The investigators are now filing in and the reporters are getting ready...
...to cover this news conference.
Many parents in the community will be breathing a sigh of relief...
...if this indeed is the break that police have been waiting for.
Chief Inspector Gary Gitchell is about to begin...
...and he's also bringing in some photographs.
Obviously these will probably be photographs of the suspects.
Of course, suspects unofficially at this point, although many believe...
...in this triple murder of the three 8-year-old boys.
Arrested at 2:44 p.m., Thursday, June the 3rd, 1993.
Jessie Lloyd Misskelley.
Jessie Misskelley is 17 years of age.
Charles Jason Baldwin. He is 16 years of age.
Michael Wayne Echols. Mr Echols is 18 years of age.
He is charged with three counts of capital murder.
Were you surprised when these guys were arrested?
I was surprised about Jason...
...because he's, like, the quiet one of them all.
But I wasn't surprised about Jessie Misskelley and Damien Echols...
...because I just expected it out of them sooner or later.
Killer!
When the police were asking for clothing...
...so they could give it to the dogs to pick up scent...
...the bandana here was the only thing that I had in my household...
...that had Stevie's scent on it. I've never washed it.
When I get the need to just want to feel him again...
...I'll grab it and I'll hug it...
...and I'm so thankful I feel an embrace back.
I was walking the route to take Stevie to school...
...and I checked him out, I believe, at 2:30.
Stevie told me a hundred times, probably a thousand, on the way home:
"I love you, mama." "I love you too, son." And it was just constant.
We got home, first thing I asked him, "Do you have any homework?"
He said, "I did, but I did it in school."
And he hung his homework on the refrigerator.
And Michael Moore came up...
...and they started asking, could Stevie go to Michael's house?
And I said, "No, I'm getting ready for work, I'm cooking supper."
Both of them, you know, begging:
"Please, please, please, we'll be back," and all that.
I gave in and I said, "Okay." I said, "But, boy, you better be home by 4:30.
If you're not, I'm gonna ground you for two weeks from that bike."
I'm gonna say Christopher probably arrived at the house...
...around 3:35 maybe, and he asked me if Stevie was there.
I told him, I said, "I'm surprised you didn't run into him...
...because him and Michael just left."
He left and he was gonna go searching for Stevie and Michael.
Well, around 4:45, Stevie had-- Still hadn't arrived.
Terry came in. I told Terry, "Well, let's go ahead and leave."
We went ahead, and he took me to work.
My night at work was a normal night.
Terry walked in, to the phone, didn't say hi, bye, nothing.
He just walked to the phone...
...and I took two pieces of candy to the car and Amanda was there...
...and I asked her, "Where's Bubba?" She said, "Mama, we can't find him."
And I thought the worst, that he was dead.
I got out of the car, went through this door, got out of my uniform...
...put sweats on and put a T-shirt on.
Because all I was trying to focus on is where's Stevie, where's he at...
...and I gotta get out there, and I gotta start searching.
Last time we saw him was about 6:30 yesterday evening.
- What's--? Give me your name. - My name is Mark Byers.
Okay. Has your son, has this ever happened before?
None of the boys have ever gone off anywhere.
None of the three have ever been missing or taken off ever before.
What's going through your mind as a parent?
I'm scared to death. That's, you know, plain and simple.
I'm scared for the safety and welfare of all three boys.
That particular day, I'd called the West Memphis P.D.
The dispatcher Lucy answered the phone.
She said, "We've had three children missing since last night."
I said, "Well, you know, I'm gonna go help too."
I'm not seeing anything.
Not seeing no kids running around on bicycles or nothing.
And then I thought about Robin Hood Trails...
...as I was driving down Goodwyn, and I said:
"Well I'll-- I'm gonna go over there, just get out and walk around."
I was looking around, you know, just physically looking out and about.
And then I looked into the small ditch.
That's where I saw the tennis shoe at.
I called West Memphis Police Department...
...to have Mike Allen meet me out here.
And so I showed him the area of the tennis shoe.
And Mike had said he was going to take it out.
Mike fell into the water.
I was looking down on him like this.
He looked up and I said, "What?"
And he said, "It feels like my leg is caught on something.
Like a log or something."
And Mike fell backwards, and when he fell backwards...
...his leg came up...
...and one of the little bodies was on his leg.
From the moment they told me Stevie was dead...
...I really lost it, lost all touch with reality.
Pam Hobbs' son, Steve, and two of his friends...
...were found murdered Thursday before last.
It's more a part of my life than I would like it to be.
Because frankly I'd like to be able...
...to not have those three 8-year-old boys' pictures in my mind.
What you found, you found three boys...
...that had been hog-tied and thrown in the water.
It appeared that they had been sexually mutilated.
That appears to be cult-related. The West Memphis Police Department...
...a lot of times would ask me about occult things as though I were the guru.
I probably was because there wasn't anybody else that was doing it.
This programme is designed to help law enforcement officers...
...better understand Satanic cults.
I got some books and I spoke to police organisations around the country...
...that had some experience with it.
Okay, we have a rope here. If you look at it closely--
I don't know if the camera can pick this up.
--but there's blood on this noose.
The police department asked me to put together a list of people...
...that we had on probation that might be involved in that type of activity.
Well, the guy that I knew that was involved the most in it...
...was Damien Echols.
The two guys he ran with, Jessie and Jason....
Jessie would fight.
Jason was not very aggressive, in that respect...
...but I believe he would do anything that Damien asked him to do.
Eight months have passed since the three boys were killed.
Cameras are in place and miles of cable laid...
...in preparation for this highly publicised murder trial.
I guess they found that those three were the most likely to have done it.
Move back.
And then, of course, they had the confession from Jessie.
The most compelling evidence yet was introduced in open court.
Misskelley's taped confession made to police.
I saw Damien hit this one....
Hit this one boy real bad.
Then he start screwing him and stuff.
Jason turned around and hit Steve Branch...
...and started doing the same thing.
Michael Moore took off running, so I chased him...
...and grabbed him and held him until they got there, and then I left.
If he does not run through the woods...
...and chase him down and bring him back, Michael Moore lives.
Did Damien invite you to some meeting?
- He did. A cult, Satanic meeting. - Okay.
Tell me some of the things y'all do, being in this cult.
We go out...
