Terry Hobbs - My Story

Compassionate Reader said:

The partials used in the link to the BB are Hobbs' partials from 1993. Hobbs has steadfastly refused to grant access to medical records, DNA, etc. The wmpd has not ordered him to cooperate in any way, as a responsible police force would have done, given that he is the step father of a victim.

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Oh that's a sad shame. If Hobbs would not agree, there should have been a subpoena/Court Order to receive the necessary items. :banghead:

21merc7 said:

Oh that's a sad shame. If Hobbs would not agree, there should have been a subpoena/Court Order to receive the necessary items. :banghead:

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Yep. Let me be clear. Neither the State nor the wmpd has ever requested Hobbs' samples. The defense did. Hobbs refused. The State never required his compliance. Rachel Geiss (?), an investigator working for Ron Lax, surreptitiously kept a discarded cigarette butt while interviewing Hobbs. That is the source of the DNA (and it's a partial one, obviously) sample from Hobbs.

Compassionate Reader said:

Any wounds that you purport might have been caused by the knife weren't stabbing wounds.

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Actually some wounds which appear to be stab wounds are shown in PL2. Granted, those wounds don't have any defining characteristics to them which demonstrate a notable constancy with the survival knife like the wounds I addressed previously do, but there's nothing about them which rightly rules out the possibility that they were inflicted with that knife either.

Compassionate Reader said:

So, do you contend that the boys were scraped to death?!

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No, I do my best to avoid such ridiculous leaps in logic.

Compassionate Reader said:

I could give you other, much more detailed, explanations for those wounds that you insist were caused by anything other than postmortem animal predation.

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Yet that's not rightly what I've insisted here, and I'd much prefer to see you acknowledge what I actually have said rather than resorting to attempts to argue around it.

Compassionate Reader said:

For those of you truly interested in some astounding new information, I invite you to the Blackboard.

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Is there any chance you'd invite Paid over here to discuss the matter, seeing as how registration on the Blackboard is closed?

reedus23 said:

You're opinion.

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The vast difference between my comment suggesting what could be done now which "would go a long way toward taking the wind out of the sails those of you who've gotten so worked up over a hair" and the assertion of "how the investigation should have been run from day 1" is not a matter of opinion, but rather one of fact. If ever gain the respect for rational discourse to start respecting such facts, please get back to me.

Cappuccino said:

Whatever the defense or the various supporters groups may have gotten wrong over the years, they were definitely right about one thing - the police investigating this case had tunnel vision about Damien.

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It takes serious tunnel vision to persist in ignoring the fact that a wide variety of other people were investigated as documented throughout the records on Callahan, with notable example's mentioned in the last section of this letter from Fogleman which we've discussed previously.

gheckso said:

Is the implication from the above diagrams to suggest that the killer first butted the end of the knife to Steve's forehead and then scrape him under the brow with it?

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Not necessarily in that order, and the abrasions under the brow ridge aren't consistent with the knife being scrapped across it but rather pressed into it, and note the other semicircles around cheek in the wider angle shot. As for the wound in the center of the semicircle on the forehead, the knife apparently came with a compass in the hilt which might've been responsible for that. As for the scraping, it's certainly unusual, but so is murdering a group young children, and people who do the latter can't rightly be excluding from doing other unusual things.

Cappuccino said:

Kyleb - tell me more about the knife.

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How about you address what I have said about the knife rather than demanding statistics from me which I've never even made any pretensions of having? Is that too much to ask?

Cappuccino said:

The mtDNA is consistent with 1.5% of the population from which Terry Hobbs cannot be excluded. And according to you, that makes it too ridiculous to even be considered.

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No, that's jumbled mess of an argument is your own making, apparently loosely based on what I've said here.

Compassionate Reader said:

The partials used in the link to the BB are Hobbs' partials from 1993.

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Perhaps. But more importantly, is the comparison even done with proper respect to scale? Absent a picture of the dentures with a measuring device to serve as a frame of reference it's impossible to rightly say one way or another.

I have a question about the (possible) bite mark on little Stevie's forehead. Forgive me if it's already been explained but I'm trying to parse this bite theory:

Drowning was a contributing cause of death (as per his autopsy), which leads me to assume that he was alive when he went in the creek and drowned, probably from being hog-tied and face down, unconscious. Right?
But the bite mark appears to be peri-mortem? So the person would have bitten him after Stevie went in the water, or as he was going into the water? A bite would seem more consistent with struggle and attack, not when the unconscious child was almost dead... Sorry, I'm having trouble fitting this theory. Probably because I'm not looking at it the right way.

