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Obscuregawdess
 Posted:
Mon May 26, 2008 10:48 pm |
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CA, Misskelley Trial (1/27-2/5/94)
http://westmemphisthreediscussion.yuku.com/topic/2607
THE COMMERCIAL APPEAL
2 BOYS DROWNED, THIRD BLED TO DEATH, MISSKELLEY JURY TOLD
INVESTIGATOR GIVES TEARFUL TESTIMONY OF MUTILATION
Date: Thursday, January 27, 1994
Section: News
Page: A1
Illustration: photo (5)
Source: By Bartholomew Sullivan The Commercial Appeal
Dateline:
Edition: Final
Two of three 8-year-old boys received skull fractures and were drowned, and the other was cut in the genitals and bled to death, a prosecutor told jurors Wednesday at the trial of Jessie Lloyd Misskelley Jr.
The most difficult murder case in West Memphis history began when frantic parents called police on the evening of May 5 last year, then stayed up all night searching the streets and woods of their neighborhood, according to the victims' mothers, police and a neighbor who testified Wednesday.
West Memphis Police Detective Bryn Ridge choked back tears as he described pulling the bodies of Steve Branch, Christopher Byers and Michael Moore from the water. Some of more than 40 photographs placed in evidence show the nude bodies of the Weaver Elementary School second-graders found submerged in a murky, trash-strewn ditch less than a mile from their homes.
Misskelley, charged with three counts of capital murder, was arrested 28 days after the bodies were discovered after making a 27-page taped statement to police in which he implicated co-defendants Charles Jason Baldwin, 16, and Damien Wayne Echols, 19, in the murders. He said he watched as one boy was killed, helped subdue another, then ran in disgust from the woods known as Robin Hood Hills.
Deputy Prosecuting Atty. John N. Fogleman told the jury of seven women and five men that they will find that Misskelley "or an accomplice" caused the boys' deaths. Fogleman suggested evidence will show Misskelley attempted to minimize his role in the grisly murders when he talked to police June 3.
The state is seeking the death penalty.
Echols and Baldwin will be tried next month in Jonesboro. Misskelley's trial was separated from theirs because of his statement implicating them.
Misskelley, 18, chewed gum but did not stand or look at the jury when his attorney, Daniel T. Stidham of Paragould, introduced him to the panel Wednesday. Throughout the day, he assumed the posture he has taken through eight months of court proceedings - staring into his lap.
In his opening statement, Stidham said he agreed with the prosecution that the murders were "horrible and senseless," but that "the proof is going to show (Misskelley) did not have anything to do with this awful crime."
"There was a public outcry for police to solve this crime," said Stidham, noting that a reward fund had reached $35,000 by the day Misskelley, Baldwin and Echols were arrested.
Stidham said the West Memphis police had "Damien Echols tunnel vision . . . They had him picked out from Day 1; he was the prime suspect from the very, very beginning."
Misskelley has an alibi that will place him 40 miles from the woods where the boys were found just after noon the day after they disappeared, Stidham said. He also has a three-part explanation for why his client made what he characterized as a "false" statement to police.
"We're going to answer the question that's in your mind: Why did Jessie Misskelley tell this wild story?" Stidham told jurors one reason is he's mentally handicapped, another is he's "very suggestible."
The third reason: "The psychological police tactics and the interrogation techniques . . . rendered him completely incapable. They broke his will. They scared him beyond all measure," he said. "They played a tape of a little boy's voice in a real eerie tone saying, 'Nobody knows what happened but me,' and it terrified him."
Fogleman said Arkansas State Crime Lab reports indicate all three boys received fractured skulls, that Branch received a serious wound to the lower left part of his face and that Byers was sexually mutilated. Moore and Branch were still breathing when they were put in the water, Fogleman said. "Chris Byers didn't drown," said Fogleman. "He bled to death."
In the days after the discovery, an unidentified woman who was a friend of the Moore family "played detective" to find out more about the case, ultimately leading police to question Misskelley about his alleged participation in cult activities with Echols, Fogleman said.
Police have said all three defendants were members of a satanic cult, but nothing about its possible link to the murders was mentioned Wednesday.
First to testify Wednesday was Diana Moore, Michael's mother, who said she last saw her son alive about 6 p.m. He was wearing a Cub Scout hat and shirt and was riding with friends Chris Byers and Steve Branch, who shared Steve's new bike.
They were riding toward the woods, and Moore said she asked her daughter
Dawn to run after them and tell Michael it was dinnertime. She never caught up.
Mrs. Moore said she looked around the neighborhood for her son. "Then I
went back home and waited for him," she said. "He didn't come back." She reported him missing at 8:10 p.m.
Melissa Byers, Christopher Byers's mother, said she last saw her son in the carport around 5:45 p.m., later calling him into the house. "I went outside hollering for him, and he was gone," she said.
In one of the more dramatic moments Wednesday, Police Detective Sgt. Mike Allen described how he bent into the ditch to retrieve some tennis shoes floating on the surface, and fell in.
"I raised my right foot up and a body floated to the surface," he said. It was Michael Moore.
The other two boys' bodies were found in the ditch within 32 feet of where Michael was found. Nearby, he testified, there was an area of woods that had been cleared of debris.
Detective Ridge was required to describe the injuries suffered by the boys, and was visibly upset through much of the testimony. He described Byers's mutilation, saying, "It looked as though his penis had been removed and there were stab marks around the area of his penis."
As Ridge testified about how the boys were found - two face down, nude and bound hand-to-foot with their clothes pushed into the mud or floating nearby, - the front two rows of the victims' families left the courtroom. Later, Todd Moore, Michael's father, came back and sat by himself in the front row.
The first witness to testify today is expected to be Dr. Frank Peretti from the Arkansas State Crime Lab.
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"Bratty Mama Leci"
Joined: 02 Aug 2006
Posts: 11754
Location: Kentucky
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| Obscuregawdess
Posted:
Mon May 26, 2008 10:49 pm |
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CA6/10/93, Slain Boy's Dad Fears WM Cultists Knew of Plan
http://westmemphisthreediscussion.yuku.com/topic/2745
THE COMMERCIAL APPEAL
SLAIN BOY'S DAD FEARS W. MEMPHIS CULTISTS KNEW OF PLAN TO KILL
Date: Thursday, June 10, 1993
Source: By Batholomew Sullivan
Page: B1
WEST MEMPHIS-
The father of one of three 8-year-olds slain last month said Wednesday that members of a Satanic cult with knowledge of the killings may be free in their community.
Mark Byers, 36, based his fears on reports that his friends have been followed since the arrests of three teenage suspects and on his belief that others may have seen the three defendants "all bloody and muddy and wet" after the murders and did not respond to a reward.
"My wife and I are scared," Byers said. "The devil is at work, and recently Satan and his demons have been at work in West Memphis."
Byers recalled a day several weeks before the slayings when his son Christopher told him that someone in dark clothing took the boy's picture in front of his home. The photographer drove off in what his son described as a green car, Byers said.
Byers and his wife, Melissa, originally dismissed the incident, believing that a representative of their mortgage company was checking up on the house. But after reading Monday that a defendant in the case said cult members passed around pictures of the boys in cult meetings, he recalled the incident.
"There was a group of pictures of all three of them," defendant Jessie Lloyd Misskelley Jr., 17, told West Memphis police investigators on June 3, according to a transcript of the question-and-answer session. In that session, Misskelley described cult activities, including killing and eating dogs, in graphic detail.
Hours after the session, Misskelley, Michael Wayne Echols, 18, and Charles Jason Baldwin, 16, were charged with capital murder in the deaths of Christopher Byers, Steve Branch and Michael Moore.
Lawyers for the three defendants said their clients plan to plead not guilty to the charges.
Misskelley told police he subdued one of the boys who tried to escape and watched as Echols and Baldwin choked their victims into unconsciousness, then sexually mutilated one and sodomized another.
Byers said police have not revealed evidence they've gathered to the Byers family. He said he's concerned that, if there were more than three cult members passing around photographs of the victims, "there's other people who knew that these three little boys were going to be sacrificed."
Byers declined comment on whether he believes there are other suspects in the case. West Memphis police Insp. Gary Gitchell told reporters Friday that he did not expect any more arrests to be made in the case.
Byers said he intends to be careful not to disclose information that "would jeopardize the case and help these animals get less than they deserve."
