WMPD Evidence Room

What the WMPD evidence file really contains
By Chris Worthington

Part One

Judge David Burnett has made the suggestion. So has District Attorney (now Judge) John Fogleman. Just a few weeks ago (as of this writing), Sgt. Mike Allen was quoted issuing the same challenge in the pages of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.

They claimed that if anyone doubted that Damien Echols, Jason Baldwin and Jessie Misskelley, Jr. are guilty of the murders of Chris Byers, Michael Moore and Steven Branch, they should examine the case file The West Memphis Police had accumulated while investigating the crime. There, they claimed, the public would find enough proof of guilt to end all doubts and show that justice has already been served in West Memphis, Arkansas.

Early last summer, I decided to take them up on their offer. Only, I was to find it was not going to be as easy to gain access to the case file as these public officials had made it sound. It turned out I was in for a long summer of having U.S. mail, e-mail, and phone attempts requesting permission ignored. So much for sincere eagerness on their part for the public to get a look at their work.

But I was determined. Perhaps when these gentlemen of Arkansas had issued their challenge, they had not counted on anyone so persistent. So why not keep trying, I asked myself? After all, The West Memphis Police Department has already allowed others in to examine the file from time to time. A frequent poster to alt.activism.death-penalty and a rabid proponent of The West Memphis Three's guilt was given access in the fall of 1998 and has been writing about it ever since. He claimed to find the overwhelming proof of guilt which has been touted without any problem -- why should Arkansas mind if someone else has a look? Finally, and perhaps tired of the nuisance I was making of myself, Capt. James Sudbury, currently of The WMPD's Criminal Investigation Division and the department's Public Relations Officer, emailed to inform me I was NOT going to be granted permission. In the department's opinion, he said, only residents of Arkansas had the legal right to view the file.

I turned to Dan Stidham to see if they could get away with this. What I needed to do was have a letter of request forwarded to The City Attorney of West Memphis, David Peeples, by

a bonafide resident of Arkansas. To make doubly sure this letter gets taken seriously, it was a good idea if I told them that I write for a domain published within the confines of Arkansas. That's a fancy way of saying I've contributed an article to the WM3.org web site, and so technically am a journalist for something which can be read by the public in the state of Arkansas. Not that I ever thought of myself as such. My good friend and ally (and Arkansas resident) Greg Fleming agreed to forward this letter, and then . . . many more weeks of waiting went by. Repeated efforts to determine what the holdup was went ignored. In early September I finally managed to reach David Peeples by phone and grew encouraged. He saw no problem with my viewing the file, and had passed on his recommendation that I be allowed to Captain Sudbury. I was to expect to hear from the captain again shortly.

Then -- a letdown. Another long-awaited e-mail from Captain Sudbury arrived. His message informed me that The West Memphis Police Department was disputing David Peeples' interpretation of the applicable wordings in The Arkansas Freedom of Information Act, and the matter was being sent to The Arkansas Attorney General's Office for a decision. Reading this, my spirits collapsed. I was more than just discouraged. It didn't seem like this project was ever going to get off the ground, and I was frankly starting to get sick of the whole business.

It almost came as a shock to receive an email a few weeks later from Sergeant Regina Meek (of Bojangles' drive-thru window fame) curtly stating that the decision had gone in David Peeple's favor, and that my appointment was confirmed. A little bit of the wind had left my sails, but now I really had to go through with this.

By this time, Greg Fleming was nearly as heated about the project as I was. He agreed to accompany me, and that got my courage going again. On Tuesday, November 16th, 1999, armed with Greg's neat digital camera and a personal copier I had bought just for the occasion (only because I couldn't find a rental one) we showed up at their doorstep. It was around 8:30 in the morning. For the next eight hours, we were plunged into the heart of what is really the only officially recognized

documentation in existence of the case called by the WMPD: "Triple Homicide: Byers, Branch, Moore." For the last three years, for reasons simple, complex, obscure, a little eccentric and baffling often even to me, I have been growing increasingly absorbed by this case. Some would say even obsessed. I can seldom any longer dispute that. Now, I was in a place which purported to contain proof that I had been wasting my time; that the last three years of my life had been given up to a fool's quest. Was I really concerned that I would discover that these files contained proofs of guilt never mentioned until now? Proofs which would change my mind? Honestly, no. If they were there, why hadn't an eager press already latched onto them? Did I hope instead to find new proof of The West Memphis Three's innocence? No, that would be even more unrealistic. At the very least I have too much respect for the abilities of men like Ed Mallett, Dan Stidham and Brent Turvey. They would have found it by now.

Yet I had a responsibility. One that demanded that I remain open-minded, and leave behind the blinders of preconceived conclusion. I also knew many people in this group were counting on me to be their eyes, to answer the questions that they have long had about what exactly is contained in that evidence room. It was a fear of being so overwhelmed and rushed for time that I would not see what needed most be seen -- be it good or bad for Damien, Jason and Jessie -- that had me worried the most. This was my one shot, and I had to make the most of it. Until this day, whenever someone at a proxy's remove from Brent Davis had said, "Well, you've never looked at all the evidence the police have, you've never examined the case files," there's been little I've been able to say in reply. Now, it was time to change that once and for all.

Part Two

The West Memphis Police Department is currently located in the city's old City Hall, at 100 Court Street, about seven miles from Robin Hood Hills Woods. I learned that a few weeks after my visit the department was scheduled to move to new, more modern facilities. I looked around and saw it wouldn't take much for an improvement. It was the

type of building where old steam radiators, covered with ancient layers of chipped and unidentifiably-colored enamel, adorned every corridor and room. It reminded me more of the old dilapidated grade-school I attended than what is usually envisioned as a police department these days. I arrived a half hour before Greg, and had to wait for Sergeant Regina Meek to get out of a meeting. I would not wish to characterize the telephone conversations I had previously had with this sergeant as rude, but let's put it this way: apparently, WMPD officers are not trained to be civil to their callers. When they think a conversation has gone on long enough, you know it because of the *click* in your ear. So I was a little surprised when a heavyset, youngish redheaded woman with an ingratiating smile stepped out of a private door into the waiting area and greeted me with a shake of the hand. She did get right down to business, though.

