Free the West Memphis Three
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What is the significance of "Skeleton Key" to you?
Ever since I was a child I have adored skeleton keys. They're functional works of art, like a jeweled corset. When I was very young I believed that a skeleton key was capable of unlocking any lock and opening any door, so they had a very magickal and mysterious aura. And thats the goal of my artwork, both visual and written to open doors. Doors of perception, doors into new realms of though, doors that open on to new ways to live and see life. So much of life has become homogenized in modern times, and to me the skeleton key represents a way to transcend that. The skeleton key is handcrafted parchment in the age of computers.
How has your experiences with the justice system and prison influenced your artwork?
All of our experiences are stored within our psyche, and to some degree or another it seeps into all we do but I don't consciously attempt to bring my experiences with the judicial system into my artwork. In fact it's quite the opposite. I like to go mining for my material in deeper realms.
Has art helped you transcend those experiences? How so?
I think art (in several forms) has indeed helped me to transcend those experiences, and probably in the same way that certain forms of therapy would have done. Once most people come to prison they stop living and start surviving. My writing and visual art both have enabled me to avoid that trap. Art is a product of life and living, not just surviving.
If you had not had these experiences, do you think you would have been led to create art? If you would have been creating art, in what way do you think it would have been different but for what has happened to you?
I've engaged in one form of art of another for most of my life, usually writing of one kind or another. However, these experiences with the judicial system have brought me to a place where Ive been forced to take on a more introspective role than I would otherwise have. I think that the deeper we go into ourselves, the more amazing things we find.
Do you enjoy writing or visual art more? Do the different mediums serve different functions for you intellectually, emotionally and spiritually?
I'm tempted to say writing, just because my first love has always been poetry. I also love keeping intricate records of my own thoughts and realizations. Still, every so often a piece of visual art will give me tremendous feeling of satisfaction. For me the two usually go hand in hand. For example, the series of double sided Enoching angel paintings they're so enmeshed with my written records of the psychological experiences that it's next to impossible for me to separate one from the other.
Does the fact that a sale of your artwork is going toward your defense fund affect how and what you create? Does that factor into the process? Do you feel pressured at all because of it?
No. Not at all. I don't want to go into any endeavor while thinking of money. That would be a horrible thing to let seep into the artwork. All I can do is try to create something with what I find within some level of my own consciousness and hope that in some way it appeals to someone.
How does it feel to know that you have so many supporters out there?
It's an absolutely incredible feeling, because I'm able to compare it to what it's like to be at the other end of the spectrum, too. It's all the support that gives me hope that justice will eventually prevail. Without it, this situation would have crushed me long ago.
"Bratty Mama Leci"
Joined: 02 Aug 2006
Posts: 11754
Location: Kentucky
ObscuregawdessPosted:
Fri May 23, 2008 3:51 pm
From People Magazine...
- BEYOND A REASONABLE DOUBT?: THE CASE OF THE WEST MEMPHIS THREE
January 11, 2008
PEOPLE Magazine covers the case with a three-page story in the current (January 21 2008) issue, on shelves now! Read the article online, right here on WM3.org!
Tonight, Damien Echols is on death row, convicted of killing three young boys in West Memphis, 12 years ago.
His appeals have been denied time and time again and he's denied interviews just as often.
However, he's speaking exclusively to Lyndall Stout, a former reporter at our sister station in Little Rock.
"One of the reasons I`m doing an interview now, when I haven't in so long, is just to get the story out to the people who haven`t heard it yet," said Echols.
At last, Damien Echols is breaking his silence.
"You're probably the only person I've seen in Arkansas associated with the media that's shown the most integrity in the things that I've seen, the pieces you've worked on the news," he said.
Echols has called death row "home" since shortly after his triple murder conviction in 1994. He was 19 at the time.
"They sent me to this environment where I`m being housed with the most despicable people on the face of the earth. I'm being housed with every sort of degenerate and criminal that you could imagine and it's just like I'm thrown in there. And it was pretty bad," he said.
Echols is the center-piece of a trio known as the "West Memphis Three."
The three teenagers convicted of killing three little boys on May 5, 1993.
A crime so horrible, many in the tight-knit religious community, believe it was a satanic ritual, including police, prosecutors and the jurors who decided Echols' fate.
"You were portrayed as this devil worshipping child killer," asked reporter Lyndall Stout. "Did you kill those three little boys?"
"No I did not," said Echols. "I never even saw those boys before in my life. I've never hurt a child in my life. I have a child of my own and there's no way I would do something like that. I can't imagine something like that happening to my child. No way."
"Did you worship the devil," asked Stout.
"No, absolutely not."
"Did you take part in satanic rituals?"
"Absolutely not."
"Did you sacrifice animals?"
"No." (
"Did you drink blood?"
"No."
"I see a little smile on your face," said Stout.
"Just so absurd thinking.. Having to answer something like that," said Echols. "Just that people would actually believe things like that in this day and age. That something like that was going on. No. I never had anything to do with anything like that."
"They thought it at the time and honestly Damien, they think it now," said Stout. "Damien Echols is the killer. What do you say to that?" (
"Before you make up your mind on something like that, please pay attention to the facts," said Echols. "Please actually look into the case. There are websites online where you can look at the motions and the briefs that are filed. Please don`t just go by hearsay."
But what about the confession?
Jessie Misskelley admitted to the crime -- and implicated Echols and Jason Baldwin.
Critics say police coerced the confession from the borderline mentally retarded teenager and soon after Misskelley recanted. But it was too late.
"But people say, well Misskelley said he did it," said Stout. "He did it. Confession. A confession's a confession."
"That's been a really sore point for me throughout this whole thing is.. I think of these police who instead of going out and looking for the person who actually did this, instead of doing DNA testing, hey could've did DNA testing 12 years ago," said Echols. "They chose to mentally torture a retarded kid to bring about the result they wanted instead of actually going for the real killer."
But the victims' parents, along with prosecutors and police, have always stood by their investigation.
