Untying the Knot: John Mark Byers and the West Memphis Three (18 page)

• alprazolam (Xanax), 1 mg (antianxiety)

• lithium and lithonate, 300 mg (for bipolar and depressive disorder)

• Paxil capsules, 20 mg and 30 mg (antidepressant)

• Desyrel, 150 mg (trazadone, sedative/antidepressant)

Police also seized a small quantity of marijuana and paraphernalia, which Mark had told them they would find, and the contents of two glasses, one containing milk and the other peach schnapps. The search produced no clues that would be useful in determining how or why Melissa Byers had died. The autopsy was equally unproductive; on September 30, 1996, the medical examiner’s office ruled that the cause and manner of Melissa’s death was undetermined. They simply did not know exactly what had killed her, though as mentioned previously, there were some possibilities. Officer Stan Witt conceded that there was insufficient evidence to charge anyone with any crime, and on October 15, 1996, he requested that the case be designated as “inactive.”

In December 1997, nearly two years after Melissa’s death, state police interviewed one James Biby, an inmate at the Varner Unit, the prison facility where Jason Baldwin was housed at the time. Biby had been brought to the attention of state police by a confidential informant. Biby claimed that before he was incarcerated, he had been friends with Ryan “Byers” at Highland High School in Cherokee Village. Biby told Witt that he knew that Mark Byers had killed Melissa, that Byers had fed her pills and alcohol on the day she died. Biby said he knew this because he was there on the day she died. He further stated that Ryan had told him that his stepfather had been “in on” the killings of his stepbrother and two other little boys in West Memphis. Why Biby waited almost four years after Christopher’s murder and almost two years after Melissa’s death to come forward is obvious: he was lying and was surely looking to “deal away” some jail time. Curiously, Biby also told police that he had given a signed affidavit including these claims to be used in “some kind of documentary.” He said he had spoken to reporters and had also given the information to Jason Baldwin. Witt then had the following exchange with Biby:

Q. Have you ever seen Mark Byers give Melissa Byers illegal drugs?

A. Yes.

Q. What kind?

A. Pills, unknown, but I’ve took all kinds of pills with them. Valium, Xanax, Dilaudid, and Talwin pills.

Q. Have you ever seen Mark Byers force Melissa Byers to take any type of pills?

A. No.

Q. Why would he want to kill her?

A. I don’t know.

Q. How do you know what she died of?

A. I heard what the police said.

Q. Can you really say he killed her?

A. No, I cannot, but I believe he did in my mind.

Q. How long had it been since you saw Melissa Byers before she died?

A. I could not put a date on it. Maybe a few days or a few weeks.

Obviously, Biby was dismissed out of hand as having no reliable or verifiable information, and no action was taken. But police also interviewed one other person who seemed to think that Mark Byers was involved with the death of his wife.

Mandy
Beasley

Following Melissa’s death, Mandy Beasley and Mark started spending time together. The two had known each other since high school, and Beasley was no stranger to the Byerses’ house, having become friendly with Melissa after they all wound up as neighbors. At some point, Mark ended their relationship and lost touch with her. In December 1997—twenty-one months after Melissa’s death—Beasley gave a statement to state police investigator Stan Witt. In the statement, Beasley implicated Mark not only in Melissa’s death but also in the Atwood burglary and in the fire that had destroyed Atwood’s recreational vehicle. She also told police that there had been three syringes stashed in a dresser drawer at 75 Skyline Drive the night of Melissa’s death, but that police had failed to discover them during their search. She said that Mark later put the syringes in a can and tossed them in the trash. Although she stopped short of saying that there was a connection between the syringes and Melissa’s death, Beasley claimed that Mark had threatened to kill her if she told anyone about them.