I could not actually enter the evidence room, since that is strictly off-limits to non-police personnel. The boxes containing the files were being carried to some old holding cells in the basement, and there, under the supervision of Officer Al Green, I would be allowed to examine them from 9am to noon, at which point the officer would get an hour lunch break. After lunch I could return to the files from 1pm to 5. Meek explained that the evidence actually comprised fourteen boxes, but that I would only be allowed to examine eight of them. Technically, we were not entitled to examine the boxes containing the "physical" evidence. "There's just a lot of T shirts and stuff back there," she offered. I'm not sure if she understood I already knew exactly what she was referring to.

"Are there the sticks recovered from the woods a couple of months after the murders and the knife found in the lake behind Jason Baldwin's trailer?" I asked.

"Yeah, I think so," she nodded almost cheerfully.

Finally, we would not be allowed to examine one large "accordion" file containing the school records of both the murder victims and the defendants. Arkansas law prohibits that, and/or Judge Burnett had them sealed. She mentioned both. Officer Al was instructed to be on the lookout for this file in case it had slipped past notice.

I was escorted downstairs to a room containing two

old holding cells. They were not very inviting looking, to say the least. Basically, I would call them orange-painted brick cubes with doors made out of bars. In each cell one wall had been built-up with bricks to form a platform on which a person could lay. I noticed a roll of toilet paper resting on one cell's "bed." Nowhere could I find, however, where a person was supposed to dispose of that toilet paper once it had been used for its manufactured purpose, if you know what I mean, and if that's what the roll was there for. There wasn't even a grate on the floor. Shiver.

Just before Greg arrived, Officer Al took the first box out of a cell and opened it for me to look at where I sat on the floor. (My copier took up the only small table in the room, so the floor was enlisted as our work surface). The box contained dozens of video and audio tapes. They were labeled with such names as Vicki Hutcheson, Alvin Bly, William Winfred Jones, etc... It disappointed me to think I had no players to view or listen to any of this material -- I hadn't even been told ahead of time I could -- but I took heart from the idea that it apparently wouldn't matter too much. Each tape contained a note on its jacket reporting when it had been transcribed. Al said there should be a typed copy of the recorded statements in each person's assigned file.

And no, I didn't see a tape labeled "Damien Echols". What teenage kids and drug addicts had to say ABOUT Damien Echols was considered important enough to get down on tape, but apparently never what Damien had to say himself.

Then Greg Fleming showed up, and we got to work in earnest almost immediately. The rest of the day we followed a set itinerary. Officer Al would get out one box at a time from a cell, and we would go through it from front to back, copying anything that struck us as intriguing. I can only speak for myself, but very little of the material did I actually read during the visit. (THAT came during marathon sessions that night and the next). It took all my time for the present just to sort through folders, identify what they might contain, and copy anything of interest.

Throughout, Officer Al Green was as pleasant and helpful as any baby-sitter could be. Obviously the man did not have any chip on his shoulder regarding us. He is a twelve-year veteran of the force, and, in his own words, never got involved in departmental or political questions. He left that for his supervisors. "I just want to write tickets," he smiled. During the afternoon we even had an interesting discussion about the Sam Shepherd murder case, the biggest murder ever up in my neck of the woods, and one which Officer Al turned out to be an aficionado of. He thinks Dr. Sam was framed. In fact, three of the most interesting things we learned that day came from Al.

1) The aforementioned zealous pro-death-penalty newsgroup poster had indeed been there to view the file late last year, though Al didn't remember much about him. Al was intrigued by the photo Greg brought which he had lifted from this individual's web site; a snapshot of the officer (in this case actually Detective) who had sat with him that day. The backdrop was the "off-limits" evidence room, the very place we were forbidden to step into. Greg agrees with me that there was definitely a troubled look on Al's face when he realized what he was seeing.

2) While my mind was elsewhere, Greg casually asked Officer Al if he'd participated in the search efforts for the missing children. The answer we received certainly managed to gain my interest. Al and a partner had indeed searched Robin Hood Hill woods sometime after dark the evening of May 5th, and according to him had been within a few feet of where the bodies were later found, right along the ditch bank. After not finding anything, he gave up and returned to his regular patrol route. Not expecting any big revelation, I asked if the bank had been slicked off or washed down, which was what Det. Mike Allen testified to at the Echols/Baldwin trial, leading to the state's contention that this revealed an effort to clean a crime scene of blood, shoe prints and other forensic evidence. Al proceeded to drop a bombshell. He hadn't observed anything like that at all, and could not have been more emphatic. "If I did, we would have found the children that night!" he insisted. The fact that he was contradicting Mike Allen's testimony and undermining

the state's entire theory of the crime didn't faze him a bit.

3) The other revelation was something Al volunteered freely early on in the visit. I don't remember now how the name of John Mark Byers first came up, but Al immediately sparked to it. At the time of the murders, the West Memphis police were busy building a case against John Mark Byers for multiple counts of theft, sale of stolen property, some drug related charges, etc. He had been under intense investigation for quite some time, and an arrest was imminent. Assuming Al's explanation is on the level, the WMPD decided not to pursue these cases once the murders had occurred "because they felt sorry for him."

Regardless of their soft hearts, Al used the words "career criminal" somewhere in there to describe how he and the department view John Mark. "The funny thing is," Al added ironically, "he's a hell of a good jeweler."

"Then how did it happen that someone you yourself just called a career criminal could find himself in the middle of a homicide investigation, and never be considered much of a suspect?" I asked as diplomatically as I could, but Al had to beg off from answering, saying he had never been part of the homicide investigation.

Later on in the day, I was able to pose the same question to someone who WAS. Captain James Sudbury poked his head in before lunch to check us out. A tall, heavy set and imposing sort of man, he was dressed very casually in a denim jacket, jeans and sneakers.

"Have you found what you need to get him out yet?" (Whether he said "him out" or "them out," I really can't be certain).

For want of a better comeback, I replied that we were finding a lot of interesting things. "Is that what you want? You want to get him out?" he asked again, not at all bothering to hide the anger in his voice.

Overlapping, I said "I'd like to see them get new trials," and Greg said "I just want them to have a fair trial."

"Well, I'd like to see the $%^&#@* fry!"