In late February, the Arkansas State Supreme court rejected Echols' appeal for a re-hearing.
The same week his attorneys filed a first amended petition for a writ of habeas corpus, that basically lets the federal court know certain claims have already been presented in state court.
Claims must be exhausted in state court before the federal court will consider them.
"Bratty Mama Leci"
Joined: 02 Aug 2006
Posts: 11754
Location: Kentucky
Here's sending many, many thanks to those of you reading this note. It means you are interested in this case, and that's what we're trying to do, raise interest and awareness.
It also means you may be willing to donate to the defense, which would be a huge help to us. We're currently getting important work done in the fields of pathology, forensics and investigation, thanks to many of you, but we have a lot of work to do.
Damien's is the only case being reviewed in state and federal court at present, but donated funds are going to the efforts to appeal Jason and Jessie's cases as well. All three cases benefit directly from the defense fund.
We are currently awaiting results from DNA testing, which is a lengthy process. Progress is being made, however, and defense funds will also help in completing that work.
It's amazing how much support we receive from around the world, and we are grateful. Not a day goes by that Damien and I aren't touched by someone's note of kindness, or the feeling that we aren't alone in our fight for justice.
Thanks to all of you out there, for your letters, your generosity, your thoughts - your support. We wouldn't be where we are now without your help.
Most sincerely,
Lorri Davis
"Bratty Mama Leci"
Joined: 02 Aug 2006
Posts: 11754
Location: Kentucky
ObscuregawdessPosted:
Fri May 23, 2008 5:15 pm
The Ultimate Deadline
By David Jauss
Let’s say you’re a prisoner on Death Row at Arkansas’s super-maximum security prison, the Varner Unit, and you’d like to escape. For years now you’ve been living—if you can call it living—in solitary confinement in a filthy, airless, 9 by 12 cinderblock cell. There are no bars for you to look out, much less climb through, and all you can see through your sole window is a brick wall. And the window is really just a slit in one of the cinderblock walls, so even if you could break the bullet-proof Plexiglass, it’s too narrow for anyone to climb out. The meal slot in the solid steel door is even smaller, so forget about that route too. Your only chance would be to overpower your guards while they escort you to the visitation cell on the relatively rare occasion that a lawyer, reporter, or family member comes to see you. However, this is not easy to do when you’re handcuffed and shackled. But let’s say you somehow manage to do it. You would then have to pass through several locked doors, all of them wired with alarms, cross the wide-open prison yard, then scale three separate 15-foot-high fences, each of them topped with dense coils of concertina wire and the middle one charged with enough voltage to knock anyone who touches it to the ground. And you would have to do all of this without being spotted by any of the numerous guards who patrol the prison and man the watchtowers that overlook the prison yard.
Obviously, it’s virtually impossible to get out of this prison. Getting into it, on the other hand, is a breeze. Here’s all you have to do: wear black T-shirts, listen to Metallica, read Stephen King and Anne Rice, watch horror movies, read books about the Wiccan religion, know who Aleistair Crowley was, and befriend a mentally challenged boy with an IQ of 72 who will “confess,” after six hours of interrogation without a lawyer or other adult present, that he, you, and another friend murdered, sodomized, and sexually mutilated three eight-year-old boys. Oh, and there’s one other thing you’ll need to do: write poetry.
Fantastic as this may sound, what I’ve just described are the reasons why a then-teenager named Damien Echols was convicted for stabbing and beating three little boys to death in West Memphis, Arkansas, on May 5, 1993, and they are the reasons why he remains on Death Row now, more than fourteen years later. Despite the fact that this was an extremely bloody, hands-on murder, and despite the fact that the killings took place on a muddy creek bank, investigators were unable to find any physical evidence linking Damien or his friends Jason Baldwin and Jessie Misskelley to the crime scene—not a single hair, fingerprint, footprint, or the slightest trace of DNA evidence. (Recent DNA tests have linked the stepfather of one of the murdered boys to the scene, however; one of his hairs was found knotted into one of the shoestrings the murderer used to tie the boys’ wrists and ankles.) And Misskelley’s so-called “confession” was riddled with significant errors. The source of many of the errors in his confession is clear: they were the rumors that were circulating around West Memphis during the month following the murders. For example, Jessie “confessed” that they:
(1) sodomized the boys both before and after they killed them (forensic evidence later revealed that the boys had not been sexually assaulted);
(2) strangled the boys (Dr. Frank Peretti, the medical examiner who conducted the autopsies, testified that there was no evidence of strangulation);
(3) murdered the boys around noon (when they were still in school) rather than “between 1 a.m. and five or seven in the morning,” as Dr. Peretti testified (or during the night, as subsequent forensic experts have estimated);
(4) tied the boys’ hands but not their legs (in fact, their left wrists were tied to their left ankles and their right wrists to their right ankles); and
(5) tied the boys with rope (rather than with their shoestrings, a fact that Jessie got right, he said, only after one of his interrogators said, “Come on, Jessie, you know it was shoestrings, not rope!”).
These are only a few of the important discrepancies between fact and Jessie’s confession. You might think that these discrepancies, coupled with the lack of any physical evidence tying Damien, Jason, and Jessie to the murder scene, would have been a problem for those who investigated and prosecuted the West Memphis Three, as Damien, Jason, and Jessie are now known. But you would be wrong. When a reporter asked Sheriff Gary Gitchell, the chief investigator, to rate on a scale of 1 to 10 how solid his case was, he said, “Eleven.” The state’s deputy prosecutor, John Fogleman, concurred. In fact, however, the state’s case relied not on any evidence but on a ludicrously illogical argument: the prosecution argued that (a) Damien and his friends were interested in the occult and (b) the murders were part of an occult ritual, and therefore (c) Damien and his friends must have committed the murders. Of the three parts of this quasi-syllogism, only one is true: Damien was indeed interested in the occult. (According to the state’s own “expert” in the occult, there was no evidence that Jason was linked in any way to the occult, and no occult-related motive was raised in Jessie’s trial, which was separate from Damien and Jason’s.) But there was no evidence that the murders were part of an occult ritual, and even if there had been, having an interest in the occult doesn’t constitute proof that you committed murder. But this lack of logic didn’t deter the deputy prosecutor. After reading into evidence the number of black T-shirts Damien owned and recounting Damien’s taste in music, movies, and literature, and so forth, Fogleman said to the jury, “Ladies and gentlemen, each item, in and of itself, doesn’t mean somebody would be motivated to murder—not in and of itself. But you look at it together, and . . . you begin to see inside Damien Echols. You see inside that person, and you look inside there, and there’s not a soul there.”