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"Bratty Mama Leci"
Joined: 02 Aug 2006
Posts: 11754
Location: Kentucky
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| Obscuregawdess
Posted:
Mon May 26, 2008 10:51 pm |
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CA6/17/93, Burglary Reports Sealed
http://westmemphisthreediscussion.yuku.com/topic/2799
THE COMMERCIAL APPEAL
Published on 06/17/93
BURGLARY REPORTS SEALED IN CASE OF SLAIN BOYS
By: Bartholomew Sullivan
Reports of two burglaries more than a year ago in the West Memphis neighborhood where three 8-year-old boys were found dead last month have become part of the police investigation into the killings.
In one of the burglaries, the family's Yorkshire terrier was stomped to death, its blood body left in the master bedroom while the house was "trashed," said Greg Harrison, 33, who lived there but has since moved.
Wednesday, when The Commercial Appeal asked to see reports of that burglary, and one other, police said the records were covered by Municipal Court Judge William P. Rainey's June 4 order sealing all investigative files in the triple slaying.
Police Inspector Gary Gitchell, the lead detective on the case, said someone tipped the police to the Harrison burglaries in the month prior to the arrest of three suspects June 4.
"This whole case is just so huge," he said. "Anything to do with (it), be it significant or insignificant, we followed up on."
Harrison said that his house had been burglarized three times prior to the April 1992 incident when his dog was killed.
Harrison also said he gave police a description of three men and the car he suspected was involved in the last burglary.
Harrison's home at 1594 Goodwin backed up to the part of Robin Hood Park where the bodies were found. Harrison and his wife moved out of West Memphis after the last burglary.
Three teenagers have been charged with capital murder in the May 5 deaths of Weaver Elementary School second-graders Steve Branch, Christopher Byers and Michael Moore.
Michael Wayne Echols, 18, Charles Jason Baldwin, 16, and Jessie Lloyd Misskelley Jr., 17, are being held without bond at undisclosed locations. Their court-appointed lawyers say all three plan to plead not guilty.
Deputy Prosecutor John Fogleman said that, from what Gitchell told him, the burglary reports do belong in the investigative file. "I'm not saying any crime is related. I'm saying it's part of the investigative file.
"The investigative file involves any and all tips the police received related to the murder," Fogleman said.
Jerry Driver, chief county juvenile officer, said he sought help from outside experts after an increase in satanic-related graffiti and reports of animal sacrifice about a year ago. In a statement, Misskelley described activities of a cult to which he said he belonged for the three months before his arrest.
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"Bratty Mama Leci"
Joined: 02 Aug 2006
Posts: 11754
Location: Kentucky
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| Obscuregawdess
Posted:
Mon May 26, 2008 10:51 pm |
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Misskelley's Lawyers Plan to Fight DNA Sample...
THE COMMERCIAL APPEAL
MISSKELLEY'S LAWYERS PLAN TO FIGHT DNA-SAMPLE EFFORTS
June 26, 1993
By: Bartholomew Sullivan
Page: B1
Defense lawyers representing a teenager charged in the West Memphis triple-murder case will contest the state's efforts to obtain blood, saliva and hair samples from their clients, they said Friday.
Lawyers for defendant Jessie Lloyd Misskelley Jr. filed a motion in Crittenden County Circuit Court on Friday, stating that compliance with the state's request would be "an unreasonable intrusion" and would violate his constitutional rights.
If blood samples were recovered, crime lab specialists could test to establish whether the samples are from the same DNA as semen found at the crime scene.
In an interview, Misskelley's lawyer Greg Crow of Paragould said he would assert his client's right to due process and privacy, but declined to elaborate.
Misskelley's other lawyer, Daniel Stidham, said this week that "logic would dictate" that the state has evidence it wants to compare with his client's samples.
Jonesboro lawyer Val P. Price, representing defendant Michael Wayne Echols, said he has not decided how he will respond to the state's motion. He declined comment on the state of the physical evidence.
Lawyers for defendant Charles Jason Baldwin said they believe the state has failed to establish a connection between their client and the deaths of 8-year-olds Steve Branch, Christopher Byers and Michael Moore.
Baldwin's lawyer, Paul N. Ford of Jonesboro, said there was not enough of a connection legally between the statement Jessie Misskelley gave police and Baldwin's alleged involvement in the crime.
Misskelley told police June 3 that he helped lure the youngsters into the heavily wooded Robin Hood Park on May 5 and watched as co-defendants Baldwin and Echols brutalized them with a stick and 6-inch knife. He said that at least one of the victims was sodomized.
Most states allow DNA comparison testing, but its admissibility as evidence in court proceedings differs by state.
Saliva is used to determine a donor's "secretor status," or whether the person tested can communicate a genetic blueprint through body fluids other than blood.
The state filed a motion last week seeking the samples, as well as fingerprints and footprints, stating the request complied with terms of Arkansas's Rules of Criminal Procedure. The law permits the state to request such information when it does not involve and unreasonable intrusion.
Prosecutor John N. Fogleman said he would have nothing to say about the defense lawyers' responses.
http://westmemphisthreediscussion.yuku.com/topic/2627
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"Bratty Mama Leci"
Joined: 02 Aug 2006
Posts: 11754
Location: Kentucky
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| Obscuregawdess
Posted:
Mon May 26, 2008 10:52 pm |
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CA6/24/93, Slaying Suspects Asked for Samples
http://westmemphisthreediscussion.yuku.com/topic/2658
Published on June 24, 1993, The Commercial Appeal
THE COMMERCIAL APPEAL
SLAYING SUSPECTS ASKED FOR SAMPLES
By: Bartholomew Sullivan
Prosecutors have told attorneys representing three teenagers charged with murdering three eight-year-old boys in West Memphis that they want samples of the suspects' blood, hair and saliva.
Paragould, Ark., attorney Daniel T. Stidham, representing defendant Jessie Lloyd Misskelley Jr., said he is researching his response to the request.
Also Wednesday, the lead detective in the case said police did not use the estimated $32,000 in cash and pledges sent to the Crittenden County Crimestoppers program to help generate leads in the case. West Memphis Police Inspector Gary Gitchell, program coordinator, said no one came forward with information that would make them eligible for a reward.
Prosecutors' request for the blood, hair and saliva samples from the defendants has some legal footing. Stidham acknowledged Arkansas rules of criminal procedure allow the state access to such samples but said his client still may have a legal basis for denying the request.
Michael Wayne Echols, 18; Charles Jason Baldwin, 16; and Misskelley, 17, are charged with the May 5 murders of Steve Branch, Christopher Byers and Michael Moore.
All three defendants are being held without bond at undisclosed locations. Their lawyers have said all three plan not guilty pleas.
Defense lawyers have 10 days to respond to the request for samples, Stidham said. Prosecutors could not be reached Wednesday.
The reward fund drew donations from 73 people and Gitchell said he was sending letters to each donor.
The largest single contributions totaled $5,000, including one from Warehouse Foods Inc., Gitchell said. The company's Little Rock parent company has asked for the money back, said manager Louie Glover.
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"Bratty Mama Leci"
Joined: 02 Aug 2006
Posts: 11754
Location: Kentucky
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| Obscuregawdess
Posted:
Mon May 26, 2008 10:53 pm |
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CA6/10/93, Damien's Girlfriend May Face DHS Action
http://westmemphisthreediscussion.yuku.com/topic/2801
THE COMMERCIAL APPEAL
'DAMIEN'S' GIRLFRIEND MAY FACE DHS ACTION
Thursday, June 10, 1993
By Marc Perrusquia
The pregnant girlfriend of the West Memphis murder suspect known as Damien could be taken into protective custody if the filthy mobile home she lives in is not cleaned up, the girl's mother said Wednesday.
Dian Teer, 43, said agents of the Arkansas Department of Human Services visited her home in the Lakeshore Estates trailer park with an ultimatum: Clean up or possibly lose custody of 16-year-old daughter, Domini.
Domini is the girlfriend of Michael Wayne Echols, 18, one of three teens charged last week with the murders of three 8-year-old West Memphis boys. Echols, who took the name Damien several years ago, lived off and on in the trailer with Teer and her daughter.
Teer said publicity has made life difficult. Since the arrests of Echols and two other Friday, Teer said residents have pressured her to move.
