Devil's Knot: The True Story of the West Memphis Three (46 page)

173. “When you arrived at the residence of Mr. Baldwin,” Ford said, “basically what you were doing was going from one room to the other, one drawer to the next, one closet to the next, looking for something in that color range or fiber type, the right type of material, the right color of material, that might match what you had obtained in your lab at Little Rock. Is that correct?” Sakevicius answered, “That’s correct.”

174. Author interview with Fogleman, April 2001.

175. Gerald Coleman was appointed to represent the Echols family after they were subpoenaed by Fogleman.

176. The Eighth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution forbids “cruel and unusual punishment.”

177. Death-qualified juries are those from which anyone harboring reservations about imposing the death penalty is excluded.

178. After a hiatus of fourteen years, during which the death penalty was deemed unconstitutional, executions in Arkansas had resumed in 1990. Between then and the time of these pretrial hearings, the state had executed four men, one by electrocution and three by lethal injection.

179. Wilkins testified at a pretrial hearing in November 1993 that he held a Ph.D. in psychology from Cornell University and that he was a member of the American Congress of Forensic Psychology.

180. The speedy trial rule requires the state to bring a criminal defendant to trial within twelve months, unless his attorneys request a delay.

181. Crow told Burnett, “We were constantly confronted with people stating, ‘They can’t get a fair trial, but I’m not going to sign for them because I want the blankety-blank to fry.’ That’s the kind of attitude we have in this district, Your Honor.”

182. Author interview, April 2001.

183. The diver, who did not testify at trial, was identified by Sergeant Allen as Joel Mullens, of the Arkansas State Police.

184. Author interview, April 2001.

185. The article, published on November 18, 1993, was written by Kathleen Burt. Burt also took the photo.

186. Seth was born on September 9, 1993.

187. Frances Goza Haynes had lived with Pam and her children for all of Damien’s life.

188. Shettles wrote, “Michael does not know what causes him to shake,” and at times, “his arm jerks uncontrollably.” She showed him some of the police investigative reports. While Damien was reading one, she wrote, he “asked about the significance of a notation that the full moon was at 7:41
P
.
M
. I told him I could only assume perhaps the full moon had significance if the murders were cult related.” Damien then told Shettles that a new Baptist minister had recently visited him and asked to pray with him. Because the man was polite, rather than imposing as the others had been, Damien had agreed. Shettles recounted: “The minister asked if he could touch Michael, placing his hand on Michael’s shoulder. Again Michael agreed and the minister asked him to repeat after him that Michael renounced cult activity, demon worship, and would accept Jesus as his savior. Michael repeated the words and the minister asked if he felt different. Michael told him he did not. The minister left after giving a brief sermon and thanked the men in the cellblock for not killing him.”

189. At another point, Driver described a conversation he said he’d had with the pastor of Saint Michael’s Catholic Church, where Damien had studied to become a Catholic. Driver told Durham that someone had broken into the sacristy, and that the priest had suspected Damien, though the culprit was never found. “Of course,” Driver continued, “that’s one of the things that those guys do—that kind of modus operandi. They go to the Catholic church and find out as much as they can, break into the sacristy, steal the host and the lunette, and that’s how some of them operate. That’s not to say he did that, but that would not be out of character with the things that they do.” But when Shettles contacted Father Greg Hart, the church’s former pastor, in February 1994, she wrote, “Father Hart stated he never had a conversation with Jerry Driver about a break-in. The sacristy had never been broken into.”

190. The boy’s name was Buddy Sidney Lucas. During the interview, Lax asked Lucas if the statement he’d given to Ridge and Durham had been the truth. Lucas answered, “I told them the truth, the first one I gave them. But they—but Durham—he screamed at me, yelled at me, like I was lying.”

Lax: “Did he tell you you were lying?”

Lucas: “Yes sir. He called me a liar.”

Lax: “Did he tell you what to say then?”

Lucas: “No sir. He didn’t tell me what to say, but I told him what I felt like he wanted to hear, and he was grinning.”

Lax: “He was grinning? And did you then give another statement on video camera?”

Lucas: “Yes sir.”

Lax: “Saying what you thought he wanted you to say?”

Lucas: “Yes sir.”