Once Fogleman had linked Damien to the occult through his taste in art, he proceeded to link the crime to the occult and, by implication, to Damien. He called to the stand Dale Griffis, a so-called “Doctor” of Occult Studies—a man who admitted on cross-examination that he had received his Ph.D. from a mail-order university without having taken any classes. This “expert” testified that wearing black, listening to heavy metal music, and reading Stephen King novels were common indications that someone was involved in Satanism. He also said that the very fact that there were three victims was evidence that their murder was part of a satanic ritual. “One of the most powerful numbers in the practice of Satanic belief,” he said, “is six-six-six, and some believe the base root of six is three.” While there’s no evidence that Damien ever invoked the number 666, there is evidence that the police did: the original docket number assigned to Damien’s case ended in 555 but one of the detectives changed it to 666.
After the so-called “expert” on the occult testified about the satanic nature of the murders, Fogleman returned to the subject of Damien’s literary taste, saying that the fact that he liked to read Stephen King and Anne Rice revealed his “belief system” and “state of mind.” But he didn’t find evidence of Damien’s guilt only in his literary taste; he also found it in poems Damien had written in his private journal, poems that he proceeded to read to the judge, jury, and all else present. Among the poems was this untitled one:
I want to be in the middle,
in neither the black nor the white,
in neither the wrong nor the right,
to stand right on the line,
to be able to go to either side with a moment’s notice.
I’ve always been in the black, in the wrong.
I tried to get into the white,
but I almost destroyed it
because the black tried to follow me.
This time I won’t let it.
I will be in the middle.
Though the poem was written well before Damien was arrested, it nonetheless reads like an ironic commentary on the investigators, prosecutors, and jury and the wrongs they committed in their self-righteous pursuit of justice—the “blackness” that followed them into their “white.” But Fogleman didn’t see it this way, of course. After reading the poem, he turned to the jury and said, “That right there tells you Damien Echols. He don’t want to be in the white. He doesn’t want to be good. He wants to be both where he can go to the good side or the bad side, however it suits his purpose. If he wants to do bad, let’s go to the satanic side. . . .That poem right there tells you about Damien Echols.”
When I first heard Fogleman’s words—in Paradise Lost: The Child Murders at Robin Hood Hills, Bruce Sinofsky and Joe Berlinger’s award-winning 1996 HBO documentary about the case—I thought of an earlier fan of capital punishment who saw a close connection between poetry and evil: Cardinal Richelieu, the notoriously ruthless seventeenth-century prime minister of France. He once said, “Give me six lines of verse by any honorable man and I shall find in them ample reason that he be hanged.” If there has ever been a more chilling attack on poetry, I don’t know what it is. Notice that the good cardinal wasn’t talking about a criminal, but about an honorable man. In Richelieu’s opinion, poetry is by its very nature so immoral that even an honorable man couldn’t write more than six lines of it without succumbing to blasphemy, sedition, or any of a number of other reasons for execution. Evidently, the jurors who convicted Damien likewise found ample reason in his poem that he be executed.
When I asked Damien during a June, 2005, visit how he felt when the deputy prosecutor used his poetry and journal entries as evidence against him, he said that at that time he was far more upset about having his private thoughts and feelings made public than he was about being convicted and sentenced to death. At first his answer surprised me, but then I remembered he was still a teenager at the time, and, as several studies of teens have taught us, at that age we fear nothing more than embarrassment, not even death. Also, as Damien explained, he hadn’t been too worried about going to prison or being executed, because he believed that everything would be straightened out soon, that it just wasn’t possible for an innocent person to be convicted of a crime without any evidence. So his death sentence didn’t really bother him all that much. But having his private thoughts and feelings revealed to the world—that upset him enormously. He was so upset, in fact, that for three years he didn’t write another word—and this was someone who had filled several notebooks with poems by the time he was arrested. During those three years, he woke every day so full of rage at being unjustly imprisoned—and at being routinely beaten by guards and raped, during his first year on death row, by an inmate the guards allowed into his cell—that he felt he had to do something or he’d either kill himself or go mad.
What he did was begin to write poetry again—and essays and fiction and memoirs and journal entries—and he now says that writing, along with reading and painting and his beautiful and intelligent wife Lorri Davis, who directs his legal defense fund, has kept him alive and sane. During his incarceration, he has read literally thousands of books, everything from pulp fiction to philosophy, and he has handwritten five books of memoirs, essays, and poetry, and is currently writing two others, a novel and another collection of poems. Almost Home, the first volume of his memoirs, was published in 2005, and his poems have appeared in such highly respected literary journals as Hunger Mountain, Water~Stone, The Louisville Review, Porcupine, and Rattle. One of his poems, “Army Reserve,” was set to music and recorded by Pearl Jam on that group’s self-titled 2006 CD, and Damien’s lyrics will also be featured on Illusions, a forthcoming CD by Michale Graves, formerly of The Misfits, who has set fifteen of Damien’s poems to music. Damien’s artwork will also grace the CD’s cover, just as it has graced gallery walls in San Francisco and other cities.
There are days when Damien is too depressed to write, days when he does nothing but sit and stare blankly at the cinderblock walls of his cell. Other days he paints, or creates collages, or builds wooden boxes, chess boards, and other objects as gifts for his many friends and supporters. On the days he does write, Damien will sometimes work feverishly for 10-12 hours. He writes so much, he says, because he’s facing the ultimate deadline, his execution.