The little x-ish mark still intrigues me.

kyleb said:

Actually some wounds which appear to be stab wounds in Kyleb's opinion are shown in PL2. Granted, those wounds don't have any defining characteristics to them which demonstrate a notable constancy with the survival knifethat has no connection to this case like the wounds I addressed previously do in Kyleb's opinion, but there's nothing about them which rightly rules out the possibility that they were inflicted with that knife eitheror just about any other knife out there, making it meaningless as to proof of guilt.


No, I do my best to avoid such ridiculous leaps in logic. I've seen some pretty courageous leaps. Heck, insinuating that the survival knife was the actual knife used in these crimes is a pretty courageous leap.


Yet that's not rightly what I've insisted here, and I'd much prefer to see you acknowledge what I actually have said rather than resorting to attempts to argue around it.


Is there any chance you'd invite Paid over here to discuss the matter, seeing as how registration on the Blackboard is closed?


The vast difference between my comment suggesting what could be done now which "would go a long way toward taking the wind out of the sails those of you who've gotten so worked up over a hair" and the assertion of "how the investigation should have been run from day 1" is not a matter of opinion, but rather one of fact. And here I thought we agreed on something, namely that they should start their investigation(now or on day 1) with those closest to the victims. My guess is you forgot that that would include Hobbs and now try to deflect with personal attacks.If ever gain the respect for rational discourse to start respecting such facts, please get back to me. And there are those personal attacks.


It takes serious tunnel vision to persist in ignoring the fact that a wide variety of other people were investigated as documented throughout the records on Callahan, with notable example's mentioned in the last section of this letter from Fogleman which we've discussed previously.

Writing down a name/tip, doing nothing with it and then post-arrest writing up a memo saying "cleared" does not constitute an investigation. Were some looked into? Sure. Were many looked into with the purpose of clearing them because it got in the way of their pre-conceived theory? Absolutely. Were there more that went unchecked than checked? 100% yes.


Not necessarily in that order, and the abrasions under the brow ridge aren't consistent with the knife being scrapped across it but rather pressed into it, and note the other semicircles around cheek in the wider angle shot. As for the wound in the center of the semicircle on the forehead, the knife apparently came with a compass in the hilt which might've been responsible for that. Damn. It would suck to be put to death on evidence that "might've" been accurateAs for the scraping, it's certainly unusual, but so is murdering a group young children, and people who do the latter can't rightly be excluding from doing other unusual things.


How about you address what I have said about the knife rather than demanding statistics from me which I've never even made any pretensions of having? Is that too much to ask?Bob and weave. The point was valid and then deflected.


No, that's jumbled mess of an argument is your own making, apparently loosely based on what I've said here.


Perhaps. But more importantly, is the comparison even done with proper respect to scale? Absent a picture of the dentures with a measuring device to serve as a frame of reference it's impossible to rightly say one way or another.

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Red was respectfully added by me and my thoughts and opinions.

The knife was never forensically linked to any of the wrongfully convicted. One witness (Samuel Dwyer) testified during the Rule 37 hearing that he saw Jason's mom throwing it into the lake before the murders. Why are we still talking about this knife? Fogleman's lame attempt to link it to the crime (the infamous "grapefruit incident") is laughable and an act of desperation. One doesn't have to register on the BB in order to read some of the "public" areas, and the link provided above is to one such area. Look at that thread and I think questions about the "bite mark" will be resolved.

As to another poster's query of when the bite occurred, my guess would be right before the killer put Steven's body in the water. All sorts of scenarios are possible. One that comes to mind revolves around the Manhole Theory.

Let's suppose that there is a kernel of truth in the most recent affidavits and the boys stumbled upon Hobbs (and possibly Jacoby) doing something bad and/or illegal. Hobbs is enraged - maybe even chasing after the boys. They run to the manhole to hide from him.

Chris and Michael go down first. Hobbs gets there just as Steven is trying to go into the manhole, grabs Steven, punches him in the face, bites him and flings him down the manhole. Remember that you can literally drown in a tablespoon of water, especially if you've been knocked unconscious. When the other boys attempt to exit the manhole to get help for their friend, they meet a similar fate. The boys die in the manhole, and their bodies are moved later to the drainage ditch.