...kill dogs and stuff.
Some of my friends had said they saw a hog's head out here...
...and they saw the body in a plastic bag.
The state is now trying to prove motive in this case...
...calling this a cult-related killing. Whether that will be enough...
...to sway the women and men sitting on this jury remains to be seen.
Damien, any comment about the charges?
Did you do it?
I got a letter in the mail telling me that I had summons to be on the jury.
And I didn't want to be on there in the beginning.
But I didn't know how to get out of it.
Is it your opinion and do you want to tell this jury...
...that these crimes were motivated by occult beliefs?
Yes.
Blood is the life force.
They prefer to have a child that is young.
There's evidence of genital mutilation, and the red is the shaft of the penis.
Jason told me how he dismembered the kid.
He sucked the blood from the penis and the scrotum...
...and put the balls in his mouth.
You take this knife and drag it, and it rips and tears.
The knife is being twisted and the victim is moving.
Just like in the picture.
Damien, he had a book that he wrote in. It was pretty dark.
A lot of death, a lot of-- He talked about dead children.
"Thirsty for blood and the terror of mortal men.
Look favourably on my sacrifice."
I think they went out in the woods.
They may not have been meaning to kill them.
And then it just got out of control.
And Damien, I think he was the mastermind...
...over Jason and Misskelley.
I do believe that. I do.
You begin to see inside Damien Echols.
And you look inside there and there's not a soul in there.
I know he's guilty, you know.
I can't imagine the fear going through them boys...
...watching one another get killed.
- Knowing they was next. - I can't believe the heinous crime.
"We, the jury, find Damien Echols guilty of capital murder...
...in the death of Stevie Branch.
Guilty of capital murder in the death of Chris Byers.
Guilty of capital murder in the death of Michael Moore."
A message has to be sent. You can't be involved in murder...
...and expect to get away with it.
Misskelley was sentenced to life in prison for the murder of Michael Moore.
And 40 years for the murders of Steven Branch and Christopher Byers.
"We have determined that Jason Baldwin shall be sentenced...
...to life imprisonment without parole."
If I'd been on the jury, I sure would have found them guilty.
If there is ever an appropriate case for the death penalty in Arkansas...
- ...you've got it in your hands now. - That they burn in hell.
They wanna worship the devil, let them meet him. I hope they do soon.
"We the jury have determined that Damien Echols...
...shall be sentenced to death by lethal injection."
I was kind of, I guess, happy, if I could--
Might say that word, that everybody else was as angry at them as I was.
Now my boy can play...
...and go on about his life in heaven the way it is...
...and I'll go on with mine the best I can.
And I'm glad it's over.
It's like the community felt like they were relieved...
...that somebody was behind bars...
...and that they didn't have to be as scared as they were. They were guilty.
This call originates from an Arkansas correctional facility.
I have a prepaid call from:
- Damien. - An inmate at Varner Unit.
If you wish to accept-- Thank you.
Damien and I probably have 5000 letters...
...that we've written to each other over the past 15-- Fourteen, 15 years.
You know, it's the way we got to know each other.
I saw the film Paradise Lost, which is a documentary...
...that was made about the original trial.
I was living in New York City at the time...
...and I saw it at probably the second time it was screened.
We were just watching TV the night we were arrested.
We were in the bedroom, turned the light off.
To hear Damien talk in that film, he reminds me so much of myself.
Did she tell you whenever she awarded herself...
...the first-place prize...
...and rode in a parade?
She had this sign on the side of a car that's saying...
..."first place" and it's got a blue ribbon on it.
And it was not even a contest!
She just gave herself "first place."
After a series of letters, writing, corresponding with him...
...and then I cared deeply about him.
And the next thing I know, I'm in Arkansas.
When I was a real little kid, I had, uhh...
...a pet turtle for a while. A box turtle.
Did you do any painting on its shell?
I most certainly did not.
We did.
Seeing the film, you realise something has gone wrong.
You don't get the full picture because there's so much to the story...
...as we've learned, as it's unfolded over the years.
I was struck by the fact that these people didn't commit these crimes.
They don't have the right people in prison.
Questions about whether justice was served...
...have loomed in this case since the verdicts.
The HBO documentary Paradise Lost gave the case worldwide attention.
I'm so glad to see so many people here, people who are interested in this case.
When I started to write Devil's Knot, my friends said, "Mara, they did it."
And I said, "Well, that may be, and if that's true I'm gonna find out."
This was probably the first crowd-sourced criminal investigation...
...in history, is about the only way to describe it.
The case was supposedly solved. If it was an open case...
...the West Memphis Police wouldn't be required to make available documents.
The West Memphis Police put together an incredibly large investigation.
Even if a lot of it was nonsense and rumours.
So we could take on the case, we could begin to ask the questions.
We can look at Jessie's confession and we could say:
"Wait a second, what did he really say...
...compared to what he was claimed to have said?"
From the start, after Jessie Misskelley made his statement to police...
...it was recorded, transcribed.
And then it was immediately leaked to The Commercial Appeal.
I read the confession on the front page of the Memphis Commercial Appeal...
...just like everybody else did. And it seemed like it happened.
When we were appointed by the court in 1993...
...we thought it wasn't gonna be a jury trial.
We thought it was gonna be a plea.
As I got deeper into the case and looked at things...
...they just didn't start making sense.
Misskelley's versions of what happened changed wildly...
...and he couldn't get the story right every time or any time.
Everybody round here knew that Jessie didn't do it.
He didn't like Damien, he was scared of him.
He, uh, stayed away from him as much as possible.
Well, he wasn't too good in school.
Had to take him out of school...
...and I got him started doing mechanic work.
He caught on pretty good.
When I was growing up, my dad always taught me, you know....
Tell the truth.
Tell the police the truth. I thought the police was there to help you.
That's when they, uhh, started questioning me.
Gary Gitchell and Bryn Ridge was...
...you know, asking me some questions.
You know, about the kids.
And I tell them, "I didn't know nothing about it."
The only thing I knew was what, you know....
What I was told...
...from another guy.
I mean, I kept telling them the whole time, "I wanna go home.
I wanna go home."
Certainly one of the reasons behind why he confessed is...
...that he's borderline mentally retarded.
He was trying to compose a story as though he was there.
He just didn't have the details.
Right after, uh, they beat up all three of them.
