Terry Hobbs vs Natalie Maines - Pure Puffery?
With all the hype surrounding Terry Hobbs’s defamation suit against Natalie Maines Pasdar and the Dixie Chicks, it is easy to miss the fact that beneath all the bulky legal documentation lies what just may be a whole lot of nothing. A brief examination of the salient facts should put the suit in perspective.
In November of 2007, Pasdar published a letter on the Dixie Chicks website, "Letter from Natalie Maines:WM3 Call to Action", in which she implored her fans to support the West Memphis Three with cash donations to their defense fund. "DNA and forensic tests are expensive", she said. "They are also what will finally set these men free." .jpg)
The letter goes on to highlight several of the evidentiary items that were in Damien Echols’s federal filing, including the discovery that hairs found at the crime scene were linked by DNA testing to Steve Branch's stepfather Terry Hobbs and Hobbs's friend David Jacoby. Pasdar’s letter also made the following informational points:
- Sworn affidavits outlining new evidence uncovered by Pam Hobbs (the ex-wife of Terry Hobbs) who found a knife in Terry Hobbs’ drawer that her son (one of the victims) had carried with him at all times. After her son was killed, the knife was not among his personal effects that police gave to the Hobbs family, and Pam Hobbs has always assumed that her son’s murderer had taken it during the crime.
- New information implicating Terry Hobbs - including his own statements made to police in recent interview where he acknowledged that several of his relatives suspect him in the crime. The filing also includes a chronology of Hobbs' activities on the night of the crimes, when he washed his clothes and sheets at odd hours for no reason other than to hide evidence from the crimes [emphasis added].
This last statement may have pushed Hobbs over the edge. A year later, in November of 2008, Hobbs filed suit against Natalie Maines (Pasdar) individually, and the Dixie Chicks collectively (with Emily Robinson and Martha Seidel.) Hobbs charged the Chicks with "recklessly" making "malicious, libelous, slanderous, and false statements" about him on the "world-wide internet via an open letter on the Defendant Dixie Chicks website." This, Hobbs asserts, amounted to an accusation that he comitted the murders of Christopher Byers, Steve Branch, and Michael Moore, and caused Hobbs to "suffer personal injuries, injury to his reputation and professional and business damages for which he is entitled to recover compensatory and punitive damages as determined by a jury."
The offending statement about Hobb’s laundering routine was actually made by Pam Hobbs’s sister, Jo Lynn McCoughey. On May 6th, 1993, she was at the Hobbs’s house and observed Terry washing clothes, bed linens, even curtains. . . he was not just washing the dirty laundry", McCoughey said, "but was taking clothes out of the dresser drawers and washing those too. . . [I]t was my opinion that there was no other reason or pressing need that I am aware of for Terry to do that laundry at that time other than to hide evidence of the crimes." She’s right. It’s weird. Really weird. Why was Hobbs allegedly washing everything in sight hours after his stepson was found brutally murdered?
The problem for Hobbs is that Pasdar didn’t make the original statement; Jo Lynn McCoughey did, in a declaration made under oath to defense investigators. Pasdar just reported it. Nothing Pasdar said or wrote represented an original thought. Pasdar 's knowledge of the case is limited to what she gleaned from two HBO movies - Paradise Lost and Revelations: Paradise Lost 2, and what she has been told by Lorri Davis and the defense team. Hobbs disagreed, charging that the statement constitutes defamation, particularly in light of Pasdar’s celebrity, which caused the statement to be reported by Fox News, ABC TV, The Memphis Commercial Appeal, the Huffington Post and others. Pasdar’s lawyers countered on Friday September 4th, 2009 by asking the federal court charged with hearing the case for a summary judgement. This one could be over before it starts.
Size Matters
Terry Hobbs’s lawsuit, filed with the Ninth Circuit Court in Pulaski County, Arkansas, ran to six pages. Six pages. To date, Pasdar has dumped thousands of pages of documentation on Hobbs and his attorney, J. Cody Hiland of Conway, Arkansas. Unless Hobbs has unlimited financial resources to retain Hiland to review and respond to all that documentation, and possibly appear in court should it get that far, this suit will disappear faster than Jimmy Hoffa. Hiland was almost surely hoping for a settlement, but Pasdar apparently isn’t even considering it.
All that being said, a more fundamental question comes to mind: Did Terry Hobbs actually have anything to do with the murders of Steve Branch, Christopher Byers, and Michael Moore? Mark Byers believes that although it may take years for the law to answer that question, he already knows. "Terry Hobbs killed my son and needs to take responsibility for that." When asked by Memphis reporter Stephanie Scurlock if he could relate to what Terry Hobbs might be feeling, Mark said, "I can’t really relate to what he’s going through. I don’t know what it would be like to be guilty of killing three children and knowing that the hounds are on your tail."
Categories: uncategorized
Tags: Pasdar Natalie Maines Terry Hobbs John Mark Byers Damien Echols West Memphis Three
It's terribly ironic that Terry Hobbs filed this lawsuit because he allegedly felt his reputation had been ruined by Natalie. The documentation relating to the case contains far more incriminating evidence about Hobbs than anything else I have seen to date. I'm not going to point the finger at Hobbs because let's face it, I don't know him and I certainly don't know what really transpired the night those three boys were murdered, but if he was worried about his reputation before...well, now it has been blown to bits. And he only has himself to blame. I truly feel for the parents of the children...Mark, Pam...I hope closure comes soon in he form of real answers and true justice. God knows they deserve at least that.
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In my opinion, the type of person whose sole concern is his reputation, when the death of a child he claimed to love as his own is the subject at issue with a statement like the one made on the Dixie Chicks website (albeit not originally) is the type to have so little conscience as to kill them and feel no remorse.