Getting into prison was easy for Damien. Getting out is quite another matter. For the past fourteen-plus years, Damien has been going through the torturously long and astonishingly expensive state and federal appeals processes. The only way he will ever be free is if enough people get involved in the effort to overturn his conviction. Damien’s writing and reading helped put him into prison, and I’d like to see writers and readers band together to help him get out. If you’d like to find out more about his case, I urge you to go to the West Memphis Three website (www.wm3.org), read Mara Leveritt’s carefully researched Devil’s Knot: The True Story of the West Memphis Three (from which many of the facts and quotations in this essay are taken), and view the two prize-winning HBO documentaries about the case, Paradise Lost: The Child Murders at Robin Hood Hills and Paradise Lost 2: Revelations, both available on DVD. But most of all I urge you to contribute, as generously as you can afford, to the Damien Echols Defense Fund, P.O. Box 1216, Little Rock, AR 72203. There has never been a more crucial need for financial support. As Lorri Davis explains in a letter currently on the West Memphis Three website,
Over the last two years, compelling new evidence has been discovered by DNA tests, forensic pathologists and investigators. The lawyers are working to assemble what will be a dynamic appeal; one that will change forever the way this case has been perceived, and will prove—once and for all—the innocence of the three convicted. The filing will include new evidence that is backed up with factual, hard science; a miraculous development in this error-ridden case. ...We’re now asking for your help to put all of this effort to work in the courts. We need the resources that will enable our experts, lawyers and investigators to work full time over the next couple of months, so the appeal can be filed as quickly as possible. ...Time is running out, and we need your help.
Lorri’s words bear repeating: time is running out. Without our help in raising the money needed for the Legal Defense Team to prove Damien’s innocence, his Ultimate Deadline will come much too soon and rob us not only of a good, innocent man but a man who has the raw talent and vision to become a significant writer and artist. With our help, we can free the West Memphis Three and give Damien a long peaceful life of writing and painting in a place far from the cinderblock cells and concertina wire of Varner, a place where his body, soul, and imagination will be free to create, and a place where his Ultimate Deadline will be a natural one, not one wrongly imposed by Arkansas’s deeply flawed criminal justice system.
Joined: 02 Aug 2006
Posts: 11754
Location: Kentucky
ObscuregawdessPosted:
Fri May 23, 2008 6:37 pm
Damien Echols' pursuit of 'magic'
Saturday, Dec 22, 2007
By John Brummett
The first thing that strikes you about Damien Echols is his hollow, pale, frail appearance.
That hair, much shorter now than when he got convicted of capital murder 14 years ago at age 19, remains jet black. His big, darting eyes are nearly as dark.
That provides a striking contrast against Echols' alarmingly washed-out complexion.
He's all skin and bones, especially in the sparse and chiseled face that was so round and fat in those news videotapes from 1993.
"I haven't seen the sun in five years," he says in an East Arkansas drawl from the other side of the glass, where the Death Row guard at the Varner Unit has just deposited him.
This is for what will be a two-hour interview. I am here because there's a new burst of activity from well-meaning people trying to build public sentiment in his behalf.
We will cover spirituality, love and marriage, art, literature, politics and, above all, the pursuit of "magic."
No, not black magic. It may well have been Echols' tragic lot to be misunderstood. It becomes apparent that, by magic, he refers to grandly ambitious pursuits of creativity and learning in search of a higher meaning, or God, within himself.
From Death Row, he became an ordained Buddhist. But he likes Catholicism and says he never misses mass. He has maintained that fateful childhood interest in Wicca, a religion extolling nature and the supernatural, and which, let us stress, isn't Satanism. He embraces none of those exclusively, but applies all generally, he says, to seek "divinity through discipline."
He writes not-bad poetry. He wrote an autobiography. He writes songs. He reads books, thousands of them. He has a wish list at amazon.com. People have sent so many books he has to have them stored in a mini-warehouse. He draws. He does yoga. He meditates. For a while, he ran in place for more than two hours at a time, until his feet bled.
If he gets out of prison, he plans to learn first-aid, ballroom dancing and "every swim stroke imaginable," just for starters. His goal is to live large, not live dead, as he believes so many in his family and childhood circle lived.
He says his father stared into the distance over morning coffee as Damien's mom begged him to communicate. Then dad disappeared for 10 years.
Echols was a bright, troubled, disadvantaged, rebellious and irreverent kid in West Memphis who dropped out of high school but frequented the public library. He cut an eerie image in an old black trench coat that he found in the closet of an ancient house.
Even now, more pensive but still given to calling people "bleeping morons," he sees clothes as an expression. If he gets out of prison, he says, he'll look for leather pants and silk shirts.
"I mean, if you're going to just wear jeans and a ball cap, I don't see the point in getting dressed at all," he says.
Like all Death Row inmates, Echols is permitted to go to a caged, roofed, concrete-floored "yard" five hours a week. But he declines. He says the sun can't get through anyway. He says there are too many pigeon droppings out there. He says mosquitoes nearly carried him off.
Echols says he weighs 145 pounds, down about 60 pounds from his paunchy state when charged with and convicted with two other outcast teenagers of torturing and killing three little boys in what police called a Satanic act.
"It's partly bad health," he says of the weight loss. He's arthritic and his eyesight is failing.
"But part of it is what I ate back then," he says. "It was chocolate cereal with sugar for breakfast, pizza for lunch and a hamburger for dinner."
Tomorrow: Though he aches to get out of prison, Echols says his last 12 years, all on Death Row, have been the best of his life, far better than his miserable childhood. It's because of a woman.
-------
John Brummett is a columnist for the Arkansas News Bureau in Little Rock. His e-mail address is jbrummett@arkansasnews.com; his telephone number is (501) 374-0699.