Stunned, and a little unnerved, I have to admit my reply was sort of whimpered. "I think we're going to have to agree to disagree today."

Holding back seething rage, Sudbury practically sputtered "Y'all weren't there. You can't understand.

You don't how it was. You had to be there!"

Before Greg or I could really put up any kind of argument to this, he said curtly "I don't really give a shit one way or the other what they do to 'em. Let 'em out, give 'em a new trial or what. That's what they have courts and juries for, right?" And then he left, apparently thinking the latter was entirely a rhetorical question. But before the end of the day he returned. Perhaps trying to make up for the earlier tantrum, he politely asked how our trips had been, when we were going back, etc. Then he seemed to let down his hair a little. "It's not you, it's this case," he explained, apologizing for his exasperation. "It never seems to end. Sort of like a bad divorce. I'm sure you know how that is." Why he assumed that would be the case, I don't know. But Greg reports the comment made him feel a little paranoid.

I took advantage of the moment and asked the Captain why, since John Mark Byers evidently had quite a lot of criminal history the WMPD was already interested in . . . "Oh he was a crook," Capt. Sudbury interrupted. "He was always a crook."

"Then why if a person like that turns up in the middle of a homicide investigation, wasn't he looked at more closely as a suspect?"

Sudbury thought about this for a second, "Well, if you knew John Mark Byers . . . "

This time I was the one who interrupted. "Oh I've met the man several times."

"Then you know," Sudbury elaborately drawled, "his gene pool doesn't run very deep."

I can only guess what this meant. Was he saying that John Mark Byers was too stupid to carry off a triple homicide? A "career criminal" who up until recently had always managed to avoid jail? 

I wish I had thought to point that out, but I didn't. Instead, I asked him to explain some inconsistencies in John Mark Byers' statements apparently never probed, specifically this one: When during his second taped police interview Byers tried to account for the presence of blood on the knife he gave to a PARADISE LOST cameraman, he stated it must have got there during the single time he had ever used it, around Thanksgiving of 1992, attempting to cut up some deer meat. He claimed

to have put the knife away when he discovered it wouldn't fillet fine enough for jerky.

Later on during the same interview, Gary Gitchell revealed that The Arkansas State Crime Lab identified only human, or "higher ape" blood on the knife. John Mark had to think for a long while, then he came up with the answer. Oh, he had cut himself in his attempt to use it. He remembers that now. That's how blood got on the blade.

What I asked Captain Sudbury was this: How come only human, not deer, blood was found on the blade? And almost as importantly, why didn't Inspector Gitchell, or anyone in the WMPD, follow up on his statement and ask this seemingly obvious, and obviously important, question? If I do say so myself, Captain Sudbury looked stunned. He was speechless for several very quiet moments.

"Well . . . I don't have an answer for that, but you just had to be there in those days," Maybe he had urgent business elsewhere, for at this point he beat another hasty retreat.

By the time we got to through the Z's, at around four P.M. I think both Greg and I were nearly worn out. I had gone eight hours without coffee -- practically a lifetime novel experience for me! But there was one box left.

"Must be miscellaneous files," Al said, getting it for us.

Inside, were the warrant files created to show Judge Rainey in order to get him to authorize the arrests of Damien, Jason, and Jessie. They each contained copies of materials we had seen elsewhere in the files, including Jessie Misskelley's June 3rd "confession," and a statement made by William Winfred Jones dated May 26, 1993 purporting that Damien Echols had confessed to the murders to him while drunk one night. (A statement Jones was later to recant and refuse to repeat in court).

But that's not all that was in the box. Apparently, some of the "physical" evidence had been missed when the boxes were screened. Officer Al didn't lift a finger to stop us from looking at it. He just sat back in his chair and shook his head incredulously. Folded up charts and diagram which had been used in court were in there. Also, Damien's sinister collection of "Satanic" literature, "Never on A Broomstick" and "Cotton Mather on Witchcraft" included. A neat little snake and skull necklace, oh

so goth, was stuck away in one envelope. In another unmarked envelope were two vials of blood, each labeled "Damien Echols."

Upon seeing them, Greg Fleming got off the best one-liner of the day. "Damn, you guys just can't keep track of those blood samples!" Al laughed out loud at this.

There was a framed portrait of Michael Moore. Very sad to come across this. He had such a happy smile. There were no smiles on the faces contained in one large envelope of photos. These were the autopsy photos of three young and very blameless murder victims, stripped of all dignity and joy. The pictures were horrible. But I forced myself to look for one important reason. I wanted to find out if the shot of Steven Branch which revealed facial bite-marks was there, the shot none of the "effective" defense lawyers noticed the first time around. The shot none of the police detectives ever made part of their investigation. The shot Dr. Frank Peretti claims to have dismissed because it was insignificant, proving nothing. Plain as day, the picture was there. As if I had needed more pain, these images helped make what I was doing all the more real for me. The kind of suffering they showed the after effect of is something which I don't think any of us can ever fully empathize with. Not really. Not enough to get away with trying to claim we understand.

At the very least, I think I can understand a little better now the insanity of grief the innocent families of those children must have gone through, must still be going through this day. They're not responsible for how this case was botched. That was the fault of the professionals who were supposed to look beyond their emotions and deal with matters of fact objectively and critically and to seek the truth wherever it happened to go, not just where they wanted it to go. The families deserve all the compassion and respect we can give them.

As if there is something to the idea there is a force in the Universe dispensing poetic justice and balance, the next two files brought a human face to a couple of other people just when I needed to see that the most. One was Damien Echols. Without comment, a file contained the now yellowing Marlboro carton wrapper upon which Damien had scribbled a

suicide note late in 1993, proclaiming his innocence, reminding his parents of the love he has for them, urging them to pass his love along to his unborn child after he is gone. The note's contents were revealed in the book 'The Blood of Innocents,' so they were nothing new to me. But handwritten as it was in shaky, childish strokes, so obviously overwrought compared to his other samples of penmanship contained in the case file, it became a very real relic of a very real person. I almost felt like I was intruding upon something incredibly private, which no one, not the state nor I nor anyone else except Damien and his family, had the right to spy upon.