Teer said DHS agents visited her home Wednesday morning after receiving a complaint about living conditions.
"It would take a couple of months at least to save up enough money to (move) because I'm on a very limited income," Teer said. "I wish people would just leave us alone. We want to live our lives like anybody else."
Gloria Stevenson, DHS supervisor in Crittenden County, declined comment. Tom Dalton, director of the DHS in Little Rock, said he couldn't confirm whether agents visited the Teer home, but said the state has power to temporarily
remove a child from an abuse situation caused by unsanitary conditions and place the child in a foster home.
A reporter who visited the trailer Friday found the floor in one room covered in cat feces, while garbage and food were throughout the home.
DHS agents "said we have to clean up the place," Teer said Wednesday. "I already knew that. That's what we've been doing the last few days."
Teer said her landlord plans to tear down a two-room annex on the mobile home. Teer also denied earlier reports that her landlord, Pam Hollingsworth, planned to evict her.
Teer also took issue with widespread rumors about satanic activity in the mobile home park.
"I do not worship the devil," she said, saying she believes in Jesus and was going to church that night.
Echols, Charles Jason Baldwin, 16, and Jessie Lloyd Misskelley Jr., 17 were arrested last week in the slayings of three second-grade boys. In a statement given to police, Misskelley said Echols and Baldwin sexually mutilated and killed the boys as part of a cult ritual.
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"Bratty Mama Leci"
Joined: 02 Aug 2006
Posts: 11754
Location: Kentucky
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| Obscuregawdess
Posted:
Mon May 26, 2008 10:53 pm |
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CA6/7/93, Officials Find Signs of Cult Activity
http://westmemphisthreediscussion.yuku.com/topic/2832
THE COMMERCIAL APPEAL
OFFICIALS FIND SIGNS OF CULT ACTIVITY
CRITTENDEN SITES REVEAL SATANIC GRAFFITI, CARCASSES
Date: Monday, June 7, 1993
Section: Metro
Page: B1
Illustration: photo
Source: By Marc Perrusquia and Bartholomew Sullivan
The Commercial Appeal
Dateline:
Memo: Different version, Tenn B1
Edition: Final
Authorities began seeing a marked increase in satanic-related graffiti and reports of animal sacrifice about a year ago, a Crittenden County official said Sunday.
Jerry Driver, chief juvenile officer for Crittenden County, said he's visited at least five sites in the county where he's found graffiti and animal carcasses.
Driver's comments came the day The Commercial Appeal obtained a copy of a statement given police by one of the teenagers charged with killing three West Memphis boys. In that statement, Jessie Lloyd Misskelley Jr. said he was a member of a cult whose members had sexual orgies and mutilated, killed and ate animals.
Misskelley, 17, along with Michael Wayne Echols, 18, and Charles Jason Baldwin, 16, is charged with three counts of capital murder in the deaths of three 8-year-old boys in West Memphis.
Echols's mother Sunday said the talk of Satanism in the case is hurting her son's right to a fair trial.
Pamela Hutchison took issue Sunday with press and television reports that she said portrayed her son as involved in devil worship.
People who know Echols have said he claimed to worship the devil and that he carried around a cat's skull and called himself Damien, as in the popular Omen movies.
But Hutchison said her son took the name from a book about Father Damien, a Belgian missionary priest who worked with lepers on Molokai in the Hawaiian islands in the 19th Century.
Echols was not involved in Satanism, Hutchison said. She said she believes her son is innocent.
Authorities, though, have noted an increase in activity that seems to be related to Satanism. Sunday at one of the sites where the activity has taken place - known to locals as "Stonehenge" after the ancient Druidic monoliths near Cambridge in England - there were the remains of a dead gray cat with tan feet and a plastic bag containing a part of a rattlesnake.
The site, which is an abandoned concrete cotton gin, is covered with spray- painted graffiti, including backward swastikas, pentagrams, tridents and references to Lucifer. Besides broken bottles and spent shotgun shells, Stonehenge contained charred logs and several unopened condom packages.
"Kids get involved in this as a joke," Driver said. "Ninety percent of them are in it for the so-called thrill. There's a small group that's in it seriously."
Drug and alcohol use and sex often are common at the sites, Driver said, which serve as a magnet for kids out for a good time. For many, it's a fad, he said, "but a dangerous one."
Driver could not provide an estimate of the number of young people in Crittenden County involved in such activities, but said the great majority are probably on the fringes and not seriously involved in Satanism.
Local teens often travel to the Stonehenge site at night to socialize and marvel at its legend and chilling atmosphere.
"Sometimes people think it's funny trying to scare other people," said Kim Floresca, 15, who just completed 10th grade at Marion High School. "It's supposed to be a place where cults go out, and they're supposed to sacrifice virgins and animals and stuff."
Floresca said she once went to the Stonehenge site about two years ago with a group of teens who included Misskelley. The night was just a typical night, she said, and Misskelley did nothing out of the ordinary.
Floresca said she never heard of the other two suspects visiting the site.
Floresca said Misskelley told her and other students the day before he was arrested that he participated in the killings.
A group of students were driving last Wednesday after school to a friend's house to go swimming when Misskelley began telling his bizarre tale, she said.
"He was saying he hit the little boy and the little boy ran off and he was taking him back to where Damien and the other boy were," she said. According to Misskelley's story, Echols had already killed the two other boys, she said.
Floresca said she didn't believe Misskelley at the time.
Jim Maguire, a Chattanooga clinical therapist and former Massachusetts police officer who consults with police about Satanism, said anyone in the habit of ritualistic cat killing is more than just dabbling in the occult.
If it is established that satanistic behavior was a motive for deaths of the three West Memphis second-graders, Maguire said those involved would have worked their way up to killing children with earlier animal sacrifices.
Meanwhile, the case's notoriety apparently prompted a trailer park landlord to evict Echols's 16-year-old girlfriend from her $175-a-month trailer home.
The girl's mother, Dian Teer, called The Commercial Appeal to report the eviction from the trailer home that she said her daughter sometimes shared with Echols. She also said neighbors had been calling for their removal from the park.
Teer, 43, said she plans to fight the eviction.
Teer said Saturday that Echols, 18, often stayed overnight in the trailer with her pregnant 16-year-old daughter.
Teer also has said there is nothing to the Satanism rumors, saying Echols is misunderstood.
Caption:
By Dan McComb
An area east of Marion, Ark., that locals call "Stonehenge," on Sunday
was found covered with spray-painted graffiti, including backward swastikas,
pentagrams, tridents and references to Lucifer.
Keywords: MURDER MULTIPLE CHILD AR CHARGE JUVENILE TEEN
RELIGION HOUSING EVICTION
Document Number: 9301260402
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"Bratty Mama Leci"
Joined: 02 Aug 2006
Posts: 11754
Location: Kentucky
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| Obscuregawdess
Posted:
Mon May 26, 2008 10:55 pm |
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Relatives, Lawyers Dispute Account By Misskelley
http://westmemphisthreediscussion.yuku.com/topic/2621
THE COMMERCIAL APPEAL
Tuesday, June 8, 1993
Section: News
Edition: Final
Page: A1
RELATIVES, LAWYERS DISPUTE ACCOUNT
BY MISSKELLEY IN SLAYINGS OF 3 BOYS
By Bartholomew Sullivan and Marc Perrusquia
The Commercial Appeal
The three 8-year-old boys slain in West Memphis were in school on May 5 well past the hour that one accused killer told police the crimes occurred, according to a school official.
On Monday, critics worked at shooting holes in Jessie Lloyd Misskelley Jr.' s description of what happened to the Weaver Elementary School second- graders. A 27-page transcript of a police interview with Misskelley was obtained by The Commercial Appeal.
In it, Misskelley, 17, said he watched as Michael Wayne Echols, 18, and Charles Jason Baldwin, 16, brutalized the children with a club and a 6-inch knife after luring them into a wooded area.
Misskelley told police that co-defendants Echols and Baldwin choked their victims into unconsciousness, then sexually mutilated one and sodomized another as part of a cultic ritual.
Relatives and attorneys for the suspects said the slayings could not have taken place at the time claimed by Misskelley. Misskelley told police they took place between 9 a.m. and noon that day although there appeared to be confusion about the issue.
Police detectives involved in the case could not be reached for comment on Monday about the discrepancies. West Memphis investigators have consistently refused to discuss a motive in the case.
