David Jacoby

[Graznik]

I think it's highly unlikely that he didn't know where those woods were or that they were there. You could see them from the service road (and the interstate?!), and surely he must have driven on the god d*** service road at some point?! For a man that had lived in the area for several years and drove for a living, it would be really rather odd.
However, that doesn't mean that he had actually ever been in the woods before that night, although we obviously can't be sure of that either.

 

[Cher Lockhomes]

I agree with what Graznik was pointing out, I was a lorry driver myself for three years,. When you drive a pretty local route like TH, day for day, you tend to know the Area well. I can’t actually find anything where TH explicitly says he had never been in the woods.

Dimensions interview:

TH: A lot of the kids were saying,"Yeah,we seen three boys go into Robin Hood Hills." I didn't know where Robin Hood Hills was, as far as they called it.

Police Interview:

TH: Nothing other than I wouldn't have been out here, this is not a place I hang out.


On the evening of May the 5th, I can only find these two statements pointing to the woods.

JMB Statement:

„'Cause there's a little boy and girl that live there that Christopher would play with. And the little boy and little girl said, yeah, we saw Christopher and steven and Michael a little bit after 6:30, our mama was bringing us home from the store and we was coming down Goodwin, and we saw 'em going in the Robin Hood area. Well, then that concrete shoot, you know where the concrete part is that goes in down there just right off of 14th. So, Ryan and I then, came back to the house and Dana is around her house looking and then Terry Hobbs, I think had come up by then and told 'em you know, that that was the area they'd last seen. So we kind of all converged down there looking in the woods.“

DJ Statement::

„After awhile, Terry drove back to my house. I again went with Terry to ride around and look for Stevie. We drove two more times nearly the same route we had driven before. I remember that we again went by the apartment complex and saw some kids playing. Terry told the kids that he was looking for a little blond headed boy. A little black girl told Terry that he had seen that there were some boys riding their bikes near the woods near the apartments, which were the Robin Hood Hills Woods“

This statement by JMB „might“ imply that TH knew his way about the woods:

„Now i'll get to later on, thursday. I'll get to that in a minute. Uh, we started looking and looked in that area. It's now probably 8:30. It had got dark. And Terry said, well, he was going to spread out down, you know, towards where they were found. I don't know how far down that way he went, but he was going to look that way.“

There were a few more wooded areas in the vicinity, but Robin Hood was just a straight line from the Hobbs home. IMO, TH „leads“ everyone into the Robin Hill Woods (like the Pied Piper of Hameln), then makes sure he is the one who searches the „hot“ area.

 

[Graznik]

TH is ever so evasive when answering questions isnt' he?! Either he just responds with non-answers. "As far as the call it", "this is not a place I hang out". None of that actually means that he didn't know of the wooded area or that he had never been there.
I don't know, maybe I'm just knit picking here. But there are so many words and so few answers?!

Furthermore, he places himself in the woods at some pretty crucial hours of the evening. If he was indeed there, at around seven o'clock like he claims in one statement (was it the Pasdar interview?), and we assume (like he does) that the WM3 are guilty and go with the prosecutions theory, then he would have at very least heard something or seen the WM3.

I'm not saying he's the perp, and I don't want to further derail the thread, but there are just so many things that simply do not add up.

 

[Cher Lockhomes]

Just a few thoughts concerning Dj’s statements. First of all I’d like to quote John Douglas from his book „Law & Disorder“. This concerns a post I made in the TH thread: Post # 449

„As they got close to what turned out to be the murder scene, Terry reported to David that he heard something that sounded “evil.” He had a bad feeling about the place, so he turned around and they went the other direction. David thought this was odd because he was looking for Stevie and wouldn’t want to think he was in that “evil” place, but he didn’t say anything. I had the same reaction. If you are afraid for your son and you sense something bad, a parent’s natural instinct would be to go toward it to protect him, not recoil from it.“

This shows me that DJ has a good portion of common sense. At first I thought the following comments in his statements were a bit peculiar because they were not in a particular context, but I think since these statements took place 14 and 16 years after the murders, DJ has been thinking, and talking about these things because they seemed strange to himself. Maybe he also felt as if he had been manipulated.