In almost the very next miscellaneous file was a single sheet containing what looked like a poem in the hand of Jason Baldwin. It was undated, but written on standard school notebook paper. I didn't know it at the time, but I was looking at the lyrics to a Pink Floyd song called "One of My Turns." I prefer the often humorous poetry Jason himself writes these days, but that's just me. I found it a little too morose and pretentious. But I was more impressed with the depth of emotions, both painful and real, Jason must have identified with when he chose to copy it out than the words themselves. Think of it as a little bit of teenage angst, a little bit of puppy love lament, a little bit of gothic doom and gloom. Think of it as something you or I might have identified with at his age. Why did the police keep it? I guess because it mentions an ax at one point, likens the gray of fading love to the skin of a dying man at another, and, to describe a bleak mood, includes the expression, "cold as a razor blade, light as a tornado, dry as a funeral drum." It ends with the narrator begging his girl not to run away, not to leave him alone. I took its inclusion as another example of the WMPD's penchant for "The Edgar Allan Poe Ought To Have Been Arrested" style of criminal investigation. Unless they write with the insipidness of a Laura Ingalls Wilder or a Norman Vincent Peale, there's something mighty suspicious about a person, under this line of thinking.

Five o'clock rolled around. Around 250

pages of copied documents safely stowed away, we shook Officer Al's hand and departed. Greg and I went our separate ways, he to his home over a hundred miles away, I to a motel near Newport, Arkansas. But first, we shared a final exchange.

"You think we found out anything?" Greg asks.

"I think we got some interesting stuff," I reply lamely. Greg is skeptical.

"Nothing that will probably make any difference." I hoped that he was wrong, but I didn't know for sure yet.

As I say, at this point I had read very little of the days work. So I headed for the comfort of a quiet motel room to start reading. That night and the next night I would discover the truth of what really makes up the bulk of the "Triple Homicide" case file, and undergo two experiences which were to put what I was doing on this trip into unique perspective.

Part Three

In order to convey some sense of what the WMPD's case file both reveals and does not reveal about the Robin Hood Hills murders, I will offer an overview of the types of material the file contains and how that material is organized, discuss problems which can be observed in that organization as a whole, and finally, present the main thrust of the argument for guilt the material makes against Damien Echols, Jason Baldwin and Jessie Misskelley in a chronological format, as opposed to the file's alphabetical format.

Of the eight boxes Greg Fleming and I inspected November 16th, six actually comprised what I would think of as the case file. These boxes chiefly consisted of manila folders arranged in alphabetical order. By far the greatest number of these folders are labeled with someone's name, Damien Echols or Christy Van Vickle, for examples, and all the documents in the folder relate in some manner to that person. On the surface this system makes sense, but begins to seem a little awkward when you discover, for instance, that much of the fiber evidence information important to this case can only be found by looking in the folder for "Lisa Sakevicius," the Arkansas State Crime Lab's trace evidence expert who analyzed fiber evidence for the investigation. Perhaps this merely reflects some standard procedure, but someone without a working knowledge of the case would get lost trying to navigate these files.

The first page of most folders in the

case file generally consists of a "Subject Description" or fact-sheet about the person the file relates to, listing name, address, vital statistics, etc, followed by a Criminal Investigation Field Report (sometimes called something slightly different) filed by the detective who interviewed or investigated this person, followed occasionally by a transcribed statement if one was taken. A few of the files also contain a Polygraph Examination Report. Noticeably absent in all appearances of these reports are the actual polygraph machine tapes the report is said to be based upon.

There wasn't time to properly calculate this, but I would estimate that at least 25 percent of the total file is comprised of folders which relate to public informant leads, or "tips", which either fizzled out or which nothing further could be ascertained about. Examples would include reports taken from individuals describing suspicious vehicles and strangers seen lurking around the neighborhood the day of the boys' disappearance, and interviews with or about suspects ultimately determined not to have played a role in the crimes, such as ice cream vendor Christopher Morgan. There was a lot of overlap between these two categories. I copied only a sample few of this type of folder, but what strikes me is how good a source the book 'Blood of Innocents,' despite whatever literary or journalistic flaws it might otherwise have, turns out to be for information on these particular records. The long middle section of the book seems to cover them pretty thoroughly, obviously utilizing the folders themselves for input. Duplications of wording and description abound.

Just to give tip-of-the-iceberg examples of the sort of "alternate" leads the WMPD pursued in the early days of the investigation, a file dated 5-15-93 regards a man named Robert Felix Burch. No direct explanation for why Burch was interviewed is provided, but it is implied a family named the Wrens had indicated Burch was known to hang around the Mayfair Apartments, which are visible from the woods. In the course of providing a defense against this allegation, Burch himself reports having heard rumors that David Wren committed the murders, and that a man named Frankie Thomas may have witnessed him. Incidentally, the report also relates that Burch brought up during the course of his interview the fact that he'd had conversation with acquaintance Jason Baldwin in a Memphis skating rink the night before, in which Baldwin told him a private

detective had stated to him that he and Burch were suspects in the murders.

Another lead was provided the WMPD by the Salt Lake City Police Department in a document apparently received in August of '93. An out of work trucker named Jessie Davidson allegedly claimed to a pair of women he met in a convenience store restaurant that he had murdered before, then passed on what were described by the ladies as suspicious details about the West Memphis murders (including the fact that victims' genitalia had been cut off), and also told them that he had been watching from the truck wash near the crime scene when the bodies were discovered. After apparently inconclusive questioning by the Salt Lake Police, he was printed and released. No follow-up information about Davidson is to be found in the folder.