(song Damien co-wrote w/ Eddie Vedder of Pearl Jam)
"Bratty Mama Leci"
Joined: 02 Aug 2006
Posts: 11754
Location: Kentucky
ObscuregawdessPosted:
Sat May 24, 2008 11:56 am
Here, we can discuss the prosecution's ringleader and the only one of the three to get the death penalty... and any interviews or biographical info on him are welcome here.
"Bratty Mama Leci"
Joined: 02 Aug 2006
Posts: 11754
Location: Kentucky
ObscuregawdessPosted:
Sun May 25, 2008 10:53 am
Damien Echols Polygraph
Damien Echols Polygraph
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
MEMPHIS MODIFIED ZONE AND INFORMATION
IN 1. HAVE YOU EVER TAKEN A POLYGRAPH TEST BEFORE?
SR 2. IN REGARD TO THE MURDER OF THOSE THREE YOUNG
BOYS, ARE YOU GOING TO TELL THE TRUTH DURING
THIS TEST?
R 3. AT ANY TIME WEDNESDAY OR WEDNESDAY NIGHT, WERE
YOU IN ROBIN HOOD HILLS?
C. 4. HAVE YOU EVER KILLED A CAT OR A DOG?
R. 5. WERE YOU PRESENT WHEN THOSE BOYS WERE KILLED?
C 6. HAVE YOU EVER TAKEN PART IN DEVIL WORSHIP?
R. 7. DID YOU KILL ANY OF THOSE THREE BOYS?
IN 8. HAVE YOU TAKEN ANY DRUGS OR MEDICATION TODAY?
R. 9. DO YOU KNOW WHO KILLED THOSE THREE BOYS?
10. DO YOU SUSPECT ANYONE OF HAVING KILLED THOSE
THREE BOYS?
Case document #001717
WEST MEMPHIS POLICE DEPARTMENT P 93-0021
POLYGRAPH REPORT
TO: DET. RIDGE DATE OF EXAM MAY 10,1993
COMPLAINANT NUMBER CASE FILE NUMBER 93-05-0666
SUBJECT DAMIEN WAYNE ECHOLS SSN. ***-**-****
ADDRESS 2706 SOUTH GROVE DLN.
CITY/STATE WEST MEMPHIS,AR. D.O.B. 12-11-74
PLACE OF EMPLOYMENT N/A
PURPOSE OF EXAMINATION
HOMICIDE INVESTIGATION
REMARKS:
IN THE PRETEST INTERVIEW, THE SUBJECT DENIED HAVING BEEN IN ROBIN HOOD HILLS ON WEDNESDAY, MAY 5, 1993. HE DENIED BEING PRESENT WHEN THE VICTIMS WERE KILLED AND DENIED HAVING KILLED ANY OF THE VICTIMS. HE ALSO SAID HE DID NOT KNOW WHO KILLED THE THREE VICTIMS.
A TEN QUESTION POLYGRAPH TEST WAS FORMULATED AND THREE POLYGRAPH CHARTS WERE CONDUCTED. THE TEST CONTAINED THE FOLLOWING RELEVANT QUESTIONS:
Q.#3. AT ANY TIME WEDNESDAY OR WEDNESDAY NIGHT, WERE YOU IN ROBIN HOOD HILLS? "NO"
Q.#5. WERE YOU PRESENT WHEN THOSE BOYS WERE
KILLED? "NO"
Q.#7. DID YOU KILL ANY OF THOSE THREE BOYS? "NO"
Q.#9. DO YOU KNOW WHO KILLED THOSE THREE BOYS? "NO"
Q.#10.DO YOU SUSPECT ANYONE OF HAVING KILLED
THOSE THREE BOYS? "NO"
IT IS THE OPINION OF THIS POLYGRAPH EXAMINER THAT
THIS SUBJECT RECORDED SIGNIFICANT REPSPONSES
INDICATIVE OF DECEPTION WHEN HE ANSWERED THE ABOVE
LISTED RELEVANT QUESTIONS IN THE MANNER NOTED.
CONCLUSION: DECEPTION INDICATED
IN THE POST TEST INTERVIEW, THE SUBJECT DENIED ANY
INVOLVEMENT IN THIS CRIME. AFTER APPROXIMATELY
FORTY-FIVE MINUTES, I ASKED THE SUBJECT WHAT WAS HE
AFRAID OF? HE REPLIED: "THE ELECTRIC CHAIR". HE THEN SAID THAT HE LIKED THE HOSPITAL IN LITTLE ROCK.
(HE SAID HE HAD BEEN TREATED THERE FOR MANIC-DEPRESSION) AFTER A SHORT PERIOD OF TIME, THE SUBJECT CEASED TO DENIE HIS INVOLVEMENT. (ADMISSION THROUGH
ABSENCE OF DENIAL) HE THEN SAID: "I WILL TELL YOU ALL ABOUT IT IF YOU WILL LET ME TALK TO MY MOTHER."
DETECTIVE RIDGE BROUGHT HIS MOTHER IN TO MY OFFICE TO TALK TO HIM. AFTER TALKING TO HIS MOTHER HE AGAIN DENIED BEING INVOLVED IN THE MURDERS. AFTER APPROXIMATELY TWENTY MINUTES, I ASKED: "YOUR'E NEVER GOING TO TELL ANYONE ABOUT THIS BUT YOUR DOCTOR, ARE YOU?" HE REPLIED: "NO".
Posts: 2139
(11/22/2002 12:45 PM)
Reply Quote MoreMy Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts These ARE NOT polygraph results. The results would be a sheet of paper about 80 feet long with squiggley lines all over it. No one has ever found the actual results of Damien's polygraph to my knowlege. Perhaps this is why the results have never been reviewed by an expert....
Posts: 0
(09/30/2001 8:33 PM)
Reply Quote MoreMy Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts Well, they also told Jesse he had failed his when the only question he failed was if he smoked pot.
Opinions are like ***holes. Im sure "other" investigators may have a" different "opinion.