This is from his 2007 Statement:

„at one point we got to ah ditch I rememberseeing some foot prints going down I know it was bicycle tire prints going down in the ditch/ and then we got up to ah there was a pipe that crossed the ditch got up to walk across that pipe and there was some muddy footprints on the pipe.“

This is from Law & Disorder:

„When they approached the drainpipe crossing, he noticed bicycle tracks, and also muddy footprints small enough to be children’s on the pipe itself“.

This is from his 2007 Statement again:

„I thank uh we all kinda of walked down toward the edge of the water it was a little grassy then all of a sudden it was just muddy uh I don't thank none of us really got in the mud. I remember myself when I seen it I walked down towards it I didn't step in the mud and I seen I thank it was tire tracks I'm pretty sure it was and I told the rest of em it look like they took their bikes threw the ditch right here but you could look to the other side and didn't see nothing coming out and I thought maybe they backed up so we Walked to where we could git to that I was wonting to say it was a black pipe going across there and there was you know foot prints from the mud on there so you know I assumed they had crossed it there and it really never dawn on me how they got their bikes across unless they carried it and they were all little kids so, I mean there was a West Memphis Police Officer there when we got in the woods and you know I told him this. I mean I don't where it went to but it was kind of frantic that night but...“

My theory is that the bicycle tracks and the footprints were staged by THe perp, and DJ and Jackie H. were later "shown" by THe perp.

Other things that DJ said that were interesting, they don’t necessarily mean anything but I’ll mention them anyway:

The story with the marble in „West of Memphis“
This comment in the 2007 statement:

„Sometimes you know he came over and Steve came by the house before dark you know. And he throw his bicycle in the back of the truck they only lived you know a couple blocks away from me where I lived on north l7th. But I really I couldn't you know I didn't as far as I can remember man there was no difference in his demeanor or anything.“

 

[Cher Lockhomes]

DJ 2007 statement:

„13. After awhile, Terry drove back to my house. I again went with Terry to ride around and look for Stevie. We drove two more times nearly the same route we had driven before. I remember that we again went by the apartment complex and saw some kids playing. Terry told the kids that he was looking for a little blond headed boy. A little black girl told Terry that he had seen that there were some boys riding their bikes near the woods near the apartments, which were the Robin Hood Hills Woods.“


I still have a strong feeling that THe perp was disturbed by „Mr Bojangles“ while busy staging the murder scene. I think it’s possible that THe perp possibly thought that „Mr Bojangles“ came from the Mayfair apartments, and had fled in this direction. I don’t think he asked the little Black girl about Stevie, but about a Black man. Just brainstorming.

 

[Justiceseeker35]

Just a few thoughts concerning Dj’s statements. First of all I’d like to quote John Douglas from his book „Law & Disorder“. This concerns a post I made in the TH thread: Post # 449

„As they got close to what turned out to be the murder scene, Terry reported to David that he heard something that sounded “evil.” He had a bad feeling about the place, so he turned around and they went the other direction. David thought this was odd because he was looking for Stevie and wouldn’t want to think he was in that “evil” place, but he didn’t say anything. I had the same reaction. If you are afraid for your son and you sense something bad, a parent’s natural instinct would be to go toward it to protect him, not recoil from it.“

This shows me that DJ has a good portion of common sense. At first I thought the following comments in his statements were a bit peculiar because they were not in a particular context, but I think since these statements took place 14 and 16 years after the murders, DJ has been thinking, and talking about these things because they seemed strange to himself. Maybe he also felt as if he had been manipulated.