Even by merely glancing over the bulk of these alternate lead folders, (or any folder in the file, for that matter), something frustrating becomes apparent. The Field Reports, generally the most prominent part of any folder, very seldom if ever give any description of what steps were taken to investigate their information, or what follow-up, if any, was made later on. It seems to be enough to report that something was said by or about someone. Occasionally I would run across a folder with a "conclusory finding", or opinion given without a stated basis in fact, declaring that the detective writing the report finds no evidence to warrant further investigation, but even this is rare. I can't help but be concerned by something. Without a doubt most of the "leads" contained in these folders mean nothing. But what is obviously apparent is that there were and are quite a few unresolved loose ends left dangling in this investigation, many of which could have potentially led to an entirely different conclusion for the case if more thoroughly resolved. Unless it is known for sure what the mysterious "white van" seen prowling the boys' neighborhood May 5th was all about, how can anyone, including the WMPD, really say for sure it wasn't somehow involved in what happened? And exactly how did Jessie Davidson know so much about the injuries sustained by the victims. Just as troubling as what is left unanswered by the file, is what is apparently lost, or was perhaps never included in the first place. The folders are extremely inconsistent in

their contents. I've already noted the format of most folders -- Subject Identification, Field Report, Statement, and, if performed, a Polygraph Report. It seems most of the folders are missing one or more of these elements. Some lack a Field Report and contain only a transcribed statement, some vice versa, and one, Deanna Holcomb's, is absent both Field Report and Statement, and includes only a record of Polygraph questions and answers.

Incredibly, I could find no statement at all from Vicki Hutcheson, nor even a Field Report, despite the aid she is supposed to have provided the investigation in its early stages, and the testimony she gave at the Misskelley trial. Aaron Hutcheson's folder is present, but it contains transcripts of only two of the reputed eight statements Aaron gave to the police, either in Marion or West Memphis. It is suspicious that the two included, both taken after the June 3rd arrests, happen to name Damien, Jason and Jessie specifically as the attackers, (as well two other people whom he can't remember). Aaron's sudden ability to identify these three is something which leaves even Inspector Gary Gitchell noticeably incredulous in his comments. Be that as it may, these are the statements which the WMPD has chose to preserve in his folder. If the file wanted to reflect an evenhanded investigation leading to the truth, one would think it would also have to contain at least a sampling of Aaron's other statements, no matter how troubling they were from the investigators' point of view, such as the earlier one where he named John Mark Byers and Jessie Misskelley as the attackers of his friends.

Another tip-off to presumably discarded or never-collected material is the lack of any reference to what else is known about Alvin Bly than what his folder reveals. His highly graphic accounts of Satanic cult meetings attended with Jessie (whom he describes as the cult's ringleader), Jason and Damien are prominently included, but not this: According to 'Blood of Innocents,', the WMPD became aware Bly had potential information about the case after a jailer transporting Bly to the East Arkansas Mental Health Center tipped them off. Bly was currently serving time for "cornholing" a girl, and described himself as "loopy on drugs" most of the time. One statement which IS on file does provide an intriguing hint into Bly's mental make-up, however. He says he is undergoing

psychiatric treatment so he can "get to where I don't see the devil no more."

In the same vein, you can seek but you will not find any mention of the fact that William Winfred Jones -- whose tale of Damien having confessed the murders to him while drunk one night was considered so important that it was included in the warrant application files for all three defendants -- recanted his entire statement to the police. It is obvious from the above lapses and inconsistencies that the WMPD files would make a very poor source for a definitive history of this case -- or even of merely its police investigation. The file is simply too incomplete a record. The fact also that the tone of almost all that has been preserved, compared to what is known not to be preserved, is slanted in the very definite direction of material favoring the defendants' guilt opens the WMPD up to even more suspicion that their investigation -- as well as their record-keeping -- is far from objective. Definitely not a source of information one would want to use as a base upon which to form any final determination of guilt.

Another possible discrepancy to be found in the file pertains to the Polygraph Reports. I've already noted how some folders include a copy of polygraph findings, and some don't, even if a Field Report mentions one was planned to be administered. In hindsight, something I should have spent more time on to during my visit to the WMPD was the finding and photocopying of these records. My impressions therefore cannot be certain. However, what has me curious is the lack of what I could take as sign of a formal consistency to the wordings used to report the polygraph findings in the few examples I did photocopy.

For instance, Bryn Ridge's Field Report for Damien Echols' May 10th interview concludes with the statement, "...Detective Durham...reported that Damien had been untruthful and according to the polygraph was involved in the murders." "Untruthful" is the key word here. Durham reportedly "detected dishonesty" in Jessie Misskelley's test. No finding at all is reported for Deanna Holcomb's test, at least not in her sparse folder. In reporting on Michael Carson's polygraph, the phrase "essentially honest" is used.

Do such phrases reflect a standard terminology used by professionals in the field of polygraph testing? Does "essentially honest" have

a defined, established meaning, specifically different from other terms which might sound identical to laymen? I do not pretend to know. On the face of it, however, to me "essentially honest" seems vague and open to a range of interpretations. "Detected dishonesty" does, as well. Conceivably the two findings could even overlap, e.g., "Although examiner Bob detected dishonesty, he found the subject to be essentially honest."

In any event, this lack of consistency and vagueness in phrasing prevents me from saying, for myself, at least, that the reports adequately address all concerns about how subjects actually performed during their polygraph. Compounding this even more is the fact that no record is included of what questions a subject such as Damien is specifically believed to have been untruthful in answering. A further troubling feature of the polygraph testing is of a different nature. From what I could tell, only one type of person was generally polygraphed -- teenagers, specifically those not traditionally "sympathetic" from the middle class point of view, WITH the exception of those teens willing to testify that Damien, Jason or Jessie were involved in the crimes. They were given a dispensation, it appears. Narlene Hollingsworth, the "softball girls," William Winfred Jones, for instance, were not polygraphed from what I could tell. An acquaintance of Jason named Garrett Schwarting, who gives him a partial alibi for the evening of May 5th, was asked to take one, however. Even though not admissible in court, routine polygraphing of all interviewees could have done much to disarm questions which were to arise later about the sincerity of Melissa Byers' "man in black" testimony, for example, or whether William Jones' pretrial recantation was legitimate or not, for another. Yet the WMPD was not willing to provide for this.

