but even more painful, he says, is the question he s had to answer for the past 18 years. how often has someone asked you, did you kill those children? every single time i ve done an interview i ve been asked that. damien lives in 24-hour lockdown. he s been convicted of murdering stevie branch, christopher byers and michael moore, all 8-year-olds, all found naked and bound in a gully on may 6th, 1993. it s hard. like i said, it doesn t get any easier, and you would think i d be used to this by now, but you don t get used to this. and it does continue to get worse as time goes by. but it s a question he s had to answer ever since that day in 1993, when 17-year-old jessie misskelley confessed to witnessing this most heinous of crimes.
on may 5th, 1993, the three boys went to school, came home and went out to play. stevie branch s mother, pam hobbs, remembers it like it was yesterday. we wasn t home probably five or ten minutes when michael moore came over and asked if stevie could come and go ride bikes with him. and i was telling him, i said, not today, son, i m getting ready for work and i m cooking and all that, and he and michael just kept begging and begging, please, let me go. so like a lot of parents do, i gave in and i said okay. do you remember the last thing stevie said to you? i love you, mama. and rode off and just as happy as he could be. steve branch, christopher byers and michael moore were all last seen right here on this street. and they were doing what 8-year-old boys would normally do. they were playing, having fun,
three little boys missing in west memphis, arkansas. their families frantically searching a wooded area near their homes. pam hobbs and her husband, terry, among them. but pam held little hope for her son, stevie branch. i told terry, i said, he s dead. i said, i ll never see him alive again, and i was crying. and he said, no, pam, don t say that. it s going to be all right. we re going to find him. terry hobbs was right. they did find stevie. but pam was right, too. she d never see her son alive again. a shoe. two bikes. and stevie branch with his two friends, christopher byers and michael moore. the boys were nude and bound with their own shoelaces. i run up there and one look at my ex-husband and i knew it was stevie.
intelligent and articulate man describes why he believes the justice system failed him. and why there s still one question he never gets used to hearing. i ll just ask you the question. did you kill those boys? west memphis, arkansas, 1993. a small town, blue collar, steeped in religion, crisscrossed with truck traffic and interstates. just across the mississippi from graceland and beale street in memphis, tennessee. it s a quiet place most people drive past. but it was home for three 8-year-old boys named stevie branch, christopher byers and michael moore. they were best buddies. christopher started coming in to be friends, i m going to say, about a month or so before they passed away. but it was always stevie and michael moore.
when you heard about this confession, what went through your mind? well, the very first time i heard about it, they wouldn t even tell me what they were talking about. they brought me into the police station and the head cop comes in and he starts saying, you know, we already know you did it. you may as well go ahead and tell us what you did. jessie, damien and jason were all arrested hours after jessie s confession. we all, i think, breathed a sigh of relief that someone was in custody that was being accused of committing the crimes. pam hobbs is stevie branch s mother. based on what the police told you, they were 100% certain these were the guilty guys. uh-huh. and so believing in my justice system and believing that the police are to protect and serve, i really felt like they had the right ones and i wanted to do something to them.