Last edited by Obscuregawdess on Sun May 25, 2008 10:58 am; edited 1 time in total
"Bratty Mama Leci"
Joined: 02 Aug 2006
Posts: 11754
Location: Kentucky
ObscuregawdessPosted:
Sun May 25, 2008 10:57 am
Exhibit 500
This was arguably one of the most sought after documents about the case. Though it might not serve as the final answer
about Echol's guilt or innocence, it goes a long way towards disproving the notion that he was only 'guilty of being different' or considered a suspect merely because he wore black or listened to heavy metal music.
Another interesting facet is that a different picture of Crittenden County Juvenile Officer Steve Jones emerges. Though Jones was painted as part of a huge conspiracy to frame Echols, the reality in these documents is that Jones was the person primarily responsible for trying to get Echols much needed help.
(Damien describes himself as homicidal, etc. Lots of documents on this page.)
This is an interview with a friend of Damien's, Jennifer Bearden. She claims she and her friend Holly George were on the phone with Damien during the time the murders were speculated to have occured. I recently contacted Jennifer and she is doing great!She is going to college and majoring in Criminology and is a avid West Memphis Three Supporter!
This interview was conducted by Bryn Ridge of the West Memphis Police Department at Jennifer's home in Memphis.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
On 091093, I met with Jennifer Bearden at her residence in Bartlett, Tennessee. The interview was a result of having obtained information that she been on the phone with Damien on the day of the homicide. She informed me of several times when she had been on the phone with Damien and Jason during the afternoon after school and until about 9:30 PM on the evening of 050593. She gave a taped statement of the events that occurred on that evening.
Page 1
Interview with Jennifer Bearden, Potential Phone Alibi
Witness for Damien Echols for part of the evening of the victims' disappearance.
Page 3
Ridge:At Damien's house, you called Damien's house at about 8:30 or 9. Is that what you said?
Jennifer:It was about, I called him first at 8
Ridge:At 8
Jennifer:It about is between 7:30 and 8
Ridge:O kay, and every time you called Damien's did somebody answer the phone?
Jennifer:Um Um(Yes)
Ridge:O kay, Grandmother answered the phone at about 8
Jennifer:Um Um(Yes)
Ridge:She told you to call back at about 9
Jennifer:Um Um(Yes)I called back around 9:20
Ridge:At 9:20 you get Damien on the telephone and he tells you that he and Jason had been some where?
Jennifer:Um Um(Yes)
Ridge:O kay, you didn't know where? Did you ever ask him where he had been that night?
Jennifer:I said something about it, but you know I really didn't...didn't really care. Cause they go places together all the time you know
Ridge:O kay, but I mean did he ever tell you where he had been?
Jennifer:No
Ridge:D id you ask him any more about where he had been that night?
Jennifer:No not really
Ridge:O kay, and that's the extent of the phone calls for that particular time?
Jennifer:( Inaudible)
Ridge:O kay, that's what I needed to know. Is there anything further that maybe we need to know about? Any conversations you had with Damien or Jason or anybody else?
Page 4
Ridge:What do you think about him?
Jennifer:I don't like him, he likes Holly to and he's a pest
Ridge:LG is?
Jennifer:I only meant him once through he was at the skating rink one night and uh, he was just sitting there talking to us
Ridge:O kay, a quit ran down on these phone calls, at about 3:30 you called with Holly, your talking with Holly and she gets another phone call, and it's Damien, she calls you back and you talk 3 way with Damien, for a few minutes
Jennifer:Yea
Ridge:Holly hangs up and you talk longer with Damien,
Jennifer:I call him because he don't have the phone number
Ridge:O kay, they didn't have your phone number
Jennifer:If he wanted talk, nobody in West Memphis has my phone number except maybe 2 or 3 people
Ridge:Right, okay, so then he tells you to call him later at Jason's
Jennifer:About 30 minutes and I called him
Ridge:So sometime between 3:45 and 4 you get off the phone with Damien?
Jennifer:Um Um(Yes)
Ridge:And then about 4:30 you call him at Jason's
Jennifer:Right
Ridge:O kay, and you talk with Damien and Jason on the phone at that time?
Jennifer:Yes, we talked about 20 minutes
Ridge:And then they tell you their going some where and for you to call back later
Jennifer:Um Um(Yes)at Damien's
Page 5
Ridge:D escribe Ken for me one more time?
Jennifer:He's tall, he got brownish black hair and he's really skinny
Ridge:Is it long hair?
Jennifer:Um not really it kinda normal
Ridge:O kay, about collar length hair then?
Jennifer:Yea, he looks real young, but he says he's 16. I don't think he is, I think he's about 11 or 12
Ridge:O kay, but he does live there in the trailer park?
Jennifer:I think so
Ridge:If you had to pick a road that drove, that he lived on, which road would you think?
Jennifer:I have no idea, cause the only time
Ridge:You never say him go to a house?
Jennifer:The only time, the only time we saw him he was over by the lake and at the store
Ridge:O kay, would, does Kenny Newel ring a bell like that could be his last name or do you know at all?
Jennifer:I don't know
Ridge:O kay
Jennifer:I knew him my Ken
Ridge:The only time you meant Jessie was that at the skating rink?
Jennifer:Yea, I meant him 2 or 3 times
Ridge:At the skating rink, okay, and he was just like running rough horse over people
Jennifer:Yea, he wasn't nice, I mean I was friends with his girlfriend, kinda Susie we were okay, you know we weren't really talking, but Jessie just I didn't like him
Ridge:How about a young man by the name of LG Hollingworth did you know him?
Jennifer:Yea,
Page 6
Jennifer:Because Heather likes Jason, or like Jason, but Jason had liked Holly, but Holly was going out with somebody else, but she didn't like Jason only as a friend
Ridge:O kay, so jealous basically over Jason? Okay, do you ever meet Domini?
Jennifer:O nce
Ridge:What do you think about her?
Jennifer:I just really didn't like her, I mean she was really cold
Ridge:Were you and Damien like boyfriend, girlfriend or just getting to know each other
Jennifer:Un Un(No)I was going out with Terry, I was going out with Terry
Ridge:O kay, so you and Damien were just starting to know each other?