Weaver principal Sarah Kirkley said 8-year-old Steve Branch was picked up by his mother at 2:45 p.m., and classmates Christopher Byers and Michael Moore left when school ended at 3 p.m. "They were all three here that day," said Kirkley.
The youngsters' presence at school would appear to contradict the statement Misskelley gave police on June 3. Misskelley said the 8-year-olds "skipped school" that day.
Marion High School principal Jerry Wood refused to release attendance records for 10th-grader Baldwin.
But Baldwin's lawyer, Paul N. Ford, said school records show his client was in school all day on May 5. He declined to make them public.
Ford said his client plans to plead not guilty to the charges.
"You can't be two places at once," he said. "It just makes the whole statement questionable."
Baldwin's great-uncle, Hubert Bartoush, said his nephew mowed his lawn between about 4:30 p.m. and 6:30 p.m. on the day of the slayings.
Neighbors told reporters last month that they last saw the youngsters riding bicycles between 5:15 and 6 p.m. on May 5. A search by police, parents and neighbors began at 7:30 p.m.
Police Insp. Gary Gitchell said the bodies were found at about 1:30 p.m. the next day.
Misskelley's father, Jessie Misskelley, 54, said he believes his son was "threatened" into making statements to police that described his participation in a sadistic cult that mutilated and ate dogs and held sex orgies.
Misskelley's neighbor, Patricia Howe, said Friday that Misskelley had "been in a little trouble, like sniffing gasoline."
Dr. Kevin Merigian, a toxicologist with the Regional Medical Center at Memphis, said that the effects of recreational gasoline inhalation aren't understood completely.
"It provides a mellow feeling but you don't feel so good," Merigian said. "There's a negative feeling associated with the high."
At one point in the interview, Detective Bryn Ridge asked Misskelley about what the officer called "real confusion with the times you're telling me," according to the transcript. In answer to another question, Misskelley acknowledged that his estimate of the time of the murders might be inaccurate.
At another point, the transcript places commas in unusual places but Misskelley's statement could be taken to mean the slayings happened at night.
The transcript quotes Misskelley as saying: "Well after, all this stuff happened that night, that they done it, I went home about noon, then they (Baldwin and Echols) called me at 9 o'clock that night, they called me."
At another point in the transcript, Misskelley described a cult meeting in which pictures of the three youngsters were passed around. He said part of the cult's initiation rite was to kill a dog, skin it, cook it over a bonfire and eat the back leg meat. "If he can't eat it, then he don't get in," Misskelley said of the prospective cult candidate.
Misskelley's father said he didn't know who may have threatened his son, but said the statement to police didn't make sense.
Misskelley said he believes his son spent the whole day in the Highland Trailer Park between Marion and West Memphis, and said he is searching for witnesses to confirm that.
Comments from Misskelley's father and attorney Ford came Monday following a brief hearing in Crittenden County Circuit Court in Marion, where Judge David Goodson appointed two lawyers each to represent the three defendants.
They are:
-- Representing Echols - Craighead County chief public defender Val Price and Jonesboro lawyer Scott Davidson.
-- Representing Misskelley - Paragould lawyers Dan Stidham and Greg Crow.
-- Representing Baldwin - Ford and Jonesboro lawyer George Robin Wadley Jr.
The judge also said the state will now inform the attorneys of the whereabouts of the defendants, who had been detained at undisclosed sites over the weekend for security reasons.
Baldwin could not have done the things Misskelley claimed while traveling the 3 1/2 miles between the high school and the slaying site along Interstate 40, said Ford. "The statement clearly indicates that it took place between 9 a.m. and 12 noon, but I don't believe that to be true."
A crowd of maybe 100 people, including families of both victims and accused killers, gathered Monday morning at the white-columned county courthouse in Marion.
But if spectators came to see the three defendants, they were disappointed.
The three teens never put in an appearance, nor did police detectives.
Still, it wasn't without drama. Steve Branch Jr., father of 'Stevie' Branch and the man who lunged and shouted at defendant Echols Friday, attended the hearing a much more subdued man.
The mothers of Christopher Byers and Michael Moore embraced outside the coutroom.
Law officers took no chances, however. Everyone who entered the courtroom had to submit to an electronic search with a metal-detecting wand before being allowed inside, where the proceedings took little more than five minutes.
Illustration: photo
By Robert Cohen
(Color) Lee Rush and Jessie Misskelley, stepmother and father of slaying
suspect Jessie Lloyd Misskelley Jr., wait to enter a Crittenden County
courtroom Monday where attorneys were appointed for suspects in the killings
of three West Memphis boys.
http://westmemphisthreediscussion.yuku.com/topic/2621
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"Bratty Mama Leci"
Joined: 02 Aug 2006
Posts: 11754
Location: Kentucky
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| Obscuregawdess
Posted:
Mon May 26, 2008 10:55 pm |
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CA6/7/93, Where's My Client, Lawyer Asks
http://westmemphisthreediscussion.yuku.com/topic/2812
THE COMMERCIAL APPEAL
WHERE'S MY CLIENT, LAWYER ASKS
SAYS HE CAN'T CONTACT YOUNG SLAYING SUSPECT
Date: Monday, June 7, 1993
Section: Metro
Page: B1
Illustration: photo (2)
Source: By Bartholomew Sullivan and Marc Perrusquia
The Commercial Appeal
Dateline:
Memo: Different version, Final B1
Edition: Tennessee
An attorney for one of the defendants in the West Memphis child murder case said Sunday he has not been able to contact his client or determine his whereabouts.
Paul N. Ford of Jonesboro, representing Charles Jason Baldwin, 16, said authorities told him his client would be held in the Craighead County Jail in Jonesboro over the weekend but that he was not there.
"I intend to find out where he is and why he can't be visited by his lawyer or his own parents," Ford said. He has not talked to Baldwin since Friday. Crittenden County Jail officials would not confirm the whereabouts of any of the defendants.
Ford added that he has read the statement of a co-defendant in the case,
Jessie Misskelley Jr., and "my reading of that statement is that it's either fabricated or the answers that he gave were suggested by the police."
Also Sunday, the mother of Michael Wayne Echols, also charged with the murders, said talk of satanism is hurting her son's right to a fair trial.
Pamela Hutchison took issue Sunday with press and television reports that she said portrayed her son as involved in devil worship.
People who know Echols have said he claimed to worship the devil and that he carried around a cat's skull and called himself Damien, as in the popular Omen movies.
But Hutchison said her son took the name from a book about Father Damien, a Belgian Missionary priest who worked with lepers on Molokai in the Hawaiian Islands in the 19th Century.
Echols was not involved in satanism, Hutchison said. She said she believes her son is innocent.
Echols, 18, Baldwin, 16, and Misskelley, 17, were charged with capital murder on Friday in the May 5 killings of the three 8-year-olds. They were being held without bond in undisclosed locations over the weekend.
They were scheduled to appear in Crittenden County Circuit Court this morning to enter pleas to the charges, although deputy prosecutor John Fogleman said Sunday that lawyers may handle the pleas without their clients present.
The court also is expected to appoint permanent legal counsel.
Police have so far remained silent about a motive in the case. The three children were found beaten to death in a wooded area behind an Interstate 40 truck wash with their hands and feet bound.
The case's notoriety apparently prompted a trailer park landlord to evict Echols' 16-year-old girlfriend from her $175-a-month trailer home.
The girl's mother, Dian Teer, called The Commercial Appeal to report the eviction from the trailer home that she said her daughter sometimes shared with Echols. She also said neighbors had been calling for their removal from the park.
Teer, 43, said she plans to fight the eviction.
Teer said Saturday that Echols, 18, often stayed overnight in the trailer with her pregnant 16-year-old daughter.
Teer also has said there is nothing to the satanism rumors, saying Echols is misunderstood.
Also Sunday, the chief juvenile officer for Crittenden County, Jerry Driver, said he started seeing a marked increase in satanic-related graffiti and reports of animal sacrifice about a year ago.
Driver said he's visited at least five sites in the county where he's found graffiti and animal carcasses.
One location east of Marion, known to locals as "Stonehenge," after the ancient Druidic monoliths near Cambridge in England, on Sunday contained the remains of a dead gray cat with tan feet and a plastic bag containing a part of a rattlesnake.