This is from his 2007 Statement:

„at one point we got to ah ditch I rememberseeing some foot prints going down I know it was bicycle tire prints going down in the ditch/ and then we got up to ah there was a pipe that crossed the ditch got up to walk across that pipe and there was some muddy footprints on the pipe.“

This is from Law & Disorder:

„When they approached the drainpipe crossing, he noticed bicycle tracks, and also muddy footprints small enough to be children’s on the pipe itself“.

This is from his 2007 Statement again:

„I thank uh we all kinda of walked down toward the edge of the water it was a little grassy then all of a sudden it was just muddy uh I don't thank none of us really got in the mud. I remember myself when I seen it I walked down towards it I didn't step in the mud and I seen I thank it was tire tracks I'm pretty sure it was and I told the rest of em it look like they took their bikes threw the ditch right here but you could look to the other side and didn't see nothing coming out and I thought maybe they backed up so we Walked to where we could git to that I was wonting to say it was a black pipe going across there and there was you know foot prints from the mud on there so you know I assumed they had crossed it there and it really never dawn on me how they got their bikes across unless they carried it and they were all little kids so, I mean there was a West Memphis Police Officer there when we got in the woods and you know I told him this. I mean I don't where it went to but it was kind of frantic that night but...“

My theory is that the bicycle tracks and the footprints were staged by THe perp, and DJ and Jackie H. were later "shown" by THe perp.

Other things that DJ said that were interesting, they don’t necessarily mean anything but I’ll mention them anyway:

The story with the marble in „West of Memphis“
This comment in the 2007 statement:

„Sometimes you know he came over and Steve came by the house before dark you know. And he throw his bicycle in the back of the truck they only lived you know a couple blocks away from me where I lived on north l7th. But I really I couldn't you know I didn't as far as I can remember man there was no difference in his demeanor or anything.“

My line of thinking is everything was going fine until TH caught the boys at home and everything turned bad. I think he only joined the "search" to find out where the neighborhood last saw the boys or where most of the sightings centered on so he could plan the disposal site. He looked around in those woods because from his own admission in two interviews he had not gone into those woods before that night. I think all the talk about evil feelings and bad omens was because before the party went to the discovery site he had already chosen it at a distance as the spot, so he convinced them to turn around. But it was close enough for the search party to decide the area was searched well enough. I believe during the time TH was playing guitars the kids really were riding bikes by the pipe bridge and therein lies the bike tire tracks and children's foot prints. DJ is our best witness for TH's time line

 

[Cher Lockhomes]

DJ recently declared that seeing the three boys behind TH on May the 5th ’93 was a dream.

https://www.facebook.com/WestMemphisThreeFacts/posts/651841564835311

He implies that the wmpd did not reproduce his statement correctly.
Now we know about the incompetence of the wmpd, but what does this comment do for DJ’s integrity ?

Were other things in his statement, like playing guitars with TH, also a dream ? Does changing his statement to „I didn’t see the boys on May the 5th“ benefit TH in any way ? It doesn’t make any sense to me. I never put too much weight on this part of DJ’s statement because of his in-certainty. I find the Dana M. sighting: (6 o,clock)

http://callahan.8k.com/wm3/ebtrial/danam.html



and the Jamie Clark Ballard, Brandie Clark Williams, Deborah Moyer sighting: (5:30 to 6:30)

http://callahan.8k.com/pdf/affidavit_deborah_moyer.pdf
http://callahan.8k.com/pdf/affidavit_brandy_clark_williams.pdf
http://callahan.8k.com/pdf/affidavit_jamie_clark_ballard.pdf

much more convincing.

I find it interesting that CB’s skateboard was not mentioned, and that they are both in the same vicinity, and at similar times. Dana saw two bikes, the three ladies one.

Happy New Year to all "sleuths". Will 2015 bring forth the perp/s ? I think it's too much to hope for, but hope is all we have.