That's sketchy and may have "holes" in it, but it's off the top of my head. There are other scenarios that I'm sure someone could describe that would account for the bite being perimortem - maybe even postmortem! I can see an enraged killer biting a victim after he's dead out of rage and pure evil.

kyleb said:

Perhaps. But more importantly, is the comparison even done with proper respect to scale? Absent a picture of the dentures with a measuring device to serve as a frame of reference it's impossible to rightly say one way or another.

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If you look at Reply #60 on this page, you will see that the partials are compared to such a measuring device.

Compassionate Reader said:

One witness (Samuel Dwyer) testified during the Rule 37 hearing that he saw Jason's mom throwing it into the lake before the murders.

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Sure, but three years prior in Samuel Dryer's 2006 affidavit he didn't claim to actually have witnessed as much, but rather said:

22.2 A knife of Jason's ended up in the lake that was in the Lakeshore Trailer Park. I assumed that this was the big “Rambo” knife, but I do not know if it was... I arrived at Jason’s trailer just after Jason’s mom had thrown a knife into the lake.

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So, Dryer's memory of what he witnessed or otherwise is apparently hazy, as can be expected of most anyone regarding events which happened so many years before. Furthermore, no physical evidence was found to connect the knife to anybody, and one can't rightly expect to find any such evidence on a item which had sat in a lake for any notable period of time. Such facts are no excuse to disregard the consistency between the survival knife and multiple wounds on the victims.

Compassionate Reader said:

Fogleman's lame attempt to link it to the crime (the infamous "grapefruit incident") is laughable and an act of desperation.

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Have you even seen the autopsy photo which Fogleman asked the jury to compare to the marks on the grapefruit? I'd find attempts to dismiss Fogleman's grapefruit demonstration without even presenting the evidence he referenced to be laughable if this wasn't such a serious matter.

Compassionate Reader said:

If you look at Reply #60 on this page, you will see that the partials are compared to such a measuring device.

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Reply #60 is on page 5 for me, likely different for you due to personalized forum settings. Regardless, that image simply shows the tape measure copied from the autopsy photo and pasted onto the photo of dentures, not an actual photo of a measuring device along with the dentures by which one could rightly determine the scale.

Setting aside the issue of proper scaling of the dentures assumed to be Hobbs, I figure I explain why I dismissed the notion that the wounds resemble a bite mark shortly after first hearing the claim when first watching PL2, and before I stumbled across mention of the consistency of that wound with the hilt and saw edge of the survival knife. Put simply even stretching one's mouth as wide as possible, one can't rightly get their teeth perpendicular to a forehead to get anything close to the semicircle above Branch's brow ridge, and the lower jaw prevents getting anywhere close. Here's a compilation of images to exemplify the issue:

<modsnip; please see attached image>

So, assuming Paid has gotten the scaling correct there is a reasonable consistency between the three front false teeth and the majority of the semicircle, but that consistency goes away when the angle of the dentures come in contact with the skin is restrained by being in a mouth, and in that context it would take an absurdly disfigured set of teeth to produce anything even reasonably resembling those wounds.

Anyone here handy with the photo programs?

If you get the photos on callahan of the bottom of The Lake Knife, the part that unscrews - the cap, can someone make it larger, and maybe do something with the light/dark contrast and see if that "x" or rather backward "k" mark is in the center of the cap end?

That mark is not from teeth that I can tell. It could have been just from something in the creek bed, or the manhole, or a sidewalk, or even just in the dirt, and, it could have happened before or after the "bite mark" but I don't know that it goes with the partial plate.

The cap of the survival knife is recessed with nothing there to account for the center mark, as can be seen in this animation:



That said, the owner of a company who sold those knifes testified at trial:

Fogleman: Alright. And on the - there's a hollow part on the end of this, uh - on the knife that ya'll distributed, what went on the end there?

Parker: A compass accompanied - went on the end of it.

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Given that, and the fact that the mark is right in center point of the semicircle, it seems likely the face of the compass was either slightly dome shaped or had a raised pin in the middle which split the skin on impact. I've come across a couple such knifes sold on eBay, but the compasses apparently weren't affixed very well as both those knifes were missing theirs too.

