 years . Pamela Hobbs told police, she called a relative in Blytheville and told him she believed her jaw was broken. But Berlinger also believes that the sequel is important for documenting the power of citizen activism. Byers stated that he would wait in the kitchen. Baldwins attorneys even avoided putting him on the witness stand or mounting much of a defense, believing the burden was on the state. Her body showed no visible signs of trauma. Armchair detectives of today, I think a lot of them dabble in conspiracy theory, Berlinger says. A year later, when the film Paradise Lost was shown on television and then released to theaters, John Mark and Melissa Byers were brought to national attention. (Police questioned Byers several times during the investigation, but never considered him a suspect.) Today, Berlinger calls Revelations the weakest of the three films in the trilogyadvocacy in search of a story as opposed to the in-the-moment, on-the-ground approach of the first Paradise Lost and the in-depth exploration of new evidence in 2011s Purgatory. She was pronounced dead after efforts to revive her failed. It just needed a catalyst. "He ask [sic] John Mark if Melissa was dead. stream It noted that she had been 68 inches tall and weighed 211 pounds. Died on 29 Mar 1996. Hobbs then reportedly pointed the gun at some of the other relatives, threatening that he would shoot them too. That included Mojo, who came calling around 2 a.m. that day trying to coax him out of his cell. While Berlinger says that the work of people like Bakken and Sauls was more impressive than that of any celebrity, its undeniable that the famous and influential brought a megaphone and funding mechanism to this case that most never get. The assaults are but another twist in a tragic saga. Byers surfaced periodically in the extensive coverage of the case, once supplying a knife to makers of an HBO documentary that was found to have blood from his adopted son on it. The veteran actress died on November 11, 2014, after a bout with cancer just five days after the sitcom aired her final voice appearance in season 8, episode 8 titled "The Prom Equivalency." Emest R. Rose, Hardys chief of police, said that, with only a few exceptions, Byers account of that incident agrees with the accounts provided by other witnesses. Christopher Mark Byers. Melissa Gilbert recently became the latest celebrity to fall prey to an online death hoax. Melissa DeFir Byers was born on January 15, 1956. He says that while he was in the supermax prison in Varner, he would write letters trying to drum up support for not just himself, but also for other inmates he believed were wrongfully convicted. No physical evidence was produced linking any of the accused teen-agers with the crime, and no motive for the killings was introduced other than that the murders had been part of an demonic ritual. Mandy also stated that Ryan had assisted in the burglary of the Atwood home. I couldnt not watch it at this point. Bakken immediately showed her friends Burk Sauls and Grove Pashley, who were both equally gripped by what they had just watched. It ranges from Mark Byers, the crusading stepfather who became one of the West Memphis Threes biggest allies in the years before his 2020 death, to famed FBI criminal profiler (and Mindhunter inspiration) John E. Douglas. I never foresaw that they would in turn save us.. Byers acted strange, the report noted. They began attending appeal hearings and visiting Baldwin, Echols, and Misskelley in prison. 1 0 obj ", >That same large number of people here feel that Mark Beyers is guilty of, >the 'Paradise Lost' murders because of skimpy evidence and the fact that. The first and likely simplest gauge is continued interest in the case. If the state of Arkansas has a deep and abiding belief that the West Memphis Three are child murderers and did these terrible crimes, then shame on them for letting them out after 18 and a half years because a bunch of celebrities are whining about it, Berlinger says. Hydrocodone was detected in the urine, but not in the blood or the liver. The governor of the state of Arkansas who will one day pardon the West Memphis Three is probably in junior high right now, he says. Either email addresses are anonymous for this group or you need the view member email addresses permission to view the original message. Melissa Byers body was there, wrapped in carpeting, plastic, sheets and clothing, court records said. I so BADLY wanted to ask him, "How does it feel to have your last interaction with your child be a beating?". Only her urine was abnormal. She said that Byers and Mandy had been hiding drugs in the trunk of Byers' car. Melissa gurgled up some fluid and Metz called for an ambulance. The boy he was fighting was injured seriously enough to require hospitalization. <>/Metadata 79 0 R/ViewerPreferences 80 0 R>> She was in the bedroom on the floor. He said, "No. Beyond the black-and-white print of the newspaper, there was a movement brewing. 3 0 obj Further down, it includes names such as Rick Dior, a sound mixer who worked on Apollo 13 and Dirty Dancing, and Bob Richman, a three-time Emmy-nominated cinematographer whose rsum also includes renowned docs like An Inconvenient Truth and Waiting for Superman. Getting that kind of creative validation was exciting, but we were also extremely frustrated that it didnt move from the entertainment page of the newspaper to the editorial page, Berlinger says. So advocacy and diligence become tantamount, because most people in a similar situation to the one he was in dont have the benefit of filmmakers and musicians fighting on their behalf. %PDF-1.5 All of those factors combined to create a tipping point, says Leveritt. Supporting the Arkansas Times' independent journalism is more vital than ever. He met Byers, who was leaving, on his way, and reported that Byers told him, Some smart-ass kid got his ass kicked. In the joint trial of Baldwin and Echols, which took place separately from Misskelleys, Berlinger and Sinofsky filmed the surreal moments that juries were actually present for: a rundown of the books Echols checked out of the library, a parade of band T-shirts worn by the pair, a copy of a Blue Oyster Cult record found in Damiens girlfriends house that became evidence because of the word cult and song titles like Dont Fear the Reaper. What the cameras couldnt capture, however, was the introduction of physical evidencethe prosecution didnt offer much of that aside from a knife that was never directly linked to the crimes and fabric threads deemed microscopically similar to items found in Baldwins and Echolss homes, an assertion that has been questioned in the years since the trials. Melissa and John Mark Byers were having problems in their marriage in 1996. He got a wet rag and wiped her face before feeling for a pulse. One of those shows, Truth & Justice With Bob Ruff, became the basis for an Oxygen docuseries last year titled The Forgotten West Memphis Three, which took a closer look at the three victims and tried to shine new light on the evidence. He's in disguise!" "[32], Two contusions, ranging from 1/4 inch to 1/2 inch, were noted as being located on Melissa's skull. It can slow breathing, heart rate, and brain activity. As the appeals processes stretched across several years and the buzz of the initial film faded, the directors began looking for ways to keep the story alive. Nobody was saying, This is an outrageous case that needs to be looked into.. He advised he went and got a towel and told Mark to keep doing CPR and also told Ryan to take his girlfriend home and get back there. The problem facing Sheriff Powell was that no one at the hospital could figure out why. He was handed the phone. 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