A Witch Hunt: Remember the West Memphis Three

Another article written for The Keystone about the West Memphis Three.

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On May 6^th, 1993 in West Memphis, Arkansas, three eight-year-old boys were found dead, naked and mutilated near a creek in an area known as Robin Hood Hills. The killing had seemed to police as a satanic ritual. In June of that year, Damien Echols, Jason Baldwin and Jessie Misskelley were arrested as the prime suspects in the murder of the three boys.

Authorities were under pressure by the residents of West Memphis to find the perpetrators of this malicious crime as quickly as possible. There is one very large problem with the arrest and conviction of Damien, Jason and Jessie. No physical evidence linking the three, now known by many as the West Memphis Three, to the murders was ever found.
According to accounts of the investigation, the West Memphis police had never had any experience with a murder like that of the three eight-year-olds. It was because of this that the crime scene was not properly preserved and much evidence was lost due to the inexperienced work of the authorities.

A seminal piece of evidence was found in the form of bite marks on two of the victims, which were not studied until four years after the crime. When they were compared to the bite patterns of Damien, Jessie and Jason, they did not match.

One unusual figure in this story, Mark Byers, adoptive father to one of the victims, has been speculated by many to be the true perpetrator of this triple homicide. During the filming of the first half of Paradise Lost, a documentary which covers the entire story up until sentencing, Byers gave the film makers a serrated hunting knife as a gift. It was noted by the film makers that blood was present on the knife. Subsequently, they handed it over to authorities who tested the blood and found it to match that of Byers’ adopted son. The serrations on the knife also matched the cut patterns on the mutilated child. Byers also had his teeth removed following the first trial where the bite marks had been mentioned. He has not been able to keep his story straight on how or why he lost his teeth since.

Another possible witness was practically let go on May 5^th. A few hours after the three victims had last been seen alive, Marty King, a manager at the Bojangles restaurant near Robin Hood Hills, phoned the police. He witnessed an African-American man in the woman’s bathroom for an hour that was covered in blood and seemed dazed. An officer was dispatched to the scene but did not leave the car. The suspect left the scene. After the bodies of the boys were found, an officer returned and took blood samples from the bathroom. These samples were lost and have never been found.

Why were Damien, Jessie and Jason arrested for the crimes? A juvenile detective who had been following Damien for ten years prior to the murders suggested to the chief of the WMPD that Damien was the only one capable in the area of this type of crime. Damien was also considered by many in the conservative town to be weird. He was constantly seen dressed in black and had a preference for heavy metal music, which the town associated with the occult and Satanism. The testimony forced from Jessie Misskelley did not help the boy’s plight, either.

When Jessie was brought in for questioning on the murders, he was questioned by authorities for an extended amount of time – different sources speculate anywhere between 6 and 12 hours total for the interrogation – in which only 46 minutes were actually recorded. Misskelley, who is also legally mentally challenged, was subjected to the questioning without legal representation or parental consent. He later recanted this testimony.

Damien was sentenced to death, Jason received life without parole and Jessie was handed a sentence of life plus 40 years. For more than thirteen years these boys have been sitting in jail because of shoddy police work and a modern day witch-hunt mentality. Since their conviction, much information has come up that uncovers even more counts of corruption.

In 2004, an article by Peter Blumberg of the Daily Journal in San Francisco reported that three jurors in the case admitted that they reached guilty verdicts by considering deeply incriminating evidence that was strictly off limits. Also in 2004, Victoria Hutcheson, a key witness in the trial, came forward and admitted that her entire testimony had been fabricated due to police pressure. According to Mara Leveritt, author of Devil’s Knot -- a book which covers the murder and trials -- Hutcheson's interviews with police gave them [WMPD] a theory to build a case around. With that theory, and a confession from the 17-year-old Misskelley, whose IQ was subnormal, police had what they needed to arrest Damien Echols and Jason Baldwin.

Thousands of people openly support the boy’s appeals and hope for their release. A website dedicated to their story – www.wm3.org – details the events before and after the murders. Those who know of the murders believe the boys to be innocent. Even the true father of Byers adopted son wrote a letter expressing his disapproval of the trial and sentencing of the boys, which can be found on the wm3.org website.

In this country, we expect to be protected by our law officials and we are guaranteed the right to a fair trial under the constitution. Damien, Jason and Jessie were denied this right. They were persecuted because of the way they dress, the music they listened to and the literature which they read. It is disgusting to think that the Salem witch trials could be reincarnated in today’s society, but the case of the West Memphis Three is nothing short of that. The residents wanted their witch to burn at the stake, and they found three in Damien, Jessie and Jason. I would strongly suggest you visit the wm3.org site and research this case for yourself; for it is one of the most sickening displays of corrupt and flawed American justice in our time.