Beat them up real bad? And then they took their clothes off?
Mm..hmm. And then they--
Then they tied them?
Then they tied them up. Tied their hands up.
And about what time was it that all this was taking place?
I was there about 12.
About noon?
Okay.
Was it after school had let out?
I didn't go to school.
It couldn't have happened at noon.
It couldn't have happened before the kids were out of school.
So they kept leading him down the path from noon to 4:30, 5:30, 6:30.
Was it getting dark?
Your time period might not be exactly right, what you're saying.
Police officers don't like the word "interrogation."
They like the word "interview."
So Mr Misskelley wasn't interviewed, he was interrogated.
And he was interrogated from 9:00 in the morning until after dark.
This is an entire day that he was being interrogated...
...yet we only had a few minutes of the audio tape.
Jessie....
About what time was it when the boys came up to the woods?
I'd say it was about-- It was about 5 or so.
Five or 6.
Ummm....
All right, you told me earlier it was around 7 or 8 or....
Which time is it?
- It's 7 or 8. - Okay.
I remember it was starting to get dark.
Okay, well, that clears it up.
We all have our breaking points. I think it's important that people realise...
...that this is not just about a person...
...with disabilities falsely confessing to a crime.
This is about police misconduct. That's what this is about.
Once police convince the person to make a statement...
...against their interest, how does that person know what to say?
Did anyone use a stick...
...and hit the boys with?
Damien had a kind of a big old stick...
...when he hit that first one.
It's because of this phenomenon known as contamination...
...the police will suggest facts about how the crime happened.
What was to keep these little boys from running off?
Were their hands tied...
...in a fashion to where they couldn't have run? You tell me.
They're sitting there listening to the police.
Listening to their interrogators ask those leading questions.
"Were these boys sexually assaulted?" Then they know what story to tell back.
Another boy was cut, I understand. Where was he cut at?
- At the bottom? - On his bottom?
Do you mean right here? In his groin area?
Do you know what his penis is?
Yeah, that's where he was cut at.
Did it ever occur to you that what he was telling you was false?
- His entire story was false? - Jessie simply got confused. That's all.
I mean, Jessie was not convicted on the basis of his confession.
And neither was Damien and Jason.
They were convicted on the basis of Gary Gitchell's confession.
That was his story.
All they had to do was get Jessie to agree to it.
It's not particularly difficult to get a confession from someone...
...who's mentally handicapped.
It's like interviewing a 3- or 4-, 5-year-old child.
People don't tend to confess to crimes that they didn't commit.
You know, I'm sure there may be circumstances...
...where a person might have a low mentality.
He's slow-minded, is what it is, you know what I mean?
It took a while for him to, you know, get things straight in his mind.
Kind of slow-minded, you know.
Well, hell, everybody's a little bit slow-minded anyway.
I just have better faith in our law enforcement...
...than to force somebody to make a statement that's untrue.
I think that it was essentially poisoned from the very beginning.
The most basic things about the investigations...
...talking to the family members.
Getting statements from police that evening.
You know, whether they had these alibis or not, but it wasn't done.
And it's why the case went bad.
Y'all need to be investigating some of these people...
...who've been arrested for child molestation.
Well, it's like this.
We've got a story that is very, very believable.
It is so close to perfect that we have to believe it.
I don't see how anyone could believe it.
Jessie Misskelley said it happened that morning and everything.
Jason was in school.
And then Jason mowed his uncle's yard.
He got some money, went to play video games.
I called Jason's house, and Jason and Damien...
...and Jason's brother were playing video games.
They weren't talking much. I got a little irritated at them.
Damien asked me to call him later that night.
There was never a night that we never spoke.
I remember that we had talked that night.
When I spoke to police and they came one afternoon and they spoke to me...
...and I talked to them once and that was it.
"On 9-10-1993, I met Jennifer Bearden at her residence in Bartlett, Tennessee.
The interview was a result of having obtained information...
...that she'd been on the phone with Damien on the day of the homicide.
She informed me of several times when she'd been on the phone...
...with Damien and Jason after school.
And until about 9:30 p.m. on the evening of 5-5-'93."
I was never given a chance to at least give them, you know...
...an alibi to the jury, I mean.
And honestly, I don't think it would have changed their minds.
I think they were pretty dead-set on what they were gonna decide.
The evidence will show...
...that not only was Mr Misskelley not in Robin Hood Hills...
...at the time of these homicides, he was in a different county 40 miles away...
...the time these crimes occurred.
There were a lot of alibi witnesses.
When was the first time you remember seeing Jessie?
At 2:00.
Jessie came to the house.
I asked if he could watch the kids while I went to a conference.
She got back about 4:00 and we went walking.
I seen him walking down the street. I met him on the corner.
Talking about him fixing to leave to go to wrestling.
A lot of these folks, when we went back and visited with them...
...they came to the conclusion, "Oh, yeah, that's the night...
...that we went wrestling with Jessie."
- Did you go wrestling? - Yes, sir, I did.
- Okay, do you remember who went? - Jessie, Freddy.
Me and Jessie and Freddy...
...and James was at wrestling that night, you know.
And that's the night that he got hurt.
And that's the night that so-and-so only went with us...
- Once. - ...one time.
That was the same night that we signed this register at the wrestling hall.
- Do you remember seeing Misskelley? - Yes, sir.
- Yes, sir.
- You remember Jessie Misskelley? - Yes, sir.
- Are you positive about that? - Yes, sir.
Looking through the juror's notes, they hardly seemed to pay attention...
...during the alibi portion of it.
You could say I sort of, like, died myself because I shut out humanity...
...and I didn't like people, I was a hateful person...
...and before this happened I wasn't that type of person.
Words can't explain what the grief, and what you go through....
We have found this to be a world of its own.
We had quite a few arguments and stuff because I couldn't let go.
He told me I had to let it go, I had to keep living...
...and I told him I was still in that ditch just as much as my son was...
...and I was clawing my way out of it the best way that I knew how.
I left Terry in 2002 and we were divorced in 2004.
I do think that you can meet someone and know that there's something there.
That there's some journey there for you.
But I think it takes a long, it does take a long time...
...and I think it's a painful process, actually.
I was talking about it and how really and truly stressed out you were that day.
It was the first time you'd been touched by anybody, like, in seven years.
