Untying the Knot: John Mark Byers and the West Memphis Three (51 page)

¹¹⁴
Their notes said, “travel crime scene [
sic
] 200 times—2 years … Lied.”

¹¹⁵
Author Ann Rule, in her book
Green River, Running Red
, (New York: Simon and Schuster 2004) which chronicles the hunt for the Green River Killer, referred to the use of the phrase “dump site” as “crass … an unfortunate way to describe where human beings had been left.” I couldn’t agree more.

¹¹⁶
Since Byers usually sports some facial hair, it is difficult to tell, but there do not appear to be any noticeable scars on his face.

¹¹⁷
Dilantin is the trade name of the generic drug phenytoin. The manufacturer advises to “brush and floss your teeth as directed to reduce the risk of gum disease while taking Dilantin.” This is to reduce the side effect of “swollen or tender gums.” Cerner Multum, Inc., Version 5.01. Revised May 13, 2003.

¹¹⁸
According to the American Academy of Periodontology, “tobacco use may be one of the most significant risk factors in the development and progression of periodontal disease.” Additionally, following periodontal treatment or any type of oral surgery, [tobacco use] “can slow down the healing process and make the treatment results less predictable.”

¹¹⁹
An e-mail was sent to the producers of
Leeza
in December 2008 and again in September 2009. Neither was answered.

¹²⁰
Chris Champion, “Delta Witch Trials,”
Telegraph Magazine,
June 4, 2005.

¹²¹
George W. Jackson Community Mental Health Center is now the Mid-South Health Center. Medical records from that facility were not available at the time of this writing.

¹²²
The fact that Mark was wearing the black cowboy hat that he had donned for the famous “pumpkin shooting” scene in
Paradise Lost
virtually assured that he’d be recognized by someone eventually. Could this have been what he wanted?

¹²³
This scene was filmed six months prior to the Rule 37 hearings in Jonesboro, even though in the film it appears at the end.

¹²⁴
Such was his state of mind at that time that he told the doctors at St. Bernard’s that he had no family, that they were all dead.

¹²⁵
Ann K. Finkbeiner,
After the Death of a Child: Living with Loss through the Years
(New York, NY, Simon and Schuster,1996).

¹²⁶
The Rolex deal was conceived in mid-1992 as a rather simple-minded attempt to make some quick money. As it turns out, it was a little too simple. The plan was that Mark would use his relationship with a Dallas jewelry broker to have two Rolex watches, valued at $11,000, delivered to his West Memphis home on consignment; have someone other than himself sign for them; and then deny having ever received them. The watches would then be sold and the profits split between Byers and the person signing for the package. But the broker didn’t fall for it; proof was provided that the package was delivered to Byers’s home address, and nobody cared who’d signed for it. When the broker was unable to get payment from Byers, Gary Gitchell and Bryn Ridge of the WMPD were called in. The broker wanted his money and would not press charges if he was paid. So Byers confessed and paid. How? It was well known that Byers’s financial situation was dire; he was telling the truth when he said he didn’t know how he would find the money to bury his son. Now he had to come up with $10,000 for the watches or face prosecution. The Rolex case was eventually “solved” about three weeks after the murders of Christopher, Stevie, and Michael a year later. The townspeople, mostly through local churches, had started a fund drive for the families of the boys to offset funeral expenses and later to pay for the time that the families would spend in court both in Corning and in Jonesboro. Mark Byers was forced to use $7,400 given to him from this fund to reimburse the Dallas jewelry broker and avoid prosecution for fraud.

¹²⁷
There is some discrepancy here. Tosh wrote in his official report that Mark actually had tried to sell him some “pot, good stuff.” Mark didn’t have any pot, though he was planning on buying some for his personal use with the money he made from selling the Xanax.

¹²⁸
Vickers has since been promoted to lieutenant.

¹²⁹
August 1, 1999, letter from Mark to his brother.

¹³⁰
The court ruling is contained in Arkansas State Supreme Court case no. CR98-872,
Reeves v. State
, which reiterates the constitutional ban that provides that “no person, under any circumstances, shall be exiled from the state; banishment or exile has been defined as an order that compels a person to quit a city, place, or county for a specific period of time, or for life.”

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Incarceration rates nationally have increased an average of 3 percent in the last ten years, though in Arkansas, a decline of 2.1 percent was reported in 2005 due to a lack of funds for prison expansion; inmates not previously eligible were given early parole.

¹³²
Arkansas Department of Correction Annual Report FY 2010
http://adc.arkansas.gov/resources/Documents/Annual_Report_FY2010.pdf
.

¹³³
Charlie Frago “13% of State’s Inmates also Gang Members, Officials say”
Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
, September 14, 2005.

