WMC-TV: News, Weather, Traffic, Radar, and Sports for Memphis, TN; WMCTV.com | DNA evidence may connect family member to West Memphis 3 crime scene
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More than a decade after three young West Memphis boys turned up dead in a drainage ditch, Action News 5 has learned DNA evidence may connect a family member to the crime scene.
14 years ago, three 8-year old boys were found murdered in West Memphis. Now, there is new information about the investigation.
The murders literally shocked the world.
It used to be wooded but after the three boys died it was all cut down. Now there may be new evidence that could lead to a hearing for the so -called West Memphis Three.
Our cameras caught the high powered defense team made up of international forensic scientists and an attorney from California when the group came to the Arkansas State Crime Lab in Little Rock in May.
They came to look at DNA evidence in the West Memphis Three case hoping to find something that would lead to a new hearing for Damien Echols, Jason Baldwin and Jessie Misskelley. What they have discovered is now coming out.
A Leiutenant from the West Memphis police department interviewed Pam Hobbs and her ex- husband Terry Hobbs recently.
Pam is the mother of Stevie Branch, one of the three 8-year-old boys murdered 14 years ago in West Memphis.
Sources say DNA from Terry Hobbs, Stevie Branch's step-father, was discovered in the rope used to tie up one of the boys.
Pam Hobbs recently did an interview that aired on Action News 5 in which she said she believes another suspect is still out there.
"I feel like the ones that killed my son, the three that were tried and convicted, they are guilty but I am like everyone else, was there someone else out there other than those three," said Hobbs.
The bodies of the three young boys were found in what was known as Robinhood Park in West Memphis.
Stevie Branch and Michael Moore died from drowning, and Christopher Byers died from blood loss after he was stabbed in the groin.
The West Memphis Three are behind bars. Damien Echols is on death row. All three say they are not guilty, despite their convictions.
The new West Memphis Three defense team hopes to get a hearing on the new evidence sometime this summer.
Arkansas prosecutors are also looking at the case.
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