I'll be honest with you...long before Hobbs was suspected openly in the media, I personally suspected his guilt when I watched the movie Paradise Lost, based on his demeanor; body language and lack of empathy - even for his (then)wife during the trial. The guy creeps me out! You wanna sue me too, Mr. Hobbs? Go ahead...you can't get blood from a turnip!!
You just chose a money bag where you saw one in a celebrity who's not afraid to be political - and you capitalized on it. What an ass! Also, why is it that Stevie's mom never said anything about her suspicions about her husband until they divorced?
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Of course, one has to remember that the same things could be said - and have been said - about John Mark Byers. I'm not sure that the HBO movies by Berlinger and Sinofsky yield any real information on Terry Hobbs. Mark Byers was the star, and the intent at the time was to make him look guilty of, well, something.
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Perhaps I am wrong as to whom I am identifying as Byers - vs - Hobbs (by facial recognition). It has been a couple years since I last watched the film, although I do own it. I think I will watch it again this weekend and be certain I am correct but then my comment about his primary concern was clearly the way he was personally being portrayed, not the loss of his child, I still stand by.
If it were not for this new DNA evidence linking the man to the crime scene none of this would be an issue. Obviously there is some truth to the accusation, with or without an actual malice finding. DNA doesn't lie. My legal career has taught me that much.
Without it, I'd still not have believed, based on the evidence (rather the lack thereof) that the boys murdered 3 kids and made it home in time for supper.
Besides, I am a mother. As a mother, if God forbid I had suffered the loss these folks have, I also would be too distraught over the injustice my child still suffers even in death to go in search of a celebrity to sue. My concern would have been finding his true murderer and seeing justice done. I think that was what irked me to be honest with you.
I admire Natalie Maines for taking a stand and not just settling out of court. The civil suit seems to have done a service at least in the respect that it opened up new dialogue and unearthed a lot of background, wouldn't you agree?
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First, it must be remembered that the DNA in question is mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA), and cannot do anything but exclude someone from a list of possible donors. The WM3 - and Mark Byers for that matter - were all excluded from this group. Terry Hobbs and David Jacoby were not. So no, DNA doesn't lie, but mtDNA can only tell you so much.I have read that Hobbs may be in a group comprising some 7% of the Caucasian population. Give or take. There is no way to prove whose hair was found in the Michael Moore ligature or on the tree stump. We can only be sure of who it doesn't belong to.
The WM3 didn't make it home in time for supper. Not sure where that came from. In fact, it is the lack of alibis for all three that cause many to doubt their innocence. Echols himself was seen on the service road near the murder scene at around 9:00 p.m. Despite disagreement over time of death, it is a fact that they were last seen around 6:00 p.m. and that the woods were full of searchers by 9:00. The boys were likely dead by then.
Now let's be fair. Fifteen years had gone by; Hobbs sued Maines in December of 2008, and it was because she was using her liberal bull horn to proclaim Hobbs' culpability in the murders. The reason Hobbs lost the suit was because Maines was able to prove that everybody was taking a pot-shot at Terry Hobbs, that she wasn't the first, and that Echols' legal team was the source of most of her statements. And no, I would not agree that Natalie Maines did anything but shoot off her mouth again (much as she did in London when she derided the President of the United States while she was on foreign soil. One listener's reaction to this was to suggest that Maines be strapped to a bomb and dropped over Baghdad. Creative). However, you're right on one count. Unwittingly, perhaps, by allowing himself to be deposed in the civil suit, all Hobbs' testimony is usable in any way the Echols team wants. It's public. I've watched the deposition several times, and I'm not sure I see a smoking gun anyway - a lot of innuendo for sure - but I'm not a lawyer. Let the barristers figure it out at the hearing.
Being a parent, grandparent, or sibling doesn't give any of us an automatic window into the hearts and minds of the parents of the victims. We can imagine how we might react if it happened to us, but we'd never really know. And even if we were the parents of a murdered child, we only know how we reacted; that doesn't mean everyone would react the same. Have you considered that Terry Hobbs might be a victim too?
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I can tell you why he washed everything in the house - grief. He needed something to do. Maybe you've never experienced a death that hits you in your soul, but you need to find something, ANYTHING to do besides think about the death. I read that and it's a no brainer for me that this man was overcome with grief.
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OMG OMG Are you kidding me? "Terry Hobbs might be a victim too." have you read everything? Answer just this one question why get his teeth pulled out? i would give 2 years of my life free of charge to investigate fully!
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That was Mark Byers that had his teeth pulled, not Terry Hobbs.
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Er, ok. I'm not sure what you're responding to. Maybe you can enlighten us?
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Greg, Hi...it's been a while
I just wanted to add here that while I absolutely agree that if we want to fight the good fight for due process and unbiased view of the WM3 than we should err on the side of caution and NOT point fingers at others who may or may not be equally innocent of these crimes. I have to admit, also, that I was once one among many WM3 supporters who believed Mark was guilty of killing the three boys in 1993. That was before several things happened - among them (1) a BUNCH of new evidence has surfaced, including the Mt DNA which excluded Byers as well as Echols and his buddies as the killer(s) and (2) I went on to study law and now have more functional understanding of how the system works. No, the DNA is not a smoking gun...although in consideration of what courts refer to as "the totality of circumstances test", I see why many other supporters now believe Hobbs isthe guilty party. His lack of an alibi, frequent inconsist statements and history of violence raise some serious red flags. I will, however, hebce forth, refrain from making snap judgements myself out of respect for the concept of "innocent until proven guilty" and all these mens' rights thereto. Greg, I appreciate your efforts to remain as objective as possible throughout all this. Be well.
Tina Musgrove
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