Jennifer:Yea, we were like really good friends
Ridge:O kay, and was there any kind of resentment between uh Domini and your being friends with Damien?
Jennifer:I don't know she, we were with Ken, Jamie, me Holly and Damien, and Murry and Domini drove up, I've only seen Murry and Domini once each, Domini got out of the car walked over there and we were all standing there laughing because Damien and them had walked into lake and we were laughing at them, and Domini was just standing there glaring at me, because I was standing beside Damien and I was standing beside Holly you know um, she was just standing there glaring at me, she told Damien, she said Damien and they walked over there and started talking, and he said I going to have to leave you all, he left and left Jason there.
Ridge:D amien left Jason there?
Jennifer:Him and uh, Domini get in back and he got in front and they left.
Ridge:With Murry?
Jennifer:Um Um(Yes)
Ridge:What about Ken did he stay there with Jason?
Jennifer:Um Um(Yes)He stay
Page 7
Ridge:O kay
Jennifer:Will I did heard something but I think it was one night Damien and them where not there at Skateworld, somebody was talking something about Murry that they had thought he had done it.
Ridge:He had done the murders?
Jennifer:That's what I heard
Ridge:But Damien never told you anything about the witchcraft?
Jennifer:No, I knew he dressed in like all black, but I mean,
Ridge:Any tattoos or anything, did you see any of his tattoos?
Jennifer:No
Ridge:O kay, alright, is there anything else about the phone calls that were made on that evening that just stuck's out to you?
Jennifer:Un Un(No)
Ridge:That we haven't covered, we have pretty will covered that evening, did you talk to anybody else during that period of time?
Jennifer:I really don't remember, I think I talked to Holly a little bit, I don't remember who else I may have talked to, I think mostly I talked to Holly, Damien, Jason
Ridge:O kay, well when Heather says she talked to you and Holly on the 3 way that evening is that just totally untrue? Or do you think she is just mistaken about the date?
Jennifer:She is probably mistaking, because I really don't remember talking to her
Ridge:O n that date?
Jennifer:I don't remember talking to her
Ridge:How about
Jennifer:I don't believe that me, Holly, Heather have ever been on the phone 3 way
Ridge:What's the reason basically?
Page 8
Ridge:O wns its?
Jennifer:Yeah(yes)he either owns it or manages it, he was talking about it, but done of us was talking about it.
Ridge:O kay, uh, there has been made mention of a person by the name Kenny or Ken that was staying with or now Jason, do you know who that would be?
Jennifer:Yea, um, he's a boy about, he says he's 16 he not, he can't be, he's around, he's like 11 or 12
Ridge:Um Um
Jennifer:He's tall, he got like brownish black hair, I've only meet him once
Ridge:D o you know what his last name was?
Jennifer:Un Un(No)I meet him in Lakeshore
Ridge:D o you know where he lived?
Jennifer:Somewhere in Lakeshore
Ridge:O kay, it, when is the last time you have seen any of these boys, Damien or Jason? Was it that Friday after or was there another night?
Jennifer:I think it was, when was the Marion Fair?
Ridge:Probably about two weeks after the murders occurred
Jennifer:I saw them then, and I think I saw them one time after that, a week after that
Ridge:Where do you see them?
Jennifer:At the fair, we went to the fair, and right after that I saw them like one more time at the skating rink
Ridge:O kay, um, this I guess this so called religion that Damien is a part of Wiccan or witchcraft did you know about that?
Jennifer:Un Un(No)
Ridge:Have you ever heard anything about it?
Jennifer:Un Un(No)There was a guy named Murry I had heard some people talk about he was suppose to be the high priest of the covenant
Page 9
Jennifer:No, Un Un(No)because I let Jason have one of my necklaces
Ridge:O kay
Jennifer:And Jessie stole it from them, and uh, and Damien and Jason did not like him for that reason and cause Jessie really had a bad attitude he was like, he...he had he think, he thought he could beat up everybody
Ridge:Um Um(Yes)
Jennifer:He had stole the 8 ball from the Skate World. He was walking around with it they had thought Damien had stole it, but it was really Jessie, because Jessie walked to me and he had it.
Ridge:O kay
Jennifer:But they thought it was Damien and so they didn't like him because of that, and cause he just had a bad attitude and had a bad mouth
Ridge:Jessie did? Okay, um, after that last call and you talked to Damien did you ask him where he had been that evening?
Jennifer:I said where did you and Jason go, and he said uh his mom just took us some where, he didn't really say where, because like
Ridge:Who's mom took him some where?
Jennifer:Jason's
Ridge:Jason's mom had taken Jason and Damien some where? Okay, and after that you meet you them again on Friday evening?
Jennifer:( Inaudible)
Ridge:And what was the conversation on Friday?
Jennifer:Same as usual we just liked walked around and talked to people, you know, nothing special
Ridge:Was anything said about the murders?
Jennifer:Kenny was talking about it, the person that owns Skate World, but uh
Ridge:Who's Kenny?
Jennifer:Person that works there
Page 10
Ridge:And about what time was that call you made to Jason's?
Jennifer:Between, it had to be some where in between 4:15 and 5, something like that 5, 5:30
Ridge:Who answered the phone at Jason's?
Jennifer:Jason
Ridge:And did you talk to Damien?
Jennifer:Yeah, I talked to Jason about 5 minutes and the (inaudible) with Damien and he really wasn't talking because they were playing video games with his little brother Matt
Ridge:O kay, and after that conversation you had with him
Jennifer:He said him and Jason were going to go some where, him and Jason were going some where and that he um, wanted me to call him later at his house around 8 and I said okay
Ridge:O kay, did he say where he was going to go?
Jennifer:No
Ridge:O kay, and when you called back about 8
Jennifer:His grandmother said he wasn't there, and I was suppose to call back around 9, and I called back around 9:20, 9:30 and I talk to him for a little bit, but then I had to get off the phone, because I wasn't suppose to be on the phone after 9:30.
