Terry Hobbs, stepfather of West Memphis murder victim Stevie Branch, thought he was in for a big payday after filing a federal defamation suit against Natalie Pasdar (Maines) of the Dixie Chicks for comments she made during a press conference in Little Rock in 2007……not so fast.
In fact, the US District Court ordered Terry Hobbs to pay Natalie Maines $17,000 in legal fees for the frivolous lawsuit that he brought against her. Court order
Unfortunately for Hobbs, Judge Brian Miller of the Federal District Court for the Eastern District of Arkansas wasted little time in summarily dismissing the lawsuit a few months ago, but not before Hobbs was deposed for two days by Maines’s attorneys. “It’s your testimony that you did not see Stevie Branch at all the day of May 5th of 1993. Correct?” Hobbs’s answer: “Correct.” “Did you see Stevie at all that day, May 5th?” Answer: “No, I did not.” “Did you see any of the three boys that day?” Answer: “No, I did not. No I never seen Stevie that day.”
Hobbs’s statements under oath completely undermine his alibi, as new eyewitnesses have recently come forward to place him with the children immediately before they disappeared and were murdered.
Damien Echols, Jason Baldwin and Jessie Misskelley had strong alibis for their whereabouts the evening of the murders. They did not know the three children, were never seen with them, did not live near them or have any connection whatsoever to their families. Their DNA was not at the crime scene. According to the country’s leading forensic pathologists, a knife was not used to kill the three boys, and most of the wounds on their bodies were postmortem animal bites, completely contradicting the prosecution’s own theory of the causes of death.
As we said about Natalie Maines in a previous entry, she, more than most, knows the perils of taking an unpopular public position. What she has done in the efforts to free the West Memphis 3 is nothing short of selfless. Now she is $17,000 richer.
Lonnie Soury