Compassionate Reader said:

The knife was never forensically linked to any of the wrongfully convicted. One witness (Samuel Dwyer) testified during the Rule 37 hearing that he saw Jason's mom throwing it into the lake before the murders. Why are we still talking about this knife? Fogleman's lame attempt to link it to the crime (the infamous "grapefruit incident") is laughable and an act of desperation. One doesn't have to register on the BB in order to read some of the "public" areas, and the link provided above is to one such area. Look at that thread and I think questions about the "bite mark" will be resolved.

As to another poster's query of when the bite occurred, my guess would be right before the killer put Steven's body in the water. All sorts of scenarios are possible. One that comes to mind revolves around the Manhole Theory.

Let's suppose that there is a kernel of truth in the most recent affidavits and the boys stumbled upon Hobbs (and possibly Jacoby) doing something bad and/or illegal. Hobbs is enraged - maybe even chasing after the boys. They run to the manhole to hide from him.

Chris and Michael go down first. Hobbs gets there just as Steven is trying to go into the manhole, grabs Steven, punches him in the face, bites him and flings him down the manhole. Remember that you can literally drown in a tablespoon of water, especially if you've been knocked unconscious. When the other boys attempt to exit the manhole to get help for their friend, they meet a similar fate. The boys die in the manhole, and their bodies are moved later to the drainage ditch.

That's sketchy and may have "holes" in it, but it's off the top of my head. There are other scenarios that I'm sure someone could describe that would account for the bite being perimortem - maybe even postmortem! I can see an enraged killer biting a victim after he's dead out of rage and pure evil.

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I don't even take the grapefruit experiment as evidence, because it wasn't evidence. Lawyers are given some leeway in their closing arguments but the problem with it is that lay people often don't distinguish between evidence and argument. For myself, I would have laughed at him doing the grapefruit experiment. For some, though, the danger is they think the grapefruit experiment means anything at all.

As for the partials, it's probably the most compelling argument I've read. Obviously I'm not ready to say with certainty it's right. The actual partials need to be analyzed in relation to the wound before I could accept it with any certainty. But it is compelling and at a minimum justifies an actual comparison and analysis.

Furthermore, no physical evidence was found to connect the knife to anybody, and one can't rightly expect to find any such evidence on a item which had sat in a lake for any notable period of time. Such facts are no excuse to disregard the consistency between the survival knife and multiple wounds on the victims.

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So if that knife can't be connected to anybody, it could have just as easily have been used to convict John Doe, who has as much connection to the knife as Jason. Also, assuming there is the consistency that you speak of, which I'm not ready to admit, wouldn't that mean that they could have convicted anyone that owned such a knife because arguably their knife would be consistent too.

Have you even seen the autopsy photo which Fogleman asked the jury to compare to the marks on the grapefruit? I'd find attempts to dismiss Fogleman's grapefruit demonstration without even presenting the evidence he referenced to be laughable if this wasn't such a serious matter.

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The grapefruit show was just that. A show. An attempt to garner the jury's attention and inflame their passions. The grapefruit wasn't evidence and should be dismissed and should not have been considered by the jury in their deliberations as such.

Reply #60 is on page 5 for me, likely different for you due to personalized forum settings. Regardless, that image simply shows the tape measure copied from the autopsy photo and pasted onto the photo of dentures, not an actual photo of a measuring device along with the dentures by which one could rightly determine the scale.

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I'm not re-reading all those pages to find it because I think it's meaningless, but I do recall attempts to ensure things were to scale were made. I say meaningless because as long as the actual dentures are around, the best approach is to use them. I think as much was done as possible to determine scale to even determine if the theory was viable, but further testing and analysis should be done.

Yes, further testing should be done on the actual dentures. I'm not sure, but they may have been returned to Hobbs. I'll investigate that, however. If they were returned to Hobbs, he will never surrender them for testing. The State will never require him to do so, unless pressure is placed upon them so to do, which is part of why such "speculations" are being put forth.

At this time, this is a theory. However, since Paid has been a practicing dentist for 30 years I think he said, I would accept his expertise in this matter. If he opines that those partials could be responsible for the bite mark, I believe him. I certainly accept his opinion in the matter over any non-dentist on the Internet!

Early on, he made an impression of his own teeth and was able to "match" three of his teeth to the bite mark. However, as he continued working with the picture of the partial, as the thread reveals, he showed how everything matched with the bite wound. He was very diligent and careful in his experiment, IMO.

