Updated Sat. 8:30 PT
At a news conference on Saturday, the filmmakers and legal team behind "West of Memphis" made it clear that they'd be delighted to be sued by Terry Hobbs, the man they strongly suggest is responsible for the triple murder for which three young men spent nearly 20 years in prison.
"Let him have at it," said Dennis Riordan, an attorney who led the legal battle of Damien Echols, Jason Baldwin and Jessie Misskelly, the "West Memphis Three," to regain their freedom.
Hobbs has sued before and lost. But the filmmakers go out on a limb, almost inviting a new lawsuit in implicating him in the murder of his stepson and two eight-year-old playmates in 1993.
"Things worked out very well for us when he sued Natalie Maines," said Riordan with a smile.
That suit came in 2007, when Maines pointed out that DNA evidence tied Hobbs, not Echols or Baldwin or Misskelly, to the crime scene.
Not only did Hobbs lose his defamation case, but he was ordered to pay Maines' $18,000 legal bills – and crucially, he was deposed about the day of the murder for the first time.
The resulting deposition footage is a key part of "West of Memphis." In it, Hobbs laughs off and refuses to answer some questions about his history of violence, and gives an account of the evening of the murder that contradicts the testimony of eyewitness.
This week, the West Memphis Three's legal team released additional information implicating Hobbs, in the form of the December depositions and polygraph tests of three people who say the killings were a "Hobbs family secret" known to Hobbs, his brother and his nephew. (The accounts are based on overheard conversations and things the nephew told his friends, and are thus not admissible in court.)
Also read: Peter Jackson's West Memphis 3 Doc Reveals New Allegations
"We would never say that we have proof positive beyond a reasonable doubt that Terry Hobbs did it," said attorney Stephen Braga at a Sundance press conference on Saturday.
"But the case is building, and that allows us to go to [district attorney] Scott Ellington and say, 'Can we work with you instead of against you?' And he has indicated that he is receptive to that."
Officially, Echols, Baldwin and Misskelly remain guilty of the murders of Christopher Byers, Steven Branch and Michael Moore. They were released from prison in August under an unusual "Alford plea," which allowed them to plead guilty but still assert their innocence.
And while Braga said that the three could be exonerated even if nobody else is convicted of the murders, he added that realistically, it would take a successful prosecution of the real killer to reverse the convictions obtained in a trial rife with innuendo about Satanic cults.
The evidence pointing to Hobbs is one of the centerpieces of Amy Berg's film – and while Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky brought up many of the same charges in "Paradise Lost 3: Purgatory," which recently debuted on HBO, "West of Memphis" spends far more time on the Hobbs side of the case.