And I'll never forget you were, like, so completely pale.
And you were shaking, and I kind of thought...
...you were gonna pass out at one point.
It was a Buddhist ceremony, and we kind of wrote it ourselves and--
They had a little-- We had a little temple set up or a little altar set up...
We did.
...incense burning on it.
You know, they had two guards up there watching the whole thing.
And you could tell they had no idea...
...you know, what the hell was going on.
So they just pretty much stayed out of the way.
We'd intersperse lots of, you know, bowing, then kissing and hugging.
I think you're supposed to only kiss once or something in the ceremony.
We just-- We made it seem like it was a part of the ceremony.
So that was nice, that was really nice.
But, you know, back then it was nothing like it is now, you know...
...with the people who knew about the case.
So it was kind of nice because it was real low-key.
I had talked to Lorri. She had come out to talk about the case.
My attitude at the time was, you know, we cannot do this.
They were adamant that this should be and was a case about innocence.
"We don't want you to focus on death versus life without parole.
This is a case about innocence."
My reaction was, if it is a case about innocence...
...what they said is that there's all of this investigation...
...that has to be done on the ground in Arkansas.
And we're, you know, a two-lawyer partnership in San Francisco.
How are we possibly gonna get the resources to get on the ground...
...and really investigate a case in Arkansas?
Lorri Davis said, "I'll find a way to do it."
I've quit my job, my other job, so I that can work full-time on the case.
Attorneys for Damien Echols are appealing their client's conviction...
...on Arkansas Rule 37, ineffective counsel.
Prosecutors disagree.
It was effective, it was thorough.
It was a 17-day trial.
Outside the court, supporters unveiled a banner...
...of more than 2500 postcards...
...each pleading to free the West Memphis Three.
It was always about free the West Memphis Three.
We were raising funds and it wasn't even to raise money for their defence.
It was to raise money so they had money when they got out.
Because the day was coming soon.
I decided it should be Black Flag songs.
I called Iggy Pop, he said sure. I called Lemmy, he said, "I'm in."
Called Chuck D from Public Enemy, he said, "You got it."
All to help these three guys who I'd never met.
I went to your benefit show in '03 for the West Memphis Three.
It was like the best concert I've ever been to.
- See? - I can't believe this is still going on.
Yeah, well. I saw a little bit of myself. Damien liked to hang out alone...
...and wrote in his journals that he was depressed. Hello.
He liked to listen to weird music. Check.
He was a wise-ass in the face of law enforcement.
I mean, are you kidding? It could have been me.
Could have been me.
Not everyone agreed with Rollins' message.
The parents of the murdered children showed displeasure with picket signs.
My baby was murdered and butchered like an animal...
...and his two friends were too.
Whatever punishment they get, they deserve.
Michael's mother, Diana Moore, agrees, telling us, "Make no mistake about it.
These three you see convicted and sentenced did it."
I started getting very passionate, very sincere hate mail.
Because if you are seen to be sticking up for someone...
...who someone else truly believes has murdered a child...
...there's no way you can reason with that person.
I remember thinking that if we could get involved...
...we'd probably get them out in maybe one or two years.
That's how naive I was.
It's usually on average of like 15 to 20 years.
If you would have told us that three or four years in...
...I think it would have been quite daunting.
This is the first e-mail that I received from Fran and Peter, and it's 7-25-'05.
"What a horror story, unbelievable.
Something positive has to come from this.
What can we do down here in New Zealand?
Our names are Peter Jackson and Fran Walsh.
We would like to offer financial assistance to help facilitate, hopefully...
...a positive outcome in Damien's appeal to the federal court."
When Fran and I first got involved...
...it felt like the case was in a holding pattern.
But it wasn't a holding pattern for Damien's chances of staying alive.
That doesn't go into a holding pattern.
"Dear Fran and Peter, your e-mail was a welcome sight...
...on a very hot Monday morning here in Arkansas.
My name is Lorri Davis...
...and I have been involved in working on the case for nine years.
There are many twists and turns to the story.
It's still incredibly frustrating.
Appeal's taking forever and funds always needed."
I have a pathological hatred of bullying and people in power...
...crapping on people who have no ability to defend themselves.
I believe in justice. I think there are good people and bad people.
People do horrible things and should be punished.
Justice should be fair, it should be honourable...
...it should be decent, it should speak to our values as human beings...
...that right must prevail.
And all that I could see in the case of the West Memphis Three is...
...wrong was prevailing and that wrong was being perpetrated by people...
...who, I believe, knew they were doing wrong.
Most people think that this case is something extraordinary.
It's spectacular in some sort of way, and it's not. Burnett and Fogleman...
...thought they could make a name for themselves off of this case.
Because, really, you're dealing with three kids...
...who were bottom of the barrel, poor white trash...
...that nobody's ever gonna ask another question about.
He thought they would say, "Guilty."
This whole thing would be swept under the rug.
The state would kill me.
Jason and Jessie would spend their lives in prison.
He'd move up the political ladder. That's all he cared about.
This case is nothing out of the ordinary. This happens all the time.
How did I decide which trial would go first?
And the reason I'm hesitating, I'm trying to think if that's a question...
...that I should be answering.
In general, a case with a confession...
...would be your easier case as opposed to one without direct evidence.
- Ten feet, ma'am. Back up. - Okay.
Are you gonna testify against your co-defendants?
Jessie, were you forced to talk about this?
The prosecutors had a problem.
They could not play the tape...
...of Misskelley's statement at the second trial.
They needed Mr Misskelley to testify.
They thought they were gonna lose the other two.
Are you worried about his testimony?
Judge Burnett appointed Phillip Wells to interview Mr Misskelley...
...to make sure he didn't really, really, really want to testify...
...against Baldwin and Echols.
Here's a young 18-year-old, under a lot of stress...
...facing life plus 40 in penitentiary. He has to make sure whatever options...
...and offers are available to him are looked into or communicated.
Promises of lesser sentences, you know, a much easier life in prison.
Many defendants would have jumped on that deal. Jessie said no.
They can't come up with physical evidence.
They've got to turn to witnesses who they can convince...
...to give statements in court. That's the only evidence they come up with.
Just when it seemed attorneys for the state had their back against a wall...
...Craighead County Courthouse came to an eerie silence...