We won’t ever know what went on between the two, but why Mark would threaten to kill Beasley over a couple of unused syringes is unclear. The police knew about Melissa’s drug use, and she’d been dead almost two years. Why would Mark care if Beasley told someone that a long time ago he had thrown some needles in the garbage? Beasley went on to say that Mark had told her he’d blown up Brenda Atwood’s RV by pouring gasoline around it and making a gas “fuse” leading to the road, where he had ignited it with a cigarette. What would Mark have had to gain from blowing up Brenda Atwood’s RV? Having been arrested for burglarizing her house, wouldn’t he have been the first suspect in the RV fire? Beasley added that she believed Mark to be a “pathological liar.” As far as “confessing” the Atwood burglary to Beasley, Mark had been convicted for that crime in August 1996, long before Beasley made her statement. As far as anyone knows, nothing was ever gained as a result of the Beasley statement.

Mandy Lou Beasley died of natural causes in Hardy, Arkansas, on July 26, 2002.

Melissa Byers is buried in Memphis, Tennessee, only a few feet from Christopher. Her tombstone reads,

Melissa DeFir Byers

January 16, 1956-March 29, 1996

May She Rest In Peace

Beloved Brother Dennis

Beloved Mother of Christopher and Ryan

Beloved Daughter of Kilborn and Dorris

Note that there is no mention of her being the “beloved wife of John Mark.” That there was animosity between the DeFirs and Mark is evident here as elsewhere. Mara Leveritt used this fact to support her thesis in
Devil’s
Knot
. Kilborn “Dee” DeFir, Melissa’s father, believed Mark to be lazy and claimed that he, Kilborn, had made monthly visits to Cherokee Village to bring groceries, according to Leveritt. He claimed to have paid for the telephone installation as well as the monthly bill. Dorris believes that Mark “may have had something to do with” Melissa’s death. Leveritt further quotes the DeFirs as saying, “If he killed her and got away with it, he’ll pay for it in the long run.” Kilborn and Dorris were, Leveritt says, worried about their daughter and Ryan after the move to Cherokee Village, which was so far away. Why, one wonders, if the DeFirs were so concerned with their daughter’s well-being, did they not visit her during her two stints in rehab? Since Mark claims he informed Melissa’s parents each time she was institutionalized for drug abuse, how could they deny that she did indeed have a problem? The DeFirs felt that Melissa had married poorly, for the second time (she had never married Ryan’s father, Jimmy Clark), and that Mark was not a good provider. If they believed this, it is hard to understand why, at least according to Mark, when he and Melissa opened Byers Jewelers in West Memphis, Kilborn cosigned a $10,000 loan for tools, equipment, and operating capital, all of which was paid back with interest. Despite X-rays and Social Security disability checks that proved otherwise, the DeFirs were convinced that Mark was faking his brain tumor.

In any event, Mark was now alone in Cherokee Village with an impending court date to face misdemeanor and felony charges, with his wife and son gone and Ryan living God knows where.

Ryan

Often lost in the shuffle of events, both in the movement to overturn the convictions of the West Memphis Three and in the focus on the lives of Mark, Melissa, and Christopher Byers, is the existence of other victims. Ryan Clark often bore the brunt of life alone, having to grow up faster than other boys his age. He grew up with drugs all around him. His mother had been an abuser since the boy was born, and his further exposure during his years with Mark and Melissa is well documented. What is less obvious is what affect the traumas of his youth might have had on Ryan in the years after Mark last saw him.

Ryan was born Shawn Ryan Clark in Memphis in June 1979, to Jimmy Clark and Melissa DeFir; the two were never married. There was nothing remarkable about Ryan’s youngest years, the exception being the extent to which Ryan might have been exposed to drug usage as he was growing up. Considering that the onset of Melissa’s drug use predated her marriage to Mark Byers—Ricky Murray, her first husband, claimed that Melissa shot heroin before she smoked marijuana—it is safe to say that Ryan was vulnerable to the effects of a family drug abuse problem from at least age six and possibly earlier. All things considered, however, Ryan grew up relatively normally and had no noteworthy behavioral problems. Jimmy Clark and Melissa parted ways after only a few years, and Clark paid periodic visits to Ryan. He worked at a frozen food processing plant near Memphis and was steadily employed during his time with Melissa. Ryan continued to spend time with his father on occasion, including a period that ended two weeks prior to his mother’s death.