The abandoned concrete cotton gin is covered with spray-painted graffiti, including backward swastikas, pentagrams, tridents and references to Lucifer. Besides broken bottles and spent shotgun shells, Stonehenge contained charred logs and several unopened condom packages.
"Kids get involved in this as a joke," Driver said. "Ninety percent of them are in it for the so-called thrill. There's a small group that's in it seriously."
Drug and alcohol use and sex often are common at the sites, Driver said, and serve as a magnet for kids out for a good time. For many, it's a fad, he said, "but a dangerous one."
Driver could not provide an estimate of the number of young people in Crittenden County involved in such activities, but said the great majority are probably on the fringes and not seriously involved in satanism.
Local teens often travel to the site at night to socialize and marvel at its legend and chilling atmosphere.
"Sometimes people think it's funny trying to scare other people," said Kim Floresca, 15, who just completed 10th grade at Marion High School. "It's supposed to be a place where cults go out, and they're supposed to sacrifice virgins and animals and stuff."
Floresca said she once went to the Stonehenge site about two years ago with a group of teens who included Jessie Misskelley. The night was just a typical night, she said, and Misskelley did nothing out of the ordinary.
Floresca said she never heard of the other two suspects visiting the site.
Floresca said Misskelley told her and other students the day before he was arrested that he participated in the killings.
A group of students were driving last Wednesday after school to a friend's house to go swimming when Misskelley began telling his bizarre tale, she said.
"He was saying he hit the little boy and the little boy ran off and he was taking him back to where Damien and the other boy were," she said. According to Misskelley's story, Echols had already killed the two other boys, she said.
Floresca said she didn't believe Misskelley at the time.
Jim Maguire, a Chattanooga clinical therapist and former Massachusetts police officer who consults with police about satanism, said anyone in the habit of ritualistic cat killing is more than just dabbling in the occult.
If it is established that satanistic behavior was a motive for deaths of the three West Memphis second-graders, Maguire said those involved would have worked their way up to killing children with earlier animal sacrifices.
Caption:
By Dan McComb
An area east of Marion, Ark., that locals call "Stonehenge," on Sunday
was found covered with spray-painted graffiti, including backward swastikas,
pentagrams, tridents and references to Lucifer.
The remains of a cat and part of a rattlesnake also were found at
''Stonehenge."
Keywords: MURDER MULTIPLE CHILD AR CHARGE JUVENILE TEEN
RELIGION COURT
Document Number: 9301260404
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"Bratty Mama Leci"
Joined: 02 Aug 2006
Posts: 11754
Location: Kentucky
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| Obscuregawdess
Posted:
Mon May 26, 2008 10:56 pm |
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Tough, A Bit Troubled, But Kind to Kids (Jessie)
http://westmemphisthreediscussion.yuku.com/topic/2657
TOUGH, A BIT TROUBLED, BUT KIND TO KIDS
Date: Saturday, June 5, 1993
Source: By Richard Kelley The Commercial Appeal
Neighbors on streets washed by the soft whine of I-55 used words such as "respectful" and "well-mannered" to describe Jessie Lloyd Misskelley on Friday.
From accounts of those near Highland Trailer Court between Marion and West Memphis, he also was quick and good with his fists when he wasn't being respectful. Many people called him easily persuaded, said he could be vulnerable or even naive, but they add he was good with kids and that they liked him.
Interviews with people here who have known the 17-year-old for years sketch a portrait that could apply to many teenagers these days: a school dropout with a history of minor trouble with the law, and a sometime rebel with a reputation as a good worker when you could get him to the job.
People say he tried hard to fit in with his friends, to be part of a new crowd that worshiped heavy metal music.
"He's been in a little trouble, like sniffing gasoline and stuff," said neighbor Patricia Howe, 25. "He just got in with the wrong people, or got into the wrong gasoline."
The troubles of 'Little Jessie' Misskelley, charged Friday with capital murder and facing a possible death sentence, have grown larger.
Over the course of a dozen interviews Friday, several neighbors and acquaintances said Misskelley's relatives told them Misskelley had told police he had a role in the killings.
"From what his aunt said, right across the road, he's already confessed, and he wanted to get this off his chest," Howe said.
Rita Holmes, 29, another neighbor, added, "Little Jessie admitted he hit one in the head. And the one got away from him and he ran and caught him back to where the other boys was at," she added, attributing the information to members of the Misskelley family.
Jim McNease, owner of Jim's Repair Service, employs Misskelley's father and at times the son. He said the younger Misskelley is "easy persuaded."
"They sent him out to lure the kids in," McNease said. "I talked to the cops, and they said he lured them into the woods. I think they say he hit one and chased one down."
Misskelley's girlfriend also lives in the neighborhood. Her mother, Beverly, declined to allow her daughter to be questioned, or to give her last name Friday.
"Susie is shocked - she's mad," the mother said. "You would be, too, if you cared for somebody and they admitted to doing something like this."
Police have as yet declined to give much information on the arrests, any confession, possible motives for the killings or details of the murder scene. But neighbors here point darkly to the possibility of some sort of cult activity, another rumor which police have yet to address.
"He was just a normal kid," his 54-year-old father, known as Big Jessie, said at the county courthouse Friday.
He said his son had been arrested and appeared in juvenile court a couple of times for fighting and breaking windows. He said he quit Marion High School last year.
He said his son liked professional wrestling, as well as hunting squirrels and rabbits although he didn't own a gun. He said he had tried for a general equivalency diploma but that he didn't like school and quit that as well.
Neighbors said the younger Misskelley often played with their children in this close-knit neighborhood where most people know each other. Some said he would babysit for them.
"Every time I asked him to do something, he's done it," said Holmes. ''He's even stayed at my house, and watched my kids when I went to the store."
"All three of them boys have been here," said 22-year-old Robert Howe, Patricia's brother, at a nearby home. "They talk a little bit, and they'd be on their way. (Misskelley) picked them up, hugged them and kissed them, but never hurt them."
Karen Sims, 28, said Misskelley was "respectful, well-mannered."
"He's never given me any trouble," said McNease, who owns the auto repair shop where Misskelley's father worked as a mechanic. McNease also said the younger Misskelley also worked for him part time.
"He's just like one of our kids. He'd come in here and hug my neck," he said, "just like he was one of my young 'uns."
He said the elder Misskelley had raised his son alone, after the teenager's mother moved to California.
McNease said Misskelley and the other two murder suspects, Michael Wayne Echols and Jason Baldwin, rode bicycles a lot around Marion and West Memphis. Misskelley had a temper when pushed, McNease said.
"He was a fighter," he said. "If you picked on him, he would bop you in the mouth.
"He whipped a grown man right out there the other day," McNease said, pointing to the driveway to his shop. "If it hadn't been for Big Jessie stepping in to stop it, he would have hurt that man bad."
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"Bratty Mama Leci"
Joined: 02 Aug 2006
Posts: 11754
Location: Kentucky
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| Obscuregawdess
Posted:
Mon May 26, 2008 10:58 pm |
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CA6/5/93, Shy & Artistic, But Into That Devil Stuff?
http://westmemphisthreediscussion.yuku.com/topic/2809
SHY AND ARTISTIC, BUT INTO 'THAT DEVIL STUFF'
Date: Saturday, June 5, 1993
Section: News
Page: A9
Illustration: photo
Source: By Laura Coleman The Commercial Appeal
Dateline:
Edition: Final
He has an iguana named Ozzy, a cat named Charlie and he's known for his manners, his shyness and his artistry.
Now, Charles Jason Baldwin, 16, is known as a suspected child murderer.
Near Marion, Matt Baldwin, 14, staunchly declared his brother's innocence Friday as he stood guard alone in the rusty trailer they share with a stepbrother, mother and stepfather.
Matt had been instructed not to let anyone in the trailer while his mother, Gail Grinnell, sought witnesses to help clear Jason's name. He opened the door slightly to talk to a reporter, and at first expressed no fear for what may happen.
"No, I'm not afraid," he said, "because I know he'll be home soon
because he didn't do it." Then the bravado ebbed at the mention of a possible death penalty. "I guess I'm kinda scared . . .," he said.
But in Sheridan, Ark., south of Little Rock, Baldwin's grandmother wasn't so sure of Jason Baldwin's innocence.