...as 16-year-old Michael Carson, a former juvenile inmate...
...who spent time with Baldwin, took the stand.
I was doing serious adult drugs and, I mean, I was doing a lot of them.
I got out there. I thought birds had cameras on them.
Michael Carson, he was fixing to go to the penitentiary...
...for several counts of residential burglary...
...and that is when the prosecutor got a hold of him.
Were you offered anything as far as a reward...
...or anything of that nature?
No, sir, and if I was, I would deny it.
Jason was not very outspoken.
He wasn't, you know, jumping around and stuff.
He's a very quiet, to-himself type of person.
- What did he tell you? - He told me...
...how he dismembered the kid...
...he sucked the blood from the penis and scrotum...
...and put the balls in his mouth.
I remember not knowing why I was doing what I was doing.
I remember it actually going through my head.
I would have this massive illusion in my head and swear to God it was real.
And the kids, that night I let them listen to the news...
...and they just went crazy.
They said, "He's a lying son of a bitch. Jason didn't tell him nothing."
I could understand why he would never want to see me again...
...or talk to me again, but I'm just telling him right now that I'm sorry.
I made the statement to Larry, the sheriff.
I said, "Larry, those kids are not guilty."
He said, "Joyce." He said, "It's this simple.
Crittenden County fucked up, now we've got to clean up."
I'm a drug addict.
I was doing a lot of inhalants, LSD, I was huffing gas all the time.
It's bad. It takes your whole perspective on life and makes it a dream.
And they knew that. They knew the drugs that I was doing.
Did you walk in those woods in the winter?
Yeah, that was the best time because during summer...
...it's really marshy.
During the winter it was froze, the ground would be froze solid.
So you didn't have to worry about all the mud and all that business.
I love the thought of being out there.
The cool, dark part of the year, it's my absolute favourite time of year.
Part of it was that whenever I was out...
...that was always the time of year whenever I felt the safest.
Because most people, whenever it gets cold, you know, they're not out.
So it's almost like at that time of year the entire world is almost yours.
Nobody else wants it.
Jason and I would talk about leaving that place, moving out of that place...
...but we were so young that it never was a definite plan, it was always just...
...we've got to get the hell out of here.
The thing that Jason always loved was art. You know, painting...
...drawing, things like that.
He would do these paintings that were absolutely incredible...
...when he had art class in school.
The teacher would refuse to grade them.
She would say, "That's not what I told you to paint.
That's not what I told you to draw, I don't want to see one more skull."
She would say, you know, "You were assigned to do a still-life of flowers."
Jason was like, "Fuck that, I'm not doing that, it's not what I want to do."
I've jokingly said to Lorri before that I think that, in a lot of ways...
...I may have brought this on myself, this entire situation.
Because when I was a child I knew what my passion was...
...I knew what my drive was, I knew what my desire was. I loved magic.
I would say to myself, you know, these names that people think of.
I would say, "One day my name is gonna eclipse all of them.
I'm gonna be the greatest magician there's ever been."
And I had no idea that that meant I would have 20 years...
...to sit alone in a prison cell and practise and study.
But that's a word that you don't even use here...
...because when people hear the word "magic"...
...anything even remotely connected to magic...
...has to be evil in some kind of way.
I noticed that Damien...
...he had on kind of a black duster-looking coat and carried a staff.
And I-- You know, that's kind of weird-looking.
But that's one of the things that I testified to in the court hearing.
Damien, Jason...
...and Jessie had no motive whatsoever to kill these three boys.
You know, boys that they didn't even know.
And so, therefore, the state went to the only motiveless theory...
...they could possibly go to.
We thought that the best thing to do would be to...
...actually get some expert analysis on the crime itself.
As far as we could see the best person to get would be John Douglas...
...who was there at the creation of the FBI Behavioural Science Unit.
From the evidence and the crime scene, they start to put a picture together...
...of who committed the crime and why they committed the crime.
My role when I was brought in was primarily to analyse the case to see...
...does it really fit the three people they have in prison?
I didn't wanna know anything about them.
I don't want to become prejudiced and be swayed in any way.
If I do an analysis like this, you may not like what I say. I'm not a hired gun.
When I work on a case like this, I work for the victims.
No matter who brings me in, I'm working for the victims.
This appeared to be what we call a lust murder.
There's blunt-force trauma inflicted on these children.
There was evidence of sexual mutilation to one of the victims.
Three victims were hog-tied with their shoelaces...
...from their wrists to their ankles.
And on the surface, it appeared to be a sexually motivated crime.
The focus of the investigation is always on the families.
You start from there, and you work your way out.
There were some police notes...
...where they had looked into the possibility...
...that a stepfather might be involved.
They take me back to the police station and said:
"We have information that you are involved in this crime...
...and that you did it."
I may have information that you have something to do...
...with the disappearance of the boys, and, ultimately, of the murder.
It's almost more than I can believe, you know, what you just said to me.
And it makes me so mad inside...
...that I just kind of got to hold myself here in this chair.
I had hair removed.
I had to have over 30 pubic hairs pulled out, plus the roots.
We're gonna interview the other two fathers.
We're gonna ask them the same questions.
They said, "We're gonna do the other family members...
...just like we gonna do you."
The assumption is that the crime was unusual, it was bizarre, grotesque.
Even when Paradise Lost 2 comes out...
...and they are presenting an alternative scenario...
...they're going to an equally theatrical possible perpetrator, John Mark Byers.
"Dearest Damien.
There are many things we can do...
...that can shed light on the truth of what happened to those boys.
It is impossible to do something this heinous...
...and not leave a personal imprint.
We need to do extensive investigative work on Byers...
...investigative work that the police failed to do."
I went down to the Memphis area and conducted...
...an interview with Mark Byers, or attempted to conduct an interview.
I knocked on his door, he came out, his wife came out...
...and pretty much, he wanted to kick me off his porch.
He didn't wanna talk to me.
It was daily grind, fighting on the Internet with people, being in a place...
...and someone recognising me and get up and go call their friends...
...then all of a sudden, I got a mob, and I got to sneak out the back door...
...because I know a ass-kicking's coming.
"We need to find Mark Byers' living relatives. We need to find Ryan Clark.
We need to figure out a strategy for getting him to talk.
We need to know where and at what time...
...they went looking for Christopher on May 5th.