While he was a student at Weaver Elementary School in West Memphis—the same school that Christopher, Stevie, and Michael attended—it was discovered that he suffered from attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), as well as dyslexia. He was put on Ritalin to help with his hyperactivity, and Melissa took him to special summer classes in Memphis to deal with his dyslexia. His grades in school improved markedly once his learning disabilities were addressed. By the time Ryan was thirteen, he no longer needed the Ritalin. He and Christopher got along well, having the normal skirmishes that brothers five years apart in age are likely to have. In family photos, Ryan can be seen smiling, mugging for the camera, hugging one of the family cats, lying on the couch with Christopher, or splashing around in the family’s in-ground pool. “He was a good kid,” Mark says, as were the kids he hung around, notably Ritchie Masters and Brit Smith, both of whom lived down the street. Ritchie’s father owned Masters’ Jewelry in West Memphis, so Mark knew Ritchie fairly well. Brit and Ritchie were also with Ryan searching for Christopher on the night he disappeared.

Ryan was an apparently happy child right up until the time of Christopher’s murder. Although he was exposed to drug use by both his parents—Mark was a regular pot smoker—and his parents’ undercover work and ongoing money troubles introduced elements of stress, there was also a considerable amount of family time, and Ryan had many friends and relatives with whom he enjoyed spending time. The pool home on 1400 East Barton was the site of many happy birthday parties and holiday barbecues where the children could be seen swimming, eating cake, and opening gifts. Mark’s two children from his previous marriage to Sandra, John Andrew and Natalie, were frequent visitors and shared Christmas time with Mark and Melissa and their half-siblings. In one photograph, Ryan and “Andy” can be seen posing in their Christmas “cammys,” gifts from Mark for the hunting trips they were planning together. The summertime birthdays of Ryan, Christopher, and Natalie were close enough together so that they were celebrated en masse with a sumptuous barbecue and pool party with mobs of squealing kids and partying friends and neighbors. Despite the pictures painted by the media,
Paradise
Lost
, and
Devil’s
Knot
, much of the Byerses’ family life was very ordinary, at least for that place and at that time.

During the summers, the family would visit with Melissa’s uncles in Dermott, Arkansas, where they owned a catfish farm. Ryan and Christopher would spend hours exploring the farm, with Ryan and the older boys riding three-wheeled ATVs. In season, Ryan would hunt deer with the adults. It was an idyllic setting for a young boy, and it was Ryan’s favorite place to be. He also enjoyed time with both sets of grandparents. At George and Auvergne’s house, Ryan would tinker in the garage with his grandfather; he was a natural with all things mechanical. George and Ryan would also mow the lawn and do other chores together. Melissa’s father, Kilborn, bought Ryan a John Deere tractor/mower when the family moved to Cherokee Village. This was not only extravagant but patently unnecessary: the Byerses had virtually no lawn. But this didn’t stop Ryan from removing the mower and using the tractor as an off-roader.

The move to Cherokee Village, eleven months after Christopher’s murder and one month after the end of the Echols/Baldwin trial, marked the beginning of a very troubled period for Ryan. His brother’s death had come at a critical point in his young life, when he had just reached puberty. When the family moved to Cherokee Village, it was a disaster in the making. The majority of the population lives there on a part-time basis. Those who remain year-round include a number of what Mark Byers terms “crazy, inbred hillbillies.” Relocating to Cherokee Village, he says, “was not a great move on my part.” The parts of Cherokee Village seen on advertising brochures and TV commercials are not those that attract the average year-round resident; cheap housing and reclusive living are what most are seeking. Mark had been looking for an affordable escape from the nightmare back in West Memphis; what he found instead was a world of trouble. The cracks that had been forming for years in the family’s foundation, and which had been deepened by Christopher’s murder, finally split wide open when they were subjected to the virtually lawless environment of Cherokee Village.