"I thought in my own mind when those boys were killed that my grandson is sorta superstitious about that devil stuff," said Jessie Mae Baldwin. "He was always catching lizards and snakes, I thought something was going on in that child's mind."
Baldwin, 76, said she and her husband, Purd Baldwin, 82, learned of their grandson's arrest from a television report Friday morning.
"We just looked at each other and I said, 'I don't know what that boy has on his mind, killing people like that,' " Mrs. Baldwin said. Jason Baldwin's father, Larry Baldwin, lives with his parents but was unavailable Friday.
"He's just heartbroke," said Mrs. Baldwin. "He's a mess."
Mrs. Baldwin said that, when she learned of the boys' deaths, she told people that whoever killed the children should be executed. Now that she knows her grandson could be convicted, she said her feelings haven't changed.
"Even though he's my grandson he should get the death penalty if he did it. Whoever done this should be caught and tortured like they done to those kids, and it don't matter if it's my husband, my boy or my grandson, whoever it might be."
The two Baldwin boys would visit their father in the summer and on school breaks, Matt said. They would visit state parks and go fishing.
Jason Baldwin was known not only for his good grades - friends say he was an A and B student at Marion High School - but also for his drawing ability. His brother closed the trailer door to get a few samples of Jason's artwork and returned with drawings of an eagle and an owl.
While his mother worked at a local trucking company, Jason Baldwin would warm a supper for Matt and his 9-year-old stepbrother, Terry Grinnell, make sure they did their homework and took their baths and get them to bed, said neighbors.
"He's nice and he likes animals," Matt Baldwin said of his brother, with whom he often plays Super Nintendo.
The two spent more time together lately than normal because their mother restricted their activities after the three boys' bodies were found.
"Mom wouldn't hardly let us go nowhere anymore," Matt said. "My brother was kinda mad about that."
On the day the boys are believed to have been murdered, Jason Baldwin was cutting the grass at his great-uncle's, Hubert Bartoush.
"He came over here about 4:30 that day and left about 6:30. He said he was going to Wal-Mart," Bartoush said. "I can't believe he was way over there (where the bodies were found.)" Bartoush said he lives about 1 1/2 miles
from the wooded area.
In West Memphis, Jason's friends were among the crowd that gathered behind the Municipal Courthouse to catch a glimpse of the three suspects. When Jason Baldwin's name was mentioned, heads shook in disbelief.
"He's real shy, real sweet," said Roni Hendrix, who shared algebra and English classes with Baldwin.
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"Bratty Mama Leci"
Joined: 02 Aug 2006
Posts: 11754
Location: Kentucky
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| Obscuregawdess
Posted:
Mon May 26, 2008 10:58 pm |
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CA6/5/93, Three Teens Charged With Murder
http://westmemphisthreediscussion.yuku.com/topic/2800
THE COMMERCIAL APPEAL
Saturday, June 5, 1993
Section: News
Edition: Final
Page: A1
Memo: Different version, Tenn A1
CORRECTION from June 6, 1993: A photograph Saturday showed the inside of
a mobile home north of West Memphis where murder suspect Michael Wayne
Echols had been staying with his girlfriend. It was not the trailer at
2706 S. Grove in West Memphis that police listed as Echols's home.
THREE TEENS CHARGED WITH MURDER IN SLAYINGS OF WEST MEMPHIS BOYS
ARK. YOUTHS COULD FACE THE DEATH PENALTY
By Bartholomew Sullivan The Commercial Appeal
One terror-filled month after three 8-year-old boys were slain and dumped in a drainage ditch, West Memphis police Friday charged three teenagers with the killings.
Police Insp. Gary Gitchell said each suspect is charged with three counts of capital murder, which carries a possible death penalty. Although two are juveniles, Gitchell said all will be tried as adults. They are:
-- Michael Wayne Echols, 18, of West Memphis.
-- Jessie Lloyd Misskelley, 17, of Marion.
-- Charles Jason Baldwin, 16, of Marion.
They are accused of the May 5 killings of Weaver Elementary School second- graders Steve Branch, Christopher Byers and Michael Moore. Gitchell has said the three were hit in the head and were found with their hands and feet bound.
In West Memphis Municipal Court, Judge William P. Rainey appointed attorneys for the defendants and bound them over to Crittenden County Circuit Court for a hearing on Monday. Citing security reasons, Gitchell declined to say where the three will be held over the weekend.
The tense courtroom scene included an outburst from Steve Branch, the father of one of the victims, who lunged toward Echols.
He was led away in handcuffs, but was not arrested.
Police found the boys' bodies in a boggy, wooded area known to nearby residents as Robin Hood Park a day after they disappeared while riding their bicycles.
The area is between the Mayfair Apartments and the Blue Beacon Truck Wash, which faces an access road parallel to Interstate 40.
Although police said from the beginning that they were confident of their leads in the case, almost no details of the deaths have been released. Police have declined to comment on an Arkansas State Police broadcast report that the children had been sexually mutilated.
Gitchell said he could not comment on whether the suspects were involved in satanism or any form of cult activity.
All three defendants have prior records in Juvenile Court and have been represented by the Crittenden County public defender's office. Details of their previous records were not available Friday.
Since West Memphis is the hub of a huge interstate trucking network and is at the confluence of two interstate highways, many speculated that the killer was a psychopathic drifter and was unlikely to be found.
Many residents said Thursday's arrests provided the first relief from fear since the killings.
Some in the town of 28,000 said the case has caused them to keep a closer eye on their children when they play outdoors.
At a 9 a.m. press conference at the West Memphis City Hall, Gitchell said two of the youths arrested - Echols and Baldwin - were early suspects in the case, and that Misskelley was later identified.
Misskelley was arrested at the West Memphis Police Department at 2:44 p.m. Thursday and Echols and Baldwin were arrested at Echols's Grove Road residence at 10:32 p.m.
Misskelley's father, Jessie, said his son had been brought in for questioning by police at 9:30 a.m. Thursday.
Police seized a knife during a search of his three-bedroom trailer home Thursday night, he said.
Gitchell would not discuss the trio's motive or reveal what investigators found in searching the suspects' residences. Four search warrants were executed simultaneously Thursday, but officials would not say where or what was found.
The murders occurred on a night with a full moon and the arrests were made the day before Friday's full moon, leading to speculation and rampant rumors about satanism.
The FBI's National Center for the Analysis of Violent Crime in Quantico, Va., worked on a profile of a likely killer or killers. In addition, the Arkansas State Police, the Crittenden County Sheriff's Department and the Memphis Police Department helped in the case.
Gitchell praised the determination of his colleagues and of law enforcement officials around the country who had phoned in tips or helped with leads. He
thanked residents who brought food to officers working long hours.
"Pieces gradually started fitting in place and finally made a clear picture," he said of the routine of 18-hour days and hundreds of leads investigated.
"This, I can honestly say, was the most difficult case the Police Department in West Memphis has ever had," he said.
Gitchell declined to comment on any aspect of the evidence and refused to say what led to the arrests. He said some questions would only be answered as the cases proceed to trial.
West Memphis Police, the Arkansas Second Judicial Circuit prosecutor's office and the Municipal Court refused to make public police reports or charging documents, which are typically released at the time of a defendant's first court appearance.
The Commercial Appeal is seeking the records under terms of the Arkansas Freedom of Information Act because so few details were released on Friday.
"The Commercial Appeal took legal action to open arrest and court documents that are usually available to the public but sealed in this case. We believe those records are needed to help sort out facts alleged in the case
from a growing supply of rumors," said managing editor Henry Stokes.
Friday afternoon, Circuit Court Judge Ralph Wilson Jr. held a telephone hearing with attorneys for the newspaper and the prosecutor's office. He continued the hearing until Monday afternoon in Marion.
Deputy Prosecutor John Fogleman said his office would seek to keep the records sealed until the trials are over to prevent prejudicial pretrial information from coming out and because there may be other defendants. Gitchell, however, said he believes there will be no more arrests.
A crowd of West Memphians attended the Municipal Court proceedings, which began at 10 a.m., but were postponed after Branch's courtroom scuffle.
When Misskelley was arraigned, police surrounded him so that spectators in the courtroom could barely see his cornrow hair and ponytail.
Misskelley's father told reporters as he exited the Municipal Court that his son is "a good boy" and that he did not believe the charges.