Part Four

Record is to be found of numerous items -- some items of fact, some of rumor, some merely bespeaking what could be strange coincidence -- in the 'Triple Homicide: Byers, Branch, Moore' case file which fall outside the argument for guilt ultimately made against defendants Echols, Baldwin and Misskelley. They are hardly conclusive of anything taken separately, or even together, but, when considered, perhaps do help give an idea of the abundance of gray area and room for speculation in this case its file cannot altogether disguise. Here are only some highlights:

-- The name of Steve Jones, Crittenden County Juvenile Authority Officer who,

along with colleague Jerry Driver, had already long been promoting Damien Echols as a key figure in the massive underground Satanic cult in the West Memphis area they believed to exist, is the lead name to appear in the handwritten "Crime Scene Notes," the first important investigative document to be generated by the murders.
-- The "Crime Scene Notes" confirm that the bodies were still oozing blood as they were laid out on the bank of the flooded draining ditch they were retrieved from. Later on, this bank would test positive for blood under luminol testing, apparently lending strength for many to the arguments that here was where the initials assaults will have occurred. Only two of seven positive-by- luminol areas of blood can not be positively ruled out by WMPD as explainable by search and recovery activity. . . .And despite what our over zealous friend would have the world believe, nowhere in the Luminol report does the phrase "void pattern" appear.
-- The earliest dated Investigative Report we found and copied which lists a case number gives it as "93-05-0555", NOT the more infamous, and Satanically suggestive, "-0666", which the WMPD has always claimed was merely coincidentally assigned the case. The top of Bryn Ridge's handwritten Investigative Report showing the "-0555" case number.
-- Detectives Mike Allen and Bryn Ridge waited a full 24 hours after the initial Bojangles restaurant incident report was taken by Regina Meek from the driver's seat of her police cruiser to return and gather blood scrapings.
-- Bryn Ridge's Field Report on Damien Echols' May 10th interview contains the following: "Damien stated that Steve Jones from the Juvenile Authority had been by to see him a day or two before and that Steve had told him about how the boys testicles had been cut off and that someone had urinated in their mouths. He stated that Steve stated that could have been the reason that the bodies were placed in the water so that the urine could have been washed out." And from later on in the same interview: "When asked about what he had heard about how the murders had occurred he stated that they probably died of mutilation. He stated that he heard that some guy had cut them up. He stated that one of the boys may have been cut more than the others." Later on in court, however, the prosecution

treated Damien's possession of such sketchy "insider knowledge" as though it were something he had never offered an explanation for. Here, we have it straight from Bryn Ridge's hand that he had in fact offered the explanation. Steve Jones and another officer did indeed question Damien on the day he referred to -- that fact is verified by a copy of a report written by then Lt. James Sudbury already available at the Wm3.org website -- and there is no record of denial by Jones to be found anywhere in the WMPD file that the particular dialog Damien reported took place.
-- On May 14th Gary Gitchell received in the mail a copy of a book called "Cults That Kill."
-- Ryan Clark's statement reports that his brother Chris and Michael Moore had been in trouble for breaking into Weaver School, and that he and his friends had once caught the two throwing their own feces at one another in the field behind the school. On the night of May 5th, Ryan Clark states he was ordered to quit searching for his brother at midnight by his stepfather, John Mark Byers.
-- Melissa Byers' statement reports Chris had been setting small fires of late, and that she had been concerned he was being molested.
-- There is no mention anywhere in Melissa Byers' statement -- including a section where she lists who she considers possible suspects in her son's death -- of a mysterious "man in black" who allegedly, according to what she later claimed Chris told her, took his picture in their driveway six weeks before the murder, despite the fact that this is something she would testify to at Jessie Misskelley's trial.
-- The Alabama Department of Forensic Science (apparently being consulted by The Arkansas State Crime Lab) tested ten shoes (unidentified as to make or owner in the report) against the shoe print found at the crime scene, and could find no match.
-- The Alabama Department of Forensic Science also reports that soil samples taken from the suspects shoes and clothing could not be matched to soils from the crime scene.
-- No mention anywhere in the file can be found of a piece of cloth being detected in Michael Moore's hand.
-- A woman named Gail Comer, a resident of Lakeshore Trailer Park where Jason had lived, claimed to police in February of 1994 (though without revealing

her source for this), that John Mark Byers had been suspected along with another man in the death of a boy in Marked Tree, Arkansas in the late 1980s, but that "the other man ended taking up the charge". She also reported that Jason Baldwin's mother, Angela Gail Grinnell, had told her of receiving phone calls from John Mark Byers's ex-mother-in-law stating she was certain Byers was responsible for the murders, and that Byers had also abused his ex-wife, Sarah. To be fair, Gail Comer also told police Jessie Misskelley, Jr. was a weasel, was very mean and abusive, and could have been involved in the murders along with Damien, whom she apparently knows little about.
-- In his correspondence to Dr. Dale Griffis in January of 1994, Detective Bryn Ridge passes on information about the crime for Griffis to analyze which he reports to have gathered from a "witness" to the crime, presumably Aaron Hutchinson. However, the content of that supposed information does not come from either of the two Aaron statements located in his folder in the file, and is the same material later deemed too inconsistent and incredible for Aaron to testify to in court. It appears to be, however, the basis upon which much of Griffis' testimony was to be formed.
-- In that same letter, Detective Bryn Ridge, whose name appears on more reports in the file than any other, informs Dr. Dale Griffis not once but twice that no evidence "at all" of blood was found at the crime scene. This is despite of a luminol report stating otherwise filed several months before. Did Bryn Ridge know something about the validity of that luminol report and its findings that the public does not know?
-- A psychological evaluation prepared for Michael Carson by Clinical Psychologist Diana Rankin, M.S., Jane Phillips Nowata Health Center, dated 10-19-93, lists under the section for diagnosis: AXIS I 304.30 Cannabis Dependence 304.50 Hallucinogenic Dependence 303.90 Alcohol Dependence 305.90 Polysubstance Abuse 312.90 Conduct Disorder, Undifferentiated.
-- The file contains a "National Broadcast" request by Carthage, Missouri police, dated 1-5-94, for any information regarding crimes similar to the strangulation/stabbing death of a local 8 year old boy, found naked in a cattle pen.
-- Following this up is a brief report by Bryn Ridge finding no pertinent similarities between the Carthage death and the West Memphis murders.

Regardless of how suggestive many of

these items may be, and regardless of how poor an official record on whole the WMPD's case file can be seen to be of their own investigation, the fact remains that neither validates the central claim made by advocates of The West Memphis Three's guilt, including the West Memphis Police Department itself, that there remains enough incriminating evidence present in the file to remove any reasonable doubt skeptics might have that the right people were convicted.