 

[GoblinKeeper]

What I find interesting is that this was a thread started to look into the statements made by David Jacoby. There seems to have been a consistent attempt for a couple of pages to derail this discussion by constantly harping on material which has absolutely nothing to do with the subject of this thread. This leads me to believe that non-supporters (I despise labels, but truthfully, those who do not support the WM3 are non-supporters) deliberately and insistently endeavored to fulfill the role of "trolls" and disrupt those who were actually on topic. I am not naming names, but if you cannot contribute to the subject at hand, please move your comments to the appropriate thread and do not contribute to disorder here.
Thank you, I will now get off my soapbox and return you to your normally scheduled programming.

 

[Lethalmatthew]

Don't know what to make of David Jacoby. In his police interview, he states that he first went looking with TH when it was getting dark. They had to drive to DJ's house to get some flash lights. In his statement, he mentions a '10-15 minute' search around the neighborhood. After that search, TH searched some places on his own, before returning to DJ's house. They went looking together, asking some kids near the Mayfair Appartments if they had seen SB and the other boys. Then they returned to get the flashlights. And in the West of Memphis documentary, he tells an even different story. He says that TH was looking for SB when he first came to his house. They played some guitars (makes no sense), before DJ said to TH: 'Let me know when you find Stevie', after which TH leaves. He also says (in WoM) something peculiar: 'It just gets me that he didn't come back, you know? Why do you not come back to your friend's house to help you if you can't find your kid?' Was this when TH dropped DJ off at his house to pick up flash lights? In his interview, DJ says that TH and him continued the search after that, while in his statement, DJ says that TH didn't come back.
Is DJ just confused about what happened, or is TH telling him to lie about certain things to give him an alibi? BTW, I don't think there is any way that DJ was involved in the murders. He had no motive whatsoever, and in WoM he says (if I heard it correctly) that he had quite a lot of empathy for Stevie, since he himself was a stepson who was contantly beaten by his stepfather.

 

[Compassionate Reader]

Here's what I think. DJ was referring to TH not coming back when TH went to get the flashlights. DJ joined in on the search when a lot of other people did. From the best I can figure out, they played cards; TH left and returned to leave AH at DJ's to search for SB; DJ went with him at that time; TH left AH again and searched briefly for SB alone (about a 30 minute window when he was alone - the first of several, some even longer); TH went back and got DJ and they searched again (both searches from the car and lasting about 15 minutes each); TH took DJ home, said he was going to get flashlights and never returned; DJ joined the search on his own around 8 pm and searched (mainly with TH, but sometimes not) until the wee hours (about 2 am) of May 6th.

 

[Lethalmatthew]

From the best I can figure out, they played cards; TH left and returned to leave AH at DJ's to search for SB; DJ went with him at that time; TH left AH again and searched briefly for SB alone (about a 30 minute window when he was alone - the first of several, some even longer); TH went back and got DJ and they searched again (both searches from the car and lasting about 15 minutes each); TH took DJ home, said he was going to get flashlights and never returned

Does that leave TH with enough time to kill the boys, in your opinion?

 

[Compassionate Reader]

Certainly. The actual murders probably only took 20 to 30 minutes. The disposal and cover-up took longer, but he had all night! There were several stretches of time in which he was MIA.

 

[Userid]

Does that leave TH with enough time to kill the boys, in your opinion?

Good question. I think it's iffy. I believe the actual murders themselves took at least an hour. And even if these murders did take place in a wooded area, the killer isn't just going to leave the bodies out in the open. He would at least obscure the bodies by moving them and using branches, etc. Then, he would immediately have to collect the clothing, and place those somewhere also. I believe all of this would take around 1 1/2 to 2 hours. Throw on the fact that the killer would have change/wash up immediately after, you definitely have at least 2 hours there.

This murder could only be done in 20 to 30 minutes if the killer had help, and even then, it would take longer than 20 minutes.

I guess my main point is that, TH could not have committed these murders in 20 to 30 minutes by himself. No way in hell. Nobody could.