We need to locate all of Byers' vehicles...
...that he owned at that time and Luminol-test them.
We need to access Byers' ex-residence...
...and Luminol-test every floor surface in the house.
Lots of questions, and not many answers.
But right now we're still stumbling around in the dark...
...looking for a light switch."
Mark Byers, he had a tough life.
He has a criminal history, got busted for some prescription drugs.
But he is not the type of personality that would perpetrate a crime...
...like the crimes I was looking at here in West Memphis.
When we learned the case...
...the timeline just didn't add up to us.
Beyond the theatrical nature of Mark Byers...
...he didn't have a motive, he didn't actually have the opportunity.
It became clear to us that...
...you know, people were looking at Byers...
...because they thought he was the sort of person who could do this.
And our reaction to that was the reason Damien got convicted...
...was that people thought he was the sort of person who could do this.
When I was in the Bureau...
...we came up with a crime classification manual we designed.
We considered Satanic...
...because these cops were bringing back these cases to us.
Satanic murders, Satanic murders.
There were classes being offered all over the country.
Oprah Winfrey had shows...
...Geraldo Rivera had shows, it was all over here.
Another area that you might find Satanic ritual carving...
...is in the stomach area.
This is not a Satanic-- This is not a ritual. It's a murder.
It's a murder maybe by one crazy guy.
If you're calling this Satanic, we could have...
...just as many murders where a Bible is left there.
Does that make it a Christian murder? It's a Bible? I mean, no, it's nuts.
It's just one, you know, crazy person.
Police say Satanists in our area...
...often conduct their rituals in remote, wooded areas.
At some point did Damien invite you to some meeting?
He did.
The West Memphis Police didn't seem interested...
...in corroborating anything, they just took everything at face value.
- A cult, Satanic meeting. - Okay.
I got a phone call from a lawyer in Fayetteville...
...who had Vicki Hutcheson sitting at her desk.
Would you raise your right hand?
Said, "She's ready to recant her trial testimony, how fast can you get here?"
She obviously asked for immunity from the state...
...which they refused to grant.
So here's the State of Arkansas at the Rule 37 hearings still stonewalling...
...still refusing to let the truth shine on this case.
Damien and I stood back...
...and then these kids took their clothes off...
...and I looked at Damien...
...and I said, "I want to leave."
I testified to it...
...but I lied on the stand.
It was frightening to listen to her tell the truth...
...the truth that I knew had existed all these years.
The truth that she wouldn't come out and say...
...because she was afraid of what would happen to her.
You mentioned that you went and met...
...Jerry Driver at the Marion Police Department.
I'm trying to remember.
I do, I know who she is.
It's just kind of back in my mind somewhere.
What did they ask you to do?
Do I think--
They asked me, do I think I could get, um, Jessie...
...to introduce me to Damien.
All we asked her was to go in and see what she could find out.
Now that was with police department's knowledge and consent.
He's the one that suggested:
"If you're gonna have Damien over, you to need to have demon books...
...on your coffee table."
The only thing she was coached to do was to not get caught...
...because we were actually afraid that if she got caught, he'd kill her.
Damien looks down at those demon book things.
And I said, "Why are you so nervous?"
And he said, "Well, you'd be nervous too...
...if they thought you killed three little kids."
And I said, "Why would they think you, of all people?"
And he goes, "I'm-- Because I'm weird, I guess, you know." And I was like--
I was like, "Well, did you kill them?"
He said, "Well, no! I wouldn't do something like that," like I was stupid.
And he was just like any other kid his age, you know.
He was just a normal kid.
Any other contact with Damien?
None at all.
I was just a big liar, and I really was just a big liar.
I've spent a lot of the last 17 years looking back...
...at what I should have done and what I could have done.
You know, it would be easy for me to say I did the best I could.
But I didn't. There's no substitute for experience...
...and it's hard to look back.
It was before the trial when Mr Fogleman was leaving my office...
...I stopped him in the hallway, and I asked him, "Is this actually Satanic?
Is that what they're saying?"
And he-- His response was no, it's not Satanic.
It's just murder.
It's not something made up, it's not something dreamed up...
...it's not a figment of our imagination.
The evidence was that this murder had the trappings of an occult murder...
...a Satanic murder.
When you take the crime scene, the injuries to these kids...
...the testimony about sucking of blood, and there's a transference of power...
...from drinking of blood.
Could you have any reason to understand...
...why someone would do that to three 8-year-old boys?
Well, you know, everyone can say, "Well, who did you tell?" Well, nobody.
I think this case was never about justice because they knew we didn't do this.
Fogleman knew we did not do this.
Is it a coincidence this knife is found in the lake...
...hidden behind Jason Baldwin's house?
And the same person that this knife is found behind is the person...
...that told Michael Carson that he did it...
...and he sucked the blood out of the kid's penis, is that a coincidence?
If you ask me, the single greatest offence...
...committed in this case is what was done by John Fogleman...
...with the knife in the lake.
Fogleman had divers search a small lake behind the trailer park...
...where Baldwin lived. That search produced a knife.
To go out there in this big pond and to go right there...
...and in just less than 30 minutes and come up with this-- This knife.
I mean, you win the lottery.
And then there's a reporter covering it.
We interviewed and have the declaration of the diver.
He said that he was given a description of the knife...
...and where it would be located.
The press said they were told-- And we have the reporter.
"Come to the lake, we are about to make a discovery."
The prosecution knew the knife was in the lake.
Nothing wrong with that. You have an informant, they tell you:
"Oh, the crime was committed and we know where the murder weapon is.
They committed the crime and they threw it in the lake."
The thing is that informant is of critical importance.
They're the one who connects it to the crime.
They're the one who allows you to say it was the murder weapon.
Why don't you call that informant at trial?
Why instead do you tell a lie, as John Fogleman did...
...and say, "I just had a hunch it was in the lake"?
The reason is that John Fogleman had been told how it got in the lake.
It was thrown in the lake by Jason's mother.
All I know is my son is innocent, and he has been quiet.
And so there's a connection to Jason. Why not bring it forward?
Because the same people who told them that it was in the lake...
...let him know that it was thrown into the lake a year before the crime.
He knew that knife in the lake had nothing to do with the crime...
...because he had been told when it was thrown in the lake.