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Charlie Frago, “Prison Seen as a Powder Keg,”
Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
, April 23, 2006. Frago also says, “Prison officials haven’t noted publicly the connection between the riots [at Calico Rock] and a transfer policy that disciplines black inmates by sending them to this medium-security lockup.” In this article, Frago cites
Johnson v. California
, a case that was heard by the U.S. Supreme Court, in which the Court instructed the California state penal system to cease the practice of segregating inmates by race. Frago quotes former Calico Rock corrections officer Captain Elmer Bolia as saying, “They say you can’t segregate by race. They also say you have to protect an inmate’s safety. Those two things aren’t possible … not together. Not at Calico Rock.”

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The fact that Mark’s eight-year-old son had been murdered in a highly publicized case no doubt helped. Child killing is at the absolute bottom of crimes in the cons’ estimation, and there probably was a small measure of sympathy afforded to Mark as a result.

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In 1998, Steven Anthony Mays died from heat exhaustion after working one morning on the hoe squad. It was an early November day, with the temperature reported at seventy-two degrees. His estate claims that prison guards ignored his complaints of being ill that day.

¹³⁷
A class II inmate earns a one-half-day credit for every day served without a write-up. When—and if—his class I status is approved, he starts earning one full
day of credit for each day served.

¹³⁸
In the summer of 1999, Mark mounted an effort to have his sentence reduced, pursuant to a provision of Arkansas state law, and on August 5, he filed a “Petition for Reduction of Sentence.” Essentially, the petition requested relief from the courts in the form of a sentence reduction from eight years down to four. In the suit, Mark asserted that the court had unfairly and inequitably imposed his sentence for the original burglary and theft charges in Sharp County on several grounds. First, since Mark was receiving benefits from Social Security, and his benefits would be halted in the event that he was incarcerated for more than one year, he claimed that it should not have been the court’s intent to “harm this petitioner’s only means of support.” The petition further stated that there should have been more consideration given to time Mark had spent in jail awaiting trial. Finally, Mark made an issue of the fact that he was depressed, had bipolar disorder, and suffered from posttraumatic stress disorder. The suit does not specifically state how this last issue affected Mark’s sentencing, though it can be assumed that despite being declared fit to stand trial, Mark was claiming that he was not competent to enter his plea of
nolo contendre
, or “no contest.” Three weeks later, on August 26, the court rejected the petition on the grounds that first, the trial court had no legal authorization to reduce a valid sentence, and second, Mark had not shown cause that the sentence should be judged anything
but
valid. It should have been no surprise to Mark; it had been a long shot to begin with. Still, the prospect of eight years in Brickeys did not sit well. That he was less than happy is evident by his September 1 letter home, in which he stated, “Well, today SUCKS!!! I got my results back from Sharp County and the S.O.B. shot me down.”

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The back of the card read, “This is not me, but I thought you might like it! Your friend, Julie Ann Eldridge.”

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This author bought one of these letters in September 2005. As of June 2007, no more letters were listed for sale on the website.

¹⁴¹
Edward Lewis “Selenski Wanted to Be a Dirty White Boy,”
The Citizen’s Voice
(Wilkes Barre, PA), June 23, 2003. The article quotes prison gang and security consultant Robert Walker as saying that the DWB “are not primarily known as a white supremacy group, but they are known to associate with the Aryan Brotherhood, the Texas syndicate and, possibly, the Mexican mafia. They have some white supremacy philosophies, but they’re not out there dealing death to any non-white group.”

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According to Dave Maas, although it is still possible to have another inmate—or even yourself—transferred to another facility, the price has gone up considerably; it now costs about $300 “green”, or cash. This kind of transaction can’t be arranged by bartering commissary.

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Marc Perrusquia, “West Memphis Three Dad Puts on a New Face,”
Memphis Commercial Appeal
, November 26, 2007. According to Perrusquia, Byers told him he had nicknamed his tumor “Harvey.” Perrusquia was one of the authors of the 1995 book
Blood of Innocents
, the first book published on the murders.

¹⁴⁴
Director Peter Jackson of
Lord of the Rings
fame didn’t disclose his involvement in the case until 2011, and the amount of any money contributed has not been disclosed. His pockets are likely deeper than Vedder’s, however, and his financial contributions may have been much more extensive, though much lower-profile, than Vedder’s.

¹⁴⁵
Mara Leveritt, “The Damien I Know—The Architect and the Inmate,”
Arkansas Times
, January 9, 2004. This was the first interview in which Davis agreed to discuss her wedding to Echols.

¹⁴⁶
Something of a profile had been given to the West Memphis Police Department in 1993 by FBI Special Agent Tom Salp, although it appears to have been “unofficial” and probably done over the phone. For some reason, Salp told them they should be looking for a Vietnam veteran. According to John Douglas, the prosecution had also contacted FBI Special Agent Kenneth Lanning, who had written a paper in 1992 titled “Satanic Ritual Abuse.” Lanning stated in the paper that he had not seen a single case—not one—of a so-called satanic ritual killing. He further told the prosecution that they should not consider using satanism as a motive unless they wanted to be “laughed out of the courtroom.” He never heard back from them.