"I love my son very much," said Gail Grinnell, Baldwin's mother, as she returned home Friday afternoon. "I'm just very upset about all of this."
Illustration: photo (4): map
By Michael McMullan
(Color) Jennifer Ashley, a cousin of murder suspect Jessie Misskelley, and
other members of his family linger outside the courthouse after his
arraignment.
CAPTION: By Dan McComb
(Color) Inside the trailer where suspect Michael Wayne Echols had been
staying with his girlfriend, a Grim Reaper picture bears handwritten words
''See you in hell" at bottom.
CAPTION: (Color) Jason Baldwin, Jessie Misskelley
CAPTION: By Colin Ruthven
The three Crittenden County youths charged Friday in the deaths of three
8-year-old West Memphis boys all live within three miles of where the victims'
bodies were found May 6. Two of the suspects, Charles Jason Baldwin and Jesse
Lloyd Miskelley, live near Marion, the Crittenden County seat just north of
West Memphis. The third suspect, Michael Wayne Echols, lives east of the
victims' neighborhood in West Memphis.
Marion, Arkansas
Highland Trailer Court, home of suspect Jesse Lloyd Misskelley, 17
Lakeshore Trailer Park, home of suspect Charles Jason Baldwin, 16
West Memphis
Victims' bodies found here May 6
Children last seen here May 5
1398 E. Barton, home of victim Michael
1400 E. Barton, home of victim Christopher Byers
1601 S. McCauley, home of victim Steve Branch
2706 South Grove, home of Michael Wayne Echols, 18
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"Bratty Mama Leci"
Joined: 02 Aug 2006
Posts: 11754
Location: Kentucky
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| Obscuregawdess
Posted:
Mon May 26, 2008 10:59 pm |
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First Article to Appear In CA About the Murders
This is the first article to appear in the Commercial Appeal, regarding the murders of the children:
THE COMMERCIAL APPEAL
MUTILATED BODIES OF 3 BOYS FOUND IN BAYOU
HUNT ON FOR SUSPECT IN W. MEMPHIS
Date: Friday, May 7, 1993
Section: News
Page: A1
Illustration: photo (5): map - Staff
Source: By Richard Kelley The Commercial Appeal
Staff reporter Lloyd Holbeck and The Associated Press contributed to
this story.
Dateline:
Memo: Different version, First A1
CORRECTION from May 8, 1993: Pam Hobbs is the mother of Steve Branch,
one of three West Memphis boys found murdered Thursday. A story Friday
incorrectly identified her.
Edition: Final
Three 8-year-old boys were found slain Thursday, their bodies submerged in a drainage ditch.
West Memphis police would not comment on the cause of death, but an Arkansas State Police broadcast Thursday night said West Memphis police were investigating the abduction and sexual mutilation of three boys.
Neighbors last saw Weaver Elementary School second-graders Steve Branch, Christopher Byers and Michael Moore riding bicycles between 5:15 and 6 p.m. Wednesday. The search by police, parents and neighbors began at 7:30 p.m.
"We do have three homicides," said Insp. Gary Gitchell of the West Memphis Police Department. "I won't comment on the crime scene or what we found."
Mark Byers, father of Christopher, characterized whoever killed his son as an "animal."
"I hope God shows a little mercy on his soul, because I sure wouldn't," he said.
The bodies were to be sent to Little Rock for autopsies by the state medical examiner.
Christopher Byers lived at 1400 E. Barton, next door to Michael Moore at 1398 E. Barton. Steve Branch's family lives nearby at 1601 E. McAuley.
Gitchell said the bodies were found at about 1:30 p.m. within 10 feet of each other in Ten Mile Bayou, the city's main drainage ditch.
The ditch was drained and the bodies retrieved around 4 p.m.
Authorities said they drained the ditch to search for additional evidence. Police were also searching a culvert where bicycle tracks and small sneaker prints were found.
The culvert, which connects to the drainage ditch, runs under Interstate 40 near a truck wash. The ditch was a few hundred yards north of where the children were last seen, and less than a half-mile from the children's homes.
They were behind the Mayfair Apartments in a wooded, undeveloped area known to residents as Robin Hood Park.
"It's several little ditches or streams that run through the area, from a trickle to two to three feet of water," Gitchell said.
"One of my officers found a tennis shoe and, being inquisitive, he just jumped in the water and felt one of them."
The boys were last seen cutting through the yard of a resident who lived on Goodwin Avenue, just south of the brush-choked bayou.
Debra O'Tinger, 18, said three boys on two bikes cut through her yard.
"That's where they went in at," she said Thursday. "I told them to get out of my yard."
The bicycles were found 50 yards from the bodies, Gitchell said.
The neighborhood of neat family homes is bounded by apartment buildings to the west, and the bayou to the north.
A police barrier was set up at the intersection of W. E. Catt Street and McAuley Drive West, which ends in a small cul-de-sac beyond which the bodies were found.
About midafternoon, anxious parents were awaiting official word as neighbors massed at the police barricade on McAuley Drive after hearing one body had been found.
Pam Hobbs, mother of Michael Moore, collapsed when authorities told her that her son's body also had been found.
"Oh Lord!" she said, collapsing to the asphalt before being raised into the arms of friends and family.
Neighbor Bo Hamrick said he and friends had helped search the area on three-wheelers since about 7 a.m. Thursday.
"It's nothing but woods, woods and trails - a few trails just wide enough to get a three-wheeler through," he said. "I thought, if we get our three- wheelers out, they'll hear us, if they're back there hiding. They always are."
Gitchell, the lead investigator, said he could not confirm whether a story
from a neighbor who reported seeing two men with some children in the area was accurate.
"We've got our work cut out for us," he said, declining to say if authorities had any suspects.
The state police broadcast made no mention of suspects, but it asked any police agencies investigating similar crimes to notify West Memphis police.
West Memphis police asked anyone with information about the murders to call Crime Stoppers at (501) 732-4444.
The elder Byers said he was concerned that the Crittenden County Sheriff's Department did not join the search until Thursday morning despite his repeated requests.
It was not their jurisdiction, he said he was told by a dispatcher.
"If they had brought them out there last night, we would have had a chance of finding those boys alive," he said before praising the all-night search effort by West Memphis Police Department officers.
"They could have used some help; hell, yes, they could have used some help," he said.
Sheriff Richard Busby said Thursday night he talked with the dispatcher and sergeant on duty the previous night and said there was miscommunication between his officers and Byers.
The officers said Byers wanted to know if "this was the right place to call to get a report made out," the sheriff said. "They said no, you need to call the city police department."
Busby, who said he knew Byers and considered him a friend, said "if anyone had called us last night, we'd have been glad to have helped them. We didn't get a call from West Memphis (police) or anyone."
West Memphis's most recent triple murder occurred in 1985, when Ronald Ward, then 15, killed two elderly sisters and their 12-year-old great- grandnephew. Initially sentenced to death, Ward received a second trial and got life in prison.
There have been three other homicides in West Memphis this year, two of which authorities said were justifiable. In 1992, there were 10 homicides in the city.
Caption:
Steve Branch, Christopher Byers, Michael Moore
CAPTION: By Dave Darnell
(Color) West Memphis Patrolman G. C. Masengale comforts Mark Byers, father
of 8-year-old Christopher Byers, one of three boys found slain Thursday in Ten
Mile Bayou in West Memphis.
Insp. Gary Gitchell (second from right), of the West Memphis Police
Department, is heading the investigation into the three deaths. Police did not
indicate whether they had identified suspects.
http://westmemphisthreediscussion.yuku.com/topic/2612
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"Bratty Mama Leci"
Joined: 02 Aug 2006
Posts: 11754
Location: Kentucky
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| Obscuregawdess
Posted:
Mon May 26, 2008 11:00 pm |
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Sudbury Gives Foodstamps to Drug Informant...
http://westmemphisthreediscussion.yuku.com/topic/2608
TROUBLED HISTORY
Forfeitures might rake in cash, but they haven't done much to promote cooperation among Crittenden County law enforcement agencies.
In 1993, the county's drug task force became a hotbed of backbiting and accusations, with the Arkansas State Police investigating possible misuse of seized property. Eventually, the state police issued a report that culminated in improved record-keeping but no criminal charges.