 

[KAYTOM]

Good question. I think it's iffy. I believe the actual murders themselves took at least an hour. And even if these murders did take place in a wooded area, the killer isn't just going to leave the bodies out in the open. He would at least obscure the bodies by moving them and using branches, etc. Then, he would immediately have to collect the clothing, and place those somewhere also. I believe all of this would take around 1 1/2 to 2 hours. Throw on the fact that the killer would have change/wash up immediately after, you definitely have at least 2 hours there.

This murder could only be done in 20 to 30 minutes if the killer had help, and even then, it would take longer than 20 minutes.

I guess my main point is that, TH could not have committed these murders in 20 to 30 minutes by himself. No way in hell. Nobody could.

I've seen people get knocked out within a minute of a fight breaking out. I think a grown adult + the element of surprise + blunt force trauma could really narrow the window to within 5 minutes and 1 perp. One boy gets hit right from the start out of rage and falls, the kids freeze up for a second and another gets hit and falls, MM's instincts kick in and he starts to run where he outran by a grown adult 20 feet away. The woods are also close to the highway where the noise would drown out any noise from the murders. I think it happened and the perp didn't want to risk coming back to conceal. plus they drown. He knocked them all out and made the split decision to cover his tracks now instead of later, so he unclothed them, tied them up, placed them in the water and left. I think it all could happen in 10 minutes. Maybe he comes back later to double check and clean up any remaining evidence.

 

[Userid]

^ The boys have defensive wounds (SB, particularly) on their hands, indicating that the above scenario (where two of the boys get knocked out with one punch) could not have occurred.

 

[KAYTOM]

DJ 2007 statement:

„13. After awhile, Terry drove back to my house. I again went with Terry to ride around and look for Stevie. We drove two more times nearly the same route we had driven before. I remember that we again went by the apartment complex and saw some kids playing. Terry told the kids that he was looking for a little blond headed boy. A little black girl told Terry that he had seen that there were some boys riding their bikes near the woods near the apartments, which were the Robin Hood Hills Woods.“


I still have a strong feeling that THe perp was disturbed by „Mr Bojangles“ while busy staging the murder scene. I think it’s possible that THe perp possibly thought that „Mr Bojangles“ came from the Mayfair apartments, and had fled in this direction. I don’t think he asked the little Black girl about Stevie, but about a Black man. Just brainstorming.

I forget the details, but doesn't it seem odd that TH is looking all over the place instead of stopping by the other parent's houses? Seems like he isn't really looking for them and maybe avoiding the other parents/ establishing an alibi? It was definitely odd that DJ got so shaken up when talking to John D. There is a lot to be said about intuition. The brain is processing a lot more than you'd think subconsciously.

 

[KAYTOM]

you can hit somebody a split second later if they block the first strike right? and whose to say he struck their hands first? They could have already been dazed by the first blow and put their hands up for the second or while they are on the ground. In any event, i think you are taking my break down a little too literal and drawing a conclusion too fast.

 

[Lethalmatthew]

^ The boys have defensive wounds (SB, particularly) on their hands, indicating that the above scenario (where two of the boys get knocked out with one punch) could not have occurred.

The autopsy speaks of contusions on the hands of SB. Does that mean that he held his hands on his head when the perp hit him?

 

[Userid]

you can hit somebody a split second later if they block the first strike right? and whose to say he struck their hands first? They could have already been dazed by the first blow and put their hands up for the second or while they are on the ground. In any event, i think you are taking my break down a little too literal and drawing a conclusion too fast.

Never said anything about whether the killer struck with his hands first or not. Simply stated a fact: the boys have defensive wounds on their hands -- this is established.

Perhaps I am taking your scenario a little too literally, but then again, I think that is the only way to take it, no?

The amount of defensive wounds found on the hands of SB would indicate that he had his hands up for a good amount of time, in that they are very present and numerous...so again, I can't really buy your scenario, respectfully.

 

[Userid]

The autopsy speaks of contusions on the hands of SB. Does that mean that he held his hands on his head when the perp hit him?

I'm certainly no expert, but I assume so; around his head, in front of his face.