West of Memphis Page #11

intentions of finger-pointing at Terry Hobbs.

I don't even know

that Terry Hobbs did it.

I sort of asked my attorney,

"Why would he be doing this?"

He was confident

that he was gonna win

and he was gonna get

millions of dollars.

I think he's gutsy.

He had to have been warned that if he

did that, he would have to be deposed,

which he was,

and have to answer questions.

JACKSON:
We gave Natalie's

attorney, D'Lesli Davis,

access to our investigative files

on Terry, his background,

his relationship with Stevie.

And it enabled them to basically

sit him down

and to finally question him

in a way that he had never, ever been

questioned about this murder before.

Describe your reputation, other than just

"a good man." What else would it be?

A hard-working man, good dad,

good husband in the past.

Uh...

Pretty good man.

Are you an honest fellow?

I try my best.

Law-abiding man?

I do pretty good at it.

GEISER:
We started doing

background on Terry.

I went to Garland County because

I knew he had lived there before,

specifically to interview his ex-wife.

And it raised some flags at that point.

She told me he had gotten in trouble.

I went to the court records

in Garland County and was able to pull

that incident involving Mildred French.

Let me give you a minute to go through

the declaration of Mildred French.

All right.

D'LESLl:
Have you read it?

No, I'm not going to.

Why not?

It don't mean nothing to me.

Why doesn't it mean anything to you?

It just don't.

Mildred French was a neighbor of yours

back in the '80s, wasn't she?

I don't remember.

D'LESLl:
Paragraph number four, "On

one occasion I heard a baby crying"

and sounds that indicated to me that Terry

Hobbs was beating his wife and/or his child."

She kind of let out a cry,

and then I heard the baby.

D'LESLl:

"I ran next door to Terry's unit

and rang the bell

to Terry Hobbs' residence."

He said it was none of my business,

and I said, "I'm making it my business,

you do it again."

I said,

"Because I've heard you before."

D'LESLl:

Do you recall she was your neighbor?

Some old woman was.

"A few months later,

I worked outside in my yard.

I went inside my home to take a shower

and get cleaned up."

FRECH:
And I got out of the tub and when

I was reaching in to get the towel...

D'LESLl:

"Terry Hobbs, who had broken in

and somehow gotten upstairs

into my bathroom..."

I didn't see him come into the bathroom.

He just grabbed me on my breasts.

D'LESLl:
"I screamed at Terry loudly,

'What are you doing in my house?'".

And screamed, 'Get out!"'

FRENCH:
He said, "Shh! Shh!"

D'LESLl:
"I kept repeating loudly."

FRENCH:
"Get out of my house!"

D'LESLl:
"And ultimately Terry ran out of

my home and ran downstairs into his unit."

What is your recollection

of those events...?

I don't have any.

Let me finish.

What is your recollection of the reason

that the police were called

and those events that Ms. French

remembers so clearly?

I don't have any.

"I said to Terry,

'Tell them what you did to me.'."

Terry looked at me square in the eye

and said calmly, 'It never happened.'

I looked at Terry and told him,

'You are a liar and you are sick..

And I say, "You know, you're sick."

And he says, "Yeah, I'm sick."

I never did like him, I mean...

Even when Pam first married him,

.there was just always something.

He creeped me out.

Do you lose your temper very often?

No.

Pretty even-keeled guy?

Try to be.

He's got a look that's plum evil,

and when that look of evil comes

over him, you know, I know he's mad.

What... What's this?

DAVISON:
It is a judgment

against one Terry W. Hobbs

for aggravated assault in '94,

in conjunction with the shooting

of your brother-in-law.

Is that your signature at the bottom

of the first page, sir?

It is.

He can snap into a nice guy

and a bad guy by a snap of a finger.

D'LESLl:

You did backhand Pam Hobbs

the night you ended up

shooting her brother,

correct? Okay.

Is that correct?

Yeah. All right.

Is that funny?

Well, it's... You get tired of talking

about it after a while.

I need, for the record, for you

to state under oath that you did

I did. Backhand Pam Hobbs.

It was over a jealousy of a woman.

I was just trying to get away

and calm down, cool off,

and come back home,

and he wouldn't let me have the keys.

So he punched me pretty hard

that day.

D'LESLl:
Were you jealous over the

attention that Pam gave to Stevie?

No. Did you compete with Stevie

for Pam's attention? No.

He had made a comment to his mom

that I paid more attention to my son

than I did, you know,

being a wife, so...

JUDY:
Stevie started talking to me

probably when he was about 6 years old,

and he wanted to know

if I could keep a secret.

And I told him, yeah, because we were

really... We were very, very close.

Kind of like, you know,

grew up together.

Because I was 8 years old

when he was born.

Daddy Terry, as he called him,

was mean to him.

And that he... He treated him

different than Amanda.

The very first thing he ever told me

is about how he would whup him.

Make him hold his hands up

in the air,

and he would hold him

by the hair of his head

while he was whupping him.

D'LESLl:
He'd hold their hands

in the air as he whipped them.

Sometimes when he whipped Stevie,

he would leave belt marks on him.

Is that true? No.

Is it true you whipped Stevie with a belt?

Yes.

Is it true that you whipped Stevie and

made him hold his hands up in the air?

I didn't want to hit him

on the hands.

So that's true? Yes.

The only thing that's not true

about paragraph number 1O

is that you would leave

belt marks on him?

Not that I recall.

MARIE:
Stevie had a belt mark on him,

and I asked Pam who whipped him.

I thought she had

and she said Terry did.

She didn't want to tell at first,

but she finally told me.

Stevie never would tell us because

he's afraid he'd get beat to death

or whatever when he got home.

JUDY:
And about locking him up in the

closet if he didn't do what he was told

right when he was told.

I lived with them.

I was around them off and on.

It was a happy time.

I've got pictures,

everybody's smiling,

everybody's happy.

Everybody's swimming,

everybody's having a good time.

There was no fighting

and screaming and hollering

and beating the kids

and stuff like that.

I can't say, "I wish he wouldn't

have married her." I can now.

Back then I didn't know her

enough to say, "Ew."

But I do now, so, "Ew."

Then he got into a little more detail about

things that were happening about...

Terry would come into his room

while he was asleep or going to sleep...

and he would make

Stevie watch him masturbate.

It progressed so much that he started

making Stevie mess with Amanda.

D'LESLl:
Is that true, sir?

No, it's not true.

Can you think of any reason that

Judy Sadler would say that about you

if she had not heard that from Stevie?

You'd have to ask Judy.

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