"Apparent improper or nonexistent bookkeeping procedures were utilized by the drug task force,'' says a synopsis from that report. "No forfeiture property, with exception of vehicles, has been listed on Drug Task Force inventories or audited as project income. A petty cash fund apparently was maintained and was unaudited for a lengthy time.''
Public auctions of seized properties also were held without proceeds going into the proper account, according to the report.
The state police also investigated an allegation that Lt. James Sudbury of the West Memphis Police Department took $260 in seized food stamps and hired a criminal informant to buy steaks for a task force barbecue.
Sudbury denied the allegation, but three officers, who were not named in the report, stated that they had heard partial conversations about the alleged event.
Donna Kane, a drug task force secretary, who admitted using drugs in the past, told the investigators that Sudbury gave her a portable stereo and a purse, along with three seized guns.
And Sudbury told the state police that he took home a seized refrigerator for a while when his own refrigerator conked out. Sudbury's former wife and children also reported that Sudbury had given them a radar detector, an answering machine, a telephone and a $300 fishing rod that allegedly had been seized.
Sudbury, now a captain with the West Memphis Police Department, says he was made a target by a disgruntled state trooper who was a member of the task force and by an ex-wife who wanted to make him look bad for a custody battle.
"There was no criminal wrongdoing by anybody," Sudbury says.
Kane says she regrets her past drug history and that she returned the items Sudbury gave her.
Sudbury says he gave the secretary one of the guns for protection while the officers were away and allowed her to take another gun home for a couple days to show her child. He couldn't recall the third gun. Sudbury says he gave the secretary the other items when she asked for them when he was taking them out to a trash bin.
He says the state police investigation prompted improved bookkeeping and the elimination of the drug fund's petty cash account. The Police Department no longer seizes any items other than drugs, money or vehicles, Sudbury says, because the other items generate too much paperwork and are too difficult to track.
Thornton, now head of the sheriff's drug task force, also was investigated that year.
Thornton told the state police he put $33 in a vest pocket during the execution of a search warrant at a home and forgot to turn the cash in as evidence. He later told the state investigators that he had found the money in an envelope in his camera bag.
Thornton also told the state police he gave a seized .38-caliber pistol to his father. The gun eventually was returned.
"It was all on the up and up," Thornton says now.
'HANDS IN THE TILL'
The same year that state police investigated the task force, it split in two, with one faction becoming part of the sheriff's office and the other falling under the West Memphis Police Department.
The state investigation certainly added to tension at the task force, Sudbury says. But he says the real reason for the split was money.
"The drug task force was extremely successful, and we seized a lot of money, and there were some politicians who couldn't get their hands on the money, and the only way they could get their hands on it was to dissolve the task force,'' Sudbury says.
Even with the task force divided, forfeitures continued to generate big bucks. Last year the West Memphis Police Department got $505,096 in forfeiture cash, nearly 17 percent of its operating budget. The Crittenden County sheriff's office took in $532,829, about 11 percent of its operating budget. The prosecutor's office got $223,597.
Of that, $172,289 went to salaries in the prosecutor's office, including all of Hale's annual $32,000 salary. A bookkeeper was paid $46,510.
The forfeiture fund ponied up the $1,961 for Hale's father, James Hale Jr., another prosecutor, to attend a conference on gangs held in the resort town of Jackson Hole, Wyo. Forfeitures also paid for new video-imaging equipment for presentations to juries.
There will be even more to divvy up once authorities resolve a $3.17 million case, which has wound its way from a weigh station off I-40, where the money was seized, to the Arkansas Supreme Court.
The Arkansas Highway Police, which made the seizure one spring night last year, turned the cash over to federal authorities, in part to keep a greater share. Under federal procedures, the seizing agency can keep up to 80 percent of the money. Hale has argued the money belongs in the state system, which limits agencies to $250,000 of a forfeiture and requires any excess to go to the state.
The Arkansas Supreme Court in March sided with Hale. The money hasn't been distributed, though, because the highway police are considering an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.
The argument, Hale says, boils down to money and who gets to keep it.
"We've created a monster, and I don't know if we can curtail it or not,'' says Mike Everett, a Democratic senator who represents Crittenden County in the state Legislature. "Everyone has their hands in the till, and they're hollering and screaming to stop us from doing anything about it."
No one knows how many other agencies have tried to dodge the state's $250,000 limit.
For years, state officials failed to monitor forfeitures even though state law 5-64-505 requires police agencies to file reports with state officials on how much forfeitures generate. Millions of dollars have flowed to hundreds of law enforcement agencies throughout Arkansas with almost no state supervision.
"When you start dealing with money and drugs, everyone knows you have to have accountability and double accountability," says Bill Hardin, the state drug director. "I have none now."
Last June, Hardin finally got an assistant, a staff member on loan from the Arkansas National Guard, to help him round up some of the reports state law requires prosecutors and police to file on forfeitures.
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"Bratty Mama Leci"
Joined: 02 Aug 2006
Posts: 11754
Location: Kentucky
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| Obscuregawdess
Posted:
Mon May 26, 2008 11:03 pm |
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Pam Hobbs Interview "VIDEO"
Here are the direct URLs to videos for those of you who'd like to try opening them up in a different media player:
mms://a1639.m.akastream.net/7/1639/10930/v001/worldnowkait.download.akamai.com/10930/kait_20071107175601_2432052.wmv#0;1.000;0;183900;1:2;2:2
mms://a1544.m.akastream.net/7/1544/10930/v001/worldnowkait.download.akamai.com/10930/kait_20071108165601_2433937.wmv#0;1.000;0;141300;1:2;2:2
mms://a1082.m.akastream.net/7/1082/10930/v001/worldnowkait.download.akamai.com/10930/kait_20071108175601_2434005.wmv#0;1.000;0;192567;1:2;2:2
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"Bratty Mama Leci"
Joined: 02 Aug 2006
Posts: 11754
Location: Kentucky
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| Obscuregawdess
Posted:
Mon May 26, 2008 11:07 pm |
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New evidence has victims' parents at odds
http://www.wmctv.com/global/story.asp?s=7553483
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"Bratty Mama Leci"
Joined: 02 Aug 2006
Posts: 11754
Location: Kentucky
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| Obscuregawdess
Posted:
Mon May 26, 2008 11:13 pm |
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Father outraged over son's conviction
http://www.wmctv.com/Global/story.asp?s=7288914
They're known as the West Memphis Three: Damien Echols, Jason Baldwin and Jessie Misskelley. They were all convicted of killing three 8-year-old boys almost 15 years ago.
Now federal prosecutors say they will examine new DNA evidence that attorneys hope will clear their clients.
The father of one of the West Memphis Three is speaking out. He wanted to talk about the new DNA evidence and what he thinks it means.
One man says he was with one of the West Memphis Three the day the three 8-year-olds were murdered.
Fourteen years ago the three 8-year-old boys died after being beaten and thrown in a watery ditch in West Memphis.
New DNA evidence is giving hope to the father of one of the convicted killers. Jessie Misskelly, Sr., firmly believes in his son's innocence.
"Fourteen damn years, hell yes. I've been waiting. I know my son didn't do it. I've got evidence he didn't do it," says Misskelly Sr.
The Arkansas state Attorney General's Office said it will review the new DNA evidence. It's evidence defense attorneys say implicates Terry Hobbs, the stepfather of one of the murdered 8 year old boys.
The evidence included two hairs found at the crime scene forensics experts say are linked to Hobbs.
Jessie Misskelly, Sr., says a picture of his son at a wresting event proves he had nothing to do with the murders.
"I know he was with me that night," he adds.
Fred Revelle, who has never spoken to the media before says he too is convinced of Misskelly's innocence. "If little Jessie was to get out of jail right now, I'd let him baby-sit my kids. He wouldn't hurt a kid," says Revelle.
But proving Damien Echols, Jessie Misskelly and Jason Baldwin did not commit the murders is still a long way off.
Prosecutors say it could take months or years for them to go over the new evidence.
Jessie Misskelly, Sr., says his son doesn't want to be too optimistic. "He said, 'I know I'll get out one of these days. They tell me this they tell me that. I'm not getting my hopes up'."
Terry Hobbs' attorney Ross Sampson says Hobbs denies having anything to do with the murders of the three 8-year-old boys.
Prosecutors say they stand by their convictions.
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"Bratty Mama Leci"
Joined: 02 Aug 2006
Posts: 11754
Location: Kentucky
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