Lax: “And when you said what he wanted you to say, or at least what you thought he wanted you to say, did he scream and yell at you then?”

Lucas: “No sir.”

Lucas said he’d tried to satisfy Durham so that he “wouldn’t get into trouble.” He explained, “I mean, I didn’t know what to do. I mean, I don’t have no problems with the police. I ain’t never had to go and see the police. I mean, I ain’t never did nothing. I didn’t know what to do.”

191. According to Lax’s notes, the teenager, Christopher Littrell, said he felt that “Durham and Gitchell were trying to ‘good-guy/bad-guy’ him. He stated he was not scared or intimidated at all. He said he knew his rights and felt he could get up and walk out at any time.”

192. Lax tape-recorded the interviews with Stephanie Dollar, Linda Sides, Marine Collins, Jennifer Roberts, and Rhonda Dedman on January 11, 1994.

193. Lax noted that one woman told him, “She was talking about Aaron had seen this colored guy carrying knives and ropes.” Another reported that soon after the murders, she’d heard Aaron say “that he had been out in the woods with those other three boys before, and this black guy had chased them.” A third, Stephanie Dollar, reported that sometime after that, Aaron told her that the police had questioned him. Dollar recalled, “I said, ‘Really? What did you tell them?’ And he said, ‘I just told them that I seen a black man down there. He was either drinking whiskey or beer or something in a paper sack.’” Lax asked Dollar, “Did he seem upset at that time?” Dollar reportedly answered, “No. He was playing Nintendo with my little boy.” Another woman, Rhonda Lea Dedman, told Lax that she and Hutcheson had been “best friends.” Dedman said that on May 7, the day after the bodies were found, she had accompanied Hutcheson when she’d taken Aaron to the school counselor. Lax asked, “Did Aaron tell the counselor that he was present on the date that the little boys were murdered?” Dedman reportedly answered, “No sir.” Lax asked, “Or that he had had to fight any of the people off…. Or that he had been tied up?…Or if he [had given] her any indication that there was anything to it other than the fact that he had been with the little boys playing in that area in the past?” To each of those questions, Lax wrote, Dedman had answered, “No sir.” According to Lax’s notes, Jennifer Roberts, the seventeen-year-old niece of one of the women, said that on the afternoon the bodies were found, after her meeting with Bray, Hutcheson already had information that was not being reported by the media. “She said that they were mutilated and castrated and tied up.”

194. After reviewing the proposed agreement, Lax had cautioned, “Although I have no experience in the entertainment field, it seems as if Damien would be giving these individuals carte blanche to do as they like with whatever film they acquire.” He added, “I think we are all aware if Damien is found guilty of this crime and is sentenced to death, his appeals will continue, and believe the potential damage far outweighs any monetary remuneration he might receive.”

195. Concern was warranted. When word that Jason had been filmed reached Fogleman, the prosecutor subpoenaed the footage. A lawyer for HBO wrote to Ford and Wadley, assuring them that, “HBO will take all lawful steps…to vigorously resist turning over any footage.” In the end, Burnett denied the subpoena and that legal fight was averted.

196. At times, Byers ranted about, rather than to, the accused. In part of his tirade, he said: “Good Lord said Lucifer and a third of the angels were cast out of heaven. He didn’t need them. He took their minds and he manipulated them, and they prayed to Satan and they prayed to the devil and they had their satanic worship services out here, and they had all types of wild, homosexual orgies, I’ve been told. Crazy things. To me, this place, as I stand, is like hell on earth, because I know that three babies were killed right out here where I stand. I know my son was castrated and possibly lay right there on that bank and bled to death. I know that he was choked. I know one boy’s head was beat in beyond recognition. I know one little boy was skinned almost like a animal, cut, had to shave his head, had all types of injuries to the head where they just kept beating and pounding on them and killing them and killing them. It’s like they enjoyed it. They killed them two and three times.”