Ridge:So you have curfew of when your suppose to be on the telephone and when you have to be off it, that's a school night? Okay, um, where did you first meet Damien?
Jennifer:Skating rink
Ridge:And Jason?
Jennifer:Skating rink, they were together
Ridge:O kay, did you know Jessie?
Jennifer:Yea, I didn't like him through, but the thing is everybody says they were friends, but they were not friends.
Ridge:Jessie, Damien, and Jason were not friends?
Page 11
This is Det. Bryn Ridge with of the West Memphis Police Department
Today's date 09-10 of 93 The time is (?) Currently investigating the triple homicide that occurred in West Memphis on 05-05 of 93, Case File Number 93-05-0666 I'm currently at **************, in Bartlett, talking with Jennifer Elizabeth Bearden. Okay, Jennifer if you would just introduce yourself?
Jennifer:Uh, my name is Jennifer Elizabeth Bearden, I was born **-**-** My address is *****************.
Ridge:O kay, and your mother is present during this interview, **************** and also Det. Bill Durham of the West Memphis Police Department. Okay, Jennifer if you would remember back to 5-5-93, which is the 5th day of May of this year. You were on the phone making some phone calls that day talking with some different people. Okay, who were you talking with first?
Jennifer:Uh, first I talked with Holly
Ridge:O kay, and what was that conversation?
Jennifer:We were just talking about school and then I think Damien called on the other line and then she said will I call you right back, I'm going to call you on 3 way. So we all got on 3 way and talked for about 5 minutes. And Holly's mom had to use the phone
Ridge:O kay, so you were talking on 3 way, you Holly, and Damien?
Jennifer:Um Um(Yes)
Ridge:D id Damien say where is was calling from?
Jennifer:He was at home
Ridge:He was at his house, that's what he said?
Jennifer:Um Um(Yes)It was like around 3:30 or 4 so he was at home
Ridge:O kay, and what was the conversation?
Jennifer:We weren't talking about much we were just talking about you know if we were going to the skating rink this weekend, that weekend, and um, and Holly had to get off the phone because her mom needed to use it. And um, I said Damien I'll call you right back, she said, he said okay and so he hang up, and um call, and I called him back and we talked for a little bit, and he goes can you call me back I'm going to Jason's, he said call me in about 30 minutes, and I said okay. I called him back in about 30 minutes at Jason's
Page 12
Investigative Report
Triple Homicide
Byers/Branch/Moore
On 091093. I met with Jennifer Bearden at her residence in Bartlett, Tennessee. The interview was a result of having obtained information that she had been on the phone with Damien on the day of the homicide. She informed me of several times when she had been on the phone with Damien and Jason during the afternoon after school and until about 9:30 PM on the evening of 050593. She gave a taped statement of the events that occurred on that evening.
Detective B. Ridge
West Memphis Police Department
WMPD
Confidentail
Copy to Prosecutor
Sept 22 1993
(typed with all errors included)
"Bratty Mama Leci"
Joined: 02 Aug 2006
Posts: 11754
Location: Kentucky
ObscuregawdessPosted:
Sun May 25, 2008 4:40 pm
"Going to kill two more"
THE COMMERCIAL APPEAL
ONE SUSPECT WAS 'SCARY,' TALKED OF WORSHIPING THE DEVIL
Date: Saturday, June 5, 1993
Section: News
Page: A1
Illustration: photo
Source: By Marc Perrusquia The Commercial Appeal
Staff reporter Laura Coleman contributed to this story.
Edition: Final
Michael Wayne Echols carried a cat's skull around with him at school and routinely dressed in black.
A couple of years ago he took to calling himself Damien, presumably after the antichrist character popularized in a series of Hollywood movies.
When the 18-year-old Marion (Ark.) High School dropout was named Friday as one of three teenagers accused of murdering three West Memphis boys last month, several classmates and others said they weren't surprised.
"He just scares me talking about him," said Roni Hendrix, 16, one of several Marion students who described Echols as a serious youth who seemed distantly obsessed. "When I saw it (the announcement of the charges) on TV it didn't surprise me at all."
Several acquaintances said Echols told them he was a devil worshiper.
Separating fact from fiction was difficult Friday. West Memphis police released few details about Echols and the other two suspects, while relatives
closed doors in reporters' faces.
People who would talk disagreed about how deeply Echols may have been involved in satanic activity.
"He was kind of disturbed," said former classmate Keith Chism, 16, a junior at Marion High School who said he thought Echols was out to get attention. "He (told me last year) he just did it to get attention because if he didn't do it, nobody would like him or pay attention."
Chism said Echols - who was known to all as Damien, the name he had printed under his picture in the school yearbook - went to great lengths in his unusual behavior.
Chism said Echols often brought a cat skull to school, sitting sullenly in classes. Chism said Echols once flunked a business course the two students took together, compiling a "zero average" in his tests and graded papers. ''While everyone else was working, he was just playing with that skull," Chism said.
Roxanne Harrison, parent of one of Echols's former friends, said she was frightened by the young man. Harrison said Echols once told her in her house at 1850 N. Avalon that he was a "devil worshiper," displaying several satanic poems he had written.
"I run him off," said Harrison, who said Echols routinely wore a long black trench coat even during summer months. "I told him to his face: 'You get out and don't come back.' "
Although Harrison forbade her 13-year-old daughter, Jennifer, from having contact with Echols last year, she said he brought her family more trouble after the murders of the three West Memphis boys May 5.
"My daughter kept on telling me when this happened, 'Mama, he done it. Mama, he done it,' " Harrison said. "She said, 'Mama, he said there's going to be two more killed' . . . she was scared to go outside."
Daughter Jennifer, who just completed eighth grade in Marion schools, said Echols started acting strange in recent years. He frequently dressed in black T-shirts and black pants, she said, claiming among his heroes heavy metal performers Ozzy Osbourne and Metallica.
"He started writing all these poems about