This knife, state's exhibit 77, caused those injuries right there.
Dash, dash, dash.
I think the knife that was in the courtroom was the one...
...that was used on the Byers boy.
I still think that.
People that found the bodies and saw the wounds...
...said that it appeared to be cult-related.
Serrations are consistent with being inflicted with this type of knife.
The only way you can tell if a serrated knife has been used...
...is by looking for the serrations that rub across the skin.
Arkansas is one of the last remaining states...
...that has a prosecutor-controlled crime lab.
What that means is the medical examiner is not a witness...
...for what actually happened, but he is an actual arm of the prosecution.
At this time I would ask that Dr Peretti...
...be allowed to show the photographs and use....
One of the key elements of the case that we wanted to get into was Frank Peretti.
Dr Frank Peretti was the assistant medical examiner at the time...
...the autopsies were conducted.
He's not actually board-certified.
You get five chances to take the board exams in Arkansas...
...and Frank Peretti has failed them twice.
He's opted out of taking them again for personal reasons.
His medical testimony at the trial created a picture in the jury's mind...
...of a ritualistic, sexual murder.
These type of injuries we commonly see in the female rape victim.
Trying to spread the legs for penetration.
The anal orifice was dilated, it could be from putting an object in the anus.
Those types of injuries we generally see in children...
...who are forced to perform oral sex.
There's evidence of genital mutilation. This is the cutting wound here...
...and the red is the shaft of the penis.
Cutting wounds, superficial cuts, gouging-type injuries.
Multiple superficial, interrupted cuts, multiple cuts.
Stab wounds and cutting wounds.
The knife is being twisted and the victim is moving.
Gouging where the skin has been pulled out.
Gouging wounds, cutting wounds, stab wounds.
Skin is going to tear, skin has just been pulled away, torn out.
Those were the most horrifying photographs that anyone could imagine.
Those jurors were scared to death.
He's painting the picture in jury's minds of an absolutely horrific murder.
Cruel and unusual.
It's what the jury hears coming out of Frank Peretti's mouth...
...more than anything that sentences Damien Echols to death.
We took our lead from Peretti himself...
...because during the trial he holds up this textbook on forensic pathology.
It's written by Vincent DiMaio, who is a renowned medical examiner in Texas.
I believe you indicated that Dr DiMaio and you are on a first-name basis.
Yes, I did.
And so we went to DiMaio himself.
The thing that's most interesting in this case is that while the autopsies...
...are done in exquisite detail...
...to me, the interpretation of the findings are completely wrong.
There is nothing here that I would say was due to a knife.
Either the cutting edge, the tip or the back of a knife.
If you think about how stupid it is, they're saying they're killing these kids.
And, you know, dragging the back of a knife across them.
When I looked at the photographs...
...it's obvious that by the appearance of the wounds...
...they had occurred after death.
If you're gonna torture and mutilate someone, that's to cause pain to them.
But these wounds are postmortem...
...so why are you torturing and mutilating dead bodies?
It doesn't make sense.
The irregular nature of the wounds, some scratches.
There's no bleeding, there's no pattern.
To me, it's obvious animal activity.
We actually called the place back there we used to ride our bikes...
...Turtle City. That's just behind there, because there were so many turtles.
Everywhere, hundreds of them.
Painted turtles, snapping turtles, soft-shell turtles, all kinds of turtles.
And they actually got such thing called the alligator snapping turtle...
...that could be found. I mean....
Big turtles with humps in their back.
That make them look kind of like alligators.
Our house was up against a ditch, so we would go back.
There was a lot of them there, turtles, fish and mud.
You'd see an armadillo that fell in the water or got hit by a car...
...and there'd be like four or five turtles just chewing on it.
Red flags should go up when a body is pulled from the water.
Especially in the month of May.
At that latitude, those reptiles are in high gear.
They're feeding at their highest level, their most voracious appetites.
Just keep going, keep going.
This is the bite mark I'm looking for.
You can already start to see the outline of the jaw.
The animals usually start with soft tissue.
And the scrotum and the skin around the penis is soft, they're coming off...
...so the animal doesn't have to go against the body mass itself...
...but goes at the things that are dangled in front of it.
And then they'll go to things like lips and the tip of the nose and the ears.
What you're dealing with is a horrendous crime.
Three young boys murdered in cold blood.
Just that alone upsets people.
You look at the bodies and there's these savage injuries all over.
It affects people emotionally and it warps their judgement.
And then someone says, "Maybe it's Satanic!"
And they say, "Well, the only type of person who would do this...
...would be someone like that."
We didn't want just one opinion.
We thought the best thing to do was basically to get...
...six or seven of the very best people, get a wide range of views.
Every single one of the independent experts that we approached...
...came out with the same findings.
There's no evidence that these injuries occurred while they were alive.
There's no evidence that, as the medical examiner testified...
...they were sexually assaulted, pulled up by the ears, fellatio involved.
The problem is bad science drives out good science.
You don't have to be a rocket scientist or a forensic dentist...
...to look at that serrations on the back of that knife and say...
...that that knife made these marks. I mean, give me a break.
That is the most ridiculous statement that I've ever heard.
And to sell that to a jury is unconscionable.
We flew several of these forensic pathologists down to Arkansas...
...to meet with Dr Peretti face-to-face.
Dr Peretti listened patiently and nodded his head.
And said he would consider all this.
But he'd concluded that this couldn't have been caused by a turtle...
...and that's kind of where he drew his line.
Now here all this information comes in.
I start seeing a totally different kind of situation.
This is not a lust murder...
...where the killer is going after the genital areas of the victim.
This is what's starting to develop to me as a personal-cause homicide...
...directed at these children, but maybe one more than-- More than others.
In all probability this person would have been interviewed.
Should have been by now, because he would be the logical person.
There's a connection with the victims.
The person who killed those three kids is still out there walking on the street.
To me, that would seem like the highest priority. Not this case.
Not me, Jason or Jessie. You know, don't get me wrong...
...we're thankful for the support that people give us.
But the main thing I would be thinking about...
...is there's someone who killed three kids still living in my neighbourhood.
If you disregard the state's Satanic ritual theory...
...the entire nature of the crime changes.
It starts you thinking, "Maybe we're not looking for these extreme suspects.
We're looking for someone who's kind of ordinary, invisible."