To conclude then, I will summarize in highlight form what the file contains pointing towards the guilt of Damien Echols, Jason Baldwin and Jessie Misskelley, Jr., whether it was later used in a court of law against them or not.

Part Five

The case the WMPD's 'Triple Homicide' file (at least as it existed on November 16th, 1999) makes for the guilt of Damien Echols, Jason Baldwin and Jessie Misskelley, Jr., listed chronologically as to when the material was filed: May 10, 1993 Narlene Hollingsworth is interviewed by Det. Dianne Hester.

She states that her and her family saw a neighbor and relative named "Dominic" (Domini) Teer and her boyfriend Damien Echols walking along the service road near the "Loves" store at 9:40 PM on the night of May 5th. That location is near the Blue Beacon Truck Wash, whose property contains an entrance to The Robin Hood Hills Woods. She also reports the two were wearing dark colored "dirty" clothes.

May 10th, 1993
Damien Echols is interviewed by Det. Bryn Ridge and Crittenden County Drug Task Force Lieutenant James Sudbury. Damien tells them he is a member of a "white witch" or wiccan group, was home the night of the murders, and that he learned details of the three boys deaths on May 7th from Steve Jones, Crittenden County Juvenile Authority Officer, when the latter visited him to ask what he might know about the deaths. Bryn Ridges writes in his report, "He stated that because of what he had heard he believed that at least one of the boys had been cut up . . . "

Damien is asked questions such as whether the water the boys were found in might have any significance in the beliefs of wicca, and Damien provides hypothetical answers to the questions in that vein. Damien is asked to provide blood and hair samples and take a polygraph, and agrees to all.

Upon conclusion of the polygraph, it is

reported to Ridge by Detective Durham that Damien had been "untruthful", and that according to the polygraph was involved in the murders. Ridge states in his report that, at this point, the interrogation continued, but no further information or details are provided.

May 11th, 1993
Deanna Holcomb, ex-girlfriend of Damien Echols, is interviewed by Det. Bryn Ridge. She reports Damien is crazy, mixed up with drugs and cults, and is into black witchcraft rather than white witchcraft. He likes to hide out in sewers. She broke up with him when he allegedly told her he intended to kill their first born child if a girl. Deanna says she used to be a black witch, but feels now she was stupid to have ever got involved in that stuff. She states she was attending Trinity Baptist Church at the time of the murders.

May 26th, 1993
William Winfred Jones is interviewed by Det. Ridge. He states he knows Damien from school mostly, and that Damien is a Satan worshipper. He states that, about a week prior to this interview, he asked Damien if he had committed the murders when he happened to run across him walking with Domini Teer around midnight at Lakeshore Trailer Park. Damien, who Jones says was "real drunk" at the time, confessed to him that he had sex with the boys and then cut them with a "little" knife. Jones also reports that when his girlfriend's cousin drove by Domini's trailer to "harass" her and Damien about the killings, Damien reportedly yelled at her he was going to "cut her vagina off."

June 3rd, 1993
Jessie Misskelley makes statement implicating himself, Damien Echols, and Jason Baldwin in murders. He also makes statements suggesting they had been part of a cult which did things such as eat dog legs.

June 8th, 9th, 1993
Eight-year-old Aaron Hutcheson gives statements to Det. Don Bray of the Marion Police Dept., and then later to Detective Ridge. He states that Jessie Misskelley told him on Tuesday May 4th that something was going to happen Michael, Chris and Steve, and that Aaron should bring them to Robin Hood Woods the next day. On Wednesday, he was watching in the woods as five men, including Damien, Jason and Jessie, attacked his friends, raping them and then stabbing them in the stomachs and necks. Aaron himself was then tied up, but he untied his knots and

subdued his assailants by kicking them.

June 11th, 1993
Christy Van Vickle, Jodee Medford and Jessica Medford make statements to Det. Hester that they overheard a man they now can identify as Damien Echols confess to the murders at a softball sometime during the week of May 24th.

June 14th, 1993
Joe Houston Bartoush was interviewed by Det. Ridge. He stated that on November 27, 1992 he had witnessed Damien Echols beat a sick Great Dane dog to death, gut it with a camouflage survival knife, and unravel its intestines. Damien allegedly told him he planned to return with battery acid later so he could burn the hair off the dog's skull and take the skull home with him.

June 26th, 1993
Alvin Bly is interviewed by Sgt. Mike Allen. He described having attended Satanic Cult meetings with Damien, Jason, Jessie and others at Stonehenge, an abandoned gin, where animals would be killed and their blood drank. Among his statements: Damien was known as "Davien" by the cult, Jessie Misskelley was the leader of the cult, and that he couldn't remember for sure the names of any of the other twenty or so members of the cult except for those two, Jason, and someone named "Lucifer."

September 17th, 1993
Arkansas State Crime Lab releases Luminol Report, stating possibility the assaults on the victims occurred on or near bank area of the drainage ditch, which coincides with Jessie Misskelley's account.

October 10th, 1993
Tiffany Danielle Allen, 13, is interviewed by Sgt. Allen. She reports that she had heard a Satanic Cult exists in West Memphis, and that she once witnessed a fight between Jason Baldwin and another boy. During the fight, Damien Echols allegedly dipped his finger into blood from the boy and tasted it.

November 17th, 1993
Divers find 12-inch survival knife forty feet from the shore of the lake behind Jason Baldwin's trailer. Arkansas Crime Lab Pathologist Dr. Frank Peretti states the knife could be consistent with some of the wounds on victims.

December 12th, 1993
Crittenden County Juvenile Authority Officer Jerry Driver makes statement outlining his reasons for believing there is or was cult activity in West Memphis area, headed by a man named Lucifer. He states much of his information was gained from conversations with Damien Echols in 1992, who warned him the cult was about to graduate to the "human sacrifice" stage, and one of these could be expected to

occur sometime in the near future. In late summer of 1992 Driver reports he saw Damien, Jason and Jessie Misskelley, Jr. walking down the street, wearing long black coats and carrying staffs. More recent to the deaths, he had seen Damien and Jason hanging out at the local Walmart, though without Jessie.