197. Byers’s speech while he shot at the pumpkins was chilling. “You know, Todd,” he said, raising his gun and taking aim, “I could save the state a lot of money if they’d just let me line the sons of a guns up. I’d say, ‘This one’s for you, Jessie. I’m going to go for the jug of water. [Firing.] Oh, Jessie, I just blowed you half in two, son. Now this one’s for you, Damien. You’re that black circle, right in the middle. [Firing.] Oh, you got hurt. [Taking aim again.] Hey, Jason, I want you to smile and blow me a kiss for this one.’ [Firing.] All right, let’s go back to Jessie. I just wounded him. I want him to bleed a little bit, like he made my baby bleed. [Firing.] ‘Oh, Jessie.’ You know that breaks my heart, thinking about that scum, because this right here is all that need to be done to ’im; be shot slowly, with a real nice firearm. And it ain’t got no consideration or feeling about who it’s aiming at, just like they didn’t care about killing my baby. I wouldn’t mind lining ’em up. I wouldn’t have no problem with it. [Taking aim again.] I think ol’ Jessie’s still kicking a little. We’ll put him out of his misery.”

198.
Commercial Appeal,
January 16, 1994.

199. From “A Conversation with Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky,” in a press release prepared by the producers, issued in 1996.

200. This from a handwritten statement and three pages of handwritten notes compiled by the West Memphis police on January 24, 1994, in the midst of Misskelley’s trial. These notes were not turned over to the defense teams until February 15, a week before the scheduled start of Echols and Baldwin’s trial. The member of the film crew who’d been given the knife was reported to have been Doug Cooper, a cinematographer.

201. These statements were also dated January 24 and not released until February 15.

202. The laboratory’s name was Genetic Design.

203. Author interview, May 2001.

204. Byers’s mother-and father-in-law, Kilburn and Dorris DeFir, also recalled the transfer of the knife as having been in November. Specifically, they said that Byers presented the knife to the member of the film crew at a Thanksgiving dinner given at the Byerses’ house, which the DeFirs and the film crew attended. In an interview at the DeFirs’ home in Memphis in April 2001, Kilburn DeFir said, “We were there. I saw Mark hand him the knife.”

205. Byers’s statements were clear and unequivocal. “No one” had been cut with the knife, and he himself had “never used it.” But at this point, Ridge proposed a possibility. “Is there a period of time,” Ridge asked, “that this knife may have been kept in the den by your chair?” Byers answered, “It seems like when I first got it, I trimmed on my fingernails some with it, right there under the lamp.”

Ridge: “Now, you say ‘when you first got it.’ Is that just that particular day it may have been there, or could it have been there for a period of time?”

Byers: “Possibly a day or two…”

Ridge: “Were you there with that knife that entire time? Was there ever a time that anybody, or a youngster, could have gotten to that knife without your knowing about it?”

Byers: “Well, I guess that I could have been to the bathroom or something, and I wasn’t in the room. It’s possible. But I never saw any evidence or signs that they had, and there was never any signs that they cut theirself with it…”

206. According to Lax’s notes, he spoke with Jonathan Karpa and Charlene Blum at the National Center for Forensic Science, which was a division of Maryland Medical Laboratory, Inc., located in Baltimore.

207. It was notable that no mention of Byers’s conviction for terroristic threatening had been placed into the murder file. Though the record had recently been expunged, the attack had taken place in nearby Marion; Fogleman, obviously, had been aware of it; and many police reports had been placed in the file relating to possible suspects with far less connection to the murders. It was, perhaps, even more odd that reports from the state police about their investigation of Byers with regard to the Rolex scam were not included in the file. This was particularly true since word had leaked that records of the police investigation into the burglary a year before the murders, in which the dog was stomped to death, had been included in the murder file. When asked why reports of that incident had been included in the file, Gitchell had explained, “This whole case is just so huge. Anything to do with [it], be it significant or insignificant, we followed up on.”

208. Davis had also opted not to prosecute Lieutenant Sudbury and the other investigators on the local drug task force after a state police investigation turned up evidence that they had been taking for personal use guns and other evidence seized in the line of duty.

209. The memo cited an interview that state police investigator Steve Dozier conducted on June 24, 1993, with Tom Larson of Dallas, Texas. In his final report on the Rolex fraud, Dozier wrote, “This case has been reviewed by the prosecutor, who declines to prosecute the suspect, Mark Byers, at this time.”

210. Description by Bob Lancaster in the
Arkansas Times,
April 7, 1994, after the conclusion of both of the trials.