As was said before, at the very least, this should warrant proper investigation. The question is, will the State of Arkansas investigate? From past experience, I'm afraid not.

Compassionate Reader said:

Yes, further testing should be done on the actual dentures. I'm not sure, but they may have been returned to Hobbs. I'll investigate that, however. If they were returned to Hobbs, he will never surrender them for testing. The State will never require him to do so, unless pressure is placed upon them so to do, which is part of why such "speculations" are being put forth.

At this time, this is a theory. However, since Paid has been a practicing dentist for 30 years I think he said, I would accept his expertise in this matter. If he opines that those partials could be responsible for the bite mark, I believe him. I certainly accept his opinion in the matter over any non-dentist on the Internet!

Early on, he made an impression of his own teeth and was able to "match" three of his teeth to the bite mark. However, as he continued working with the picture of the partial, as the thread reveals, he showed how everything matched with the bite wound. He was very diligent and careful in his experiment, IMO.

As was said before, at the very least, this should warrant proper investigation. The question is, will the State of Arkansas investigate? From past experience, I'm afraid not.

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You're absolutely right. I would certainly take his experience and his thoroughness over mine and most others. It would be a damn shame if those were returned to Hobbs. If they were, how much you want to bet they no longer exist or won't be found? If he has them, and he is true to his word that he wants to clear his name, he should be the first to say, hey, here they are, test them, please.

reedus23 said:

So if that knife can't be connected to anybody

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That's not what I said.

reedus23 said:

The grapefruit show was just that. A show.

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Rather, your attempt to dismiss the grapefruit demonstration is just a show, as are all the other attempts to do so without presenting the autopsy photo which the jury was asked to compare with the marks left by the knifes on the grapefruit.

reedus23 said:

I'm not re-reading all those pages to find it because I think it's meaningless, but I do recall attempts to ensure things were to scale were made.

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Paid said he used a Marlboro box in a photo for scale, but hasn't provided any such photo so that scaling can be assessed by those of us who do consider careful evaluation of evidence meaningful.

Compassionate Reader said:

However, since Paid has been a practicing dentist for 30 years I think he said, I would accept his expertise in this matter.

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Well then, is there any chance you might ask him to demonstrate how the dentures could come into the contact with the skin at anything close to the angle he's comparing them at while they are actually inside someone's mouth?

kyleb said:

Well then, is there any chance you might ask him to demonstrate how the dentures could come into the contact with the skin at anything close to the angle he's comparing them at while they are actually inside someone's mouth?

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I don't need for Paid to explain that, although he did in the thread. It's called a bite. The jaw is hinged, and the lower teeth (at least some of which were his natural teeth and not a denture or partial) made contact below the eyebrow. As was explained in the thread, it was pointed out at trial or rather during a Rule 37 hearing that the area of the wound includes at least two different planes - the flat plane of the forehead and the curved area below the eyebrow which is part of the eye socket. So, the hinged jaw opened and clamped down, the upper teeth contacting the victim above the eyebrow and the lower teeth making contact below the eyebrow. What is impossible is that this wound was made by a rigid object, such as the butt of a knife.



BTW, from what I've reread, the dentures were given to Damien's attorneys. I'm assuming that the attorneys at the time passed them on to the next set of attorneys and so on. So, hopefully, they are in the hands of the defense team and investigations are ongoing - possibly some of the "ongoing testing" that is often mentioned without elaboration.

I asked for a demonstration, not an explanation, because best I've been able to figure the biting scenario which Paid has been suggesting and you've just described looks something like this:



But of course nobody could contort their mouth into anywhere close to such a postilion. So, if you, Paid, or anyone else can create a diagram to demonstrate how one could rightly bite a forehead with their upper and lower teeth at anywhere close to the respective the angles to the skin which Paid's comparisons have been done at, please share.

It's not a bite mark now, and it never was, but if it was indeed a bite mark, look at the area it covers, from the left edge of the nasal bridge to not even midway across the child's brow. It's so small, it would have to have been inflicted by a toddler.

Yeah, I don't think the area of the bite mark, if it is a bite mark, tells us anything other than how wide the person's mouth was open. Its the size of the teeth marks which would tell us more.

Not that I believe at all in the bite mark.

So where did we get to with the lake knife? What percentage of the population owned a knife consistent with the lake knife - any nons want to take that one on?