January 14th, 1994
Alabama Department of Forensic Sciences confirms fiber consistencies for some of the fibers found on victims' clothing and some garments from wardrobes of defendants' homes.

February 1st, 1994
Michael Roy Carson makes a statement to Investigator C. A. Beall of The Arkansas State Police, alleging that Jason Baldwin confessed involvement in the murders to him during the time they spent together at the Craighead County Detention Center in August or September of 1993. He passes polygraph by being "essentially truthful."

And finally, one piece of "evidence" that has come up since the completion of the trials.

October 24th, 1994
Michael Johnson sends a letter to prosecutor Brent Davis, stating that he is currently housed with Jessie Misskelley in the Arkansas Department of Corrections "Diagnostic Unit, Special Programs Unit." He alleges that Jessie confessed to him that he committed the murders with Damien Echols and Jason Baldwin, and that they left a nightgown at the scene, "so that it would look like women had committed the crime." Johnson asks Davis to do everything in his power to keep Misskelley behind bars because "he is a very cold, morbid person."

One thing which it occurs to me to point out after compiling this list is what misleading impressions a novice to this case might get if they examined the file without any other information than what the WMPD is willing to provide them with. Perhaps that helps explain why there are a few people out there who are still impassioned proponents of the trio's guilt. An average person could conceivably come away from a visit like the one I made to the WMPD evidence room accepting the defendants' guilt as something no longer even worthy of question.

After all, even if you don't want to accept the softball girls' word for what they heard, William Winfred Jones was also someone Damien allegedly confessed to. Aaron Hutcheson allegedly witnessed them do it.

And can there be any doubt the three teens were the "type" of people who could commit such crimes after hearing what Alvin Bly has to say about them?

But isn't it always better to hear BOTH sides of a story before bearing the responsibility of passing judgment? Wouldn't you want to know that William Jones had recanted? Wouldn't it be helpful to hear that Aaron Hutcheson was considered unbelievable even by the West Memphis police? And isn't it relevant to know that Alvis Bly was a "drug looped" mental case? Like they say, a little knowledge is a dangerous thing. I suppose it is only proper to say something before I pass on my own judgment.

Neither Greg Fleming nor I are trained investigators, nor can we claim to be infallible. It is possible we may have missed something incredibly damning in our fast-paced (by necessity) hunt through the files, but in my opinion, that is not likely. I did look in every folder, even if only to ascertain what type of material it contained. If it was yet another fizzled or alternate lead folder, chances are I moved on to the next one. If it pertained to Damien, Jason or Jessie, chances are I copied as much of it as I could in the time I had. The only exception to the latter would be material which I or the Support Fund already had copies of, such as Jessie Misskelley's statements, or John Mark Byers' statements. Or if it was a less controversial part of the public record, such as the statements published in 'The Blood of Innocents' that had been made by Robin Hood Hills vicinity residents like Bryan Woody reported having seen the victims riding their bikes the afternoon of the disappearance. Or if it was the statement of someone like a Paul Rand, (a victim of psychotic "Smurf" delusions) which might contain allegations certainly negative about Damien, (such as claiming Damien was the leader of the gang of woman-raping, gas-huffing, drug-using, fight-seeking, animal-killing losers Rand used to run with before he was placed in a home for troubled teens), but which never describes any specific event, or deals with any Satanic Cult allegations which may have tied it more legitimately into the rest of the case.

There were also seemingly HUNDREDS of pages of receipts issued by and to The Arkansas State Crime Lab for items to be tested which I did not copy. These are the only documents I didn't focus on. If by some remarkable fluke one ignored a scrap of paper

in one deceptively unremarkable-looking folder buried deep in the file contains the damning proof of guilt our zealous friend, Sgt. Mike Allen, et al wanted me to see and I missed it, all I can do is apologize and invite them to bring it to my attention.

Otherwise, I can promise I tried to catalog the most salient points found in the file as conscientiously as possible, and the conclusion that I must come to is this: There is NO smoking gun hiding in that file. Nothing at all particularly new to many if not most of the readers of WM3 listgroup, either. If you've read 'The Blood of Innocents,' if you've seen PARADISE LOST or REVELATIONS, if you've kept up with any of the WM3 discussion lists and diligently examined the material already offered on the wm3.org website you have seen what there is already. The claims of John Fogleman, Judge Burnett, Mike Allen and others, is therefore apparently only hot air, exhaled as a bluff by apparently shameless men to protect their own reputations, shield their consciences, promote personal agendas, and fuel their private vendettas. Their claims are a sham, and from this point forward I will call it just that: a sham - to their faces if they wish to challenge me. I now feel I have the right, and I have done the best that I can to pass on that right to those who read this article. You are free to make your own decision.

One final thing to report: I said earlier that in the two days following my visit to the West Memphis Police Department I had a couple of experiences which gave this trip, and what I was attempting to accomplish on it, a whole new perspective. For the first time ever, I was able to meet Damien Echols and Jason Baldwin in person. I will not say a lot about these visits, for the same reason that I would not relate over the Internet the details of private conversations I have with friends here in my home town. But I will say that I could not have been more impressed with either of these guys. Jason is friendly, outgoing, cheerful, and has obviously made himself very useful there at Grimes. Working in the prison school and the drug rehab barracks, he is leading a more constructive, even inspiring life than frankly almost

anyone I know in the so-called "free" world. He also has a sense of humor about his situation that I honestly doubt I could ever be able to muster. I was happy to see a couple of guards smile and joke with him. I didn't see them do that with any of the other handful of prisoners in the visitation room.

Damien is so unlike people's stereotyped perceptions of him (maybe even a little of my own up until now) that it is dizzying. True, he's smart, very funny, and can be sardonic at times, but the biggest impression you get is of someone who is remarkably down-to-earth and...very normal. The "high end" of normal, maybe, yet normal just the same. And talk about a lively conversationalist! Three hours flew by in a heartbeat. We agreed about certain things and disagreed about others, but it never mattered. He was far too friendly and engaging not to get along with. If anyone has ever been too "nervous" to write and ask to visit him, don't be. My positively final conclusion is this: Damien Echols, Jessie Misskelley and Jason Baldwin do not belong in prison.

- Chris Worthington - November - December, 1999