So at that point we thought we should put more funding into the DNA testing.
We're getting packages and shipments of all sorts of DNA samples...
...that we're then forwarding on to our DNA expert.
Out there was a process that was going on...
...that either would be the impetus for exoneration...
...or would be the state's last chance...
...to demonstrate in this controversial case that he was good for it.
And Damien's reaction to that was...
...that he was absolutely adamant about the DNA testing.
Of all the samples and all the various hairs and things that got tested...
...there was nothing, none of the DNA came back.
Nothing matched Damien, Jason or Jessie.
What was interesting, however, were some unknown hairs.
There was one hair in particular...
...that was in the binding of one of the ligatures.
The boys had their hands tied with shoelaces...
...and right in the middle of a knot that had been tightened...
...there was a hair jammed in that knot.
Had the hair been located anywhere other than inside a ligature binding...
...I would say, you know, it's not as significant as it could be.
But given its location, I think it's particularly damning evidence.
The hair tied into Michael Moore's ligature had to come from somebody.
So over Christmas, 2006, we studied John Douglas's report...
...and started to think about who that foreign profile could belong to.
"This crime was not nearly so convoluted nor as twisted...
...as the public were led to believe.
John Douglas said that this is most likely a personal-cause killing.
That is to say, the perpetrator knew one or more of the victims...
...and had good reason, at least in his own mind, to act out violently.
We know the boys were bashed on the head, tied up...
...and thrown into the drainage ditch."
The children were submerged in water, which is an unnecessary act...
...if you're a total-- You know, total stranger.
And an unnecessary act to throw the bicycles into the bayou.
"We know that all of this could have happened...
...in the space of just 20 minutes.
It almost certainly happened before dark...
...which means the crime in all likelihood occurred between the hours...
...of 6:30 and 7:45 p.m.
Who knew these boys well enough to kill them?
Who was out looking for them?
From where I stand we are pretty much left with a list of three people.
Mark Byers, Terry Hobbs, and Todd Moore.
Mark Byers began looking for Chris from 6 p.m.
Terry Hobbs was looking for Stevie Branch from 5 p.m.
Todd Moore was out of town.
We're left with two stepfathers.
But only one of them has ever been scrutinised as a suspect.
Byers once referred to himself as the giant red herring of this case...
...and I think he was speaking the truth.
That is why I am interested in Terry Hobbs.
Hope this helps to explain where I'm coming from.
Sending much love to you, Fran."
We were working with a private investigator, Rachael Geiser...
...and we asked Rachael to start to investigate Terry.
I'd come in to work daily, and I would have...
...all of these e-mails from Fran about:
"Here's what we need to do, thanks for what you sent."
We really didn't know a whole lot about Stevie...
...because Stevie's life was kind of confusing.
These are the photographs of Steven Branch.
You had his father, Stevie, his biological father.
- Here we can see.... - You had Pam, and then you had Terry.
Other than the fact that nothing's there, there's nothing that would raise flags.
And so getting Terry's DNA became a priority for us now...
...and the brief to Rachael was really get Terry's DNA without him knowing.
Saturday morning, it was raining out, I remember...
...and we showed up at his house early...
...and he opened the door, and we told him who we were.
He said, "I've been expecting y'all."
I'll never forget it, he was like, "Come on in."
I remember we sat there with him for a while, and he, you know....
He was a likeable-enough guy, he really was.
He talked about their life and how their life was.
He didn't talk a whole lot about Pam. I think they were fighting at the time.
And he didn't talk, really, about Amanda at all.
He interviewed with us, told us where he was.
He said that was the first time he'd ever told anyone his whereabouts.
So we waited in the living room while he was in the bathroom, I assume...
...and that's when I took the cigarette butts out of the ashtray. Yeah.
We got the fax, and I'm reading the fax...
...and I'm reading the fax, and at some point I said, "Holy fuck."
We all were just kind of stunned to see this very dramatic DNA result.
Terry comes in, sits down, and we tell him, you know....
The DNA that was found on the hair doesn't match...
...Damien or Jason or Jessie.
So it's somebody else's DNA.
They don't know whose?
- Tell me. - Yours.
No.
Yes, it is.
No, that's wrong.
We had to get him to come in because we knew...
...that he didn't voluntarily give us this DNA.
We wanted to get either a voluntary sample or we need to see him...
...do something, you know, that would have left his DNA.
Terry Hobbs would not, at any point, give me his DNA voluntarily, no.
The biggest bombshell of the new defence investigation...
...is that an unexplained hair that could be from another victim's stepfather...
...was found on shoelaces at the crime scene.
They say the DNA matches victim Stevie Branch's stepfather, Terry Hobbs.
Hobbs tells me tonight, quote, "I don't have anything to hide.
I'll answer any questions."
Do you feel like the attorneys are accusing you of this crime?
The answer to that would be no.
Is it possible, Mr Hobbs, that that was your hair?
Sure, it was his son, Steven Branch...
...who was murdered, and he's had to deal with this for the last 15 years.
The first tattoos I got was my parents' name...
...because I love them more than anything in the world.
I've abused drugs for many years and I'm only 21...
...and I feel like it's because I'm trying to hide.
I did it to suppress something, to cover something up.
And where are your kids during this time, at your mom's?
They live with my mom.
And so why don't you stay with your mom?
She thinks I'm too wild.
So she says, "You can't stay here because you're too wild"?
And I'm hung out on a limb.
What's that mean, you're hung out on a limb?
That I'm going crazy the way she did when Stevie died.
Once Terry Hobbs surfaced, it certainly advanced things.
It helped shift the momentum.
The West Memphis Police Department realised...
...that they had never actually interviewed him...
...despite the fact that he was a stepfather of one of the victims.
They quickly conducted an interview with Terry Hobbs in 2007.
Anything unusual when you got home, at all?
Nothing other than, uh, Stevie wasn't home.
Terry Hobbs said to everyone that he was very concerned...
...when Stevie Branch didn't come home at 4:30 that night.
If he was so worried at 4:30, why didn't he call Stevie's mom?
When he does finally tell her, 9:00, almost five hours later.
This person knows that he will be a logical suspect at some point...
...but what he needs, he needs time on his hands.
He needs to establish an alibi.
We studied his movements that night.
He had spent some period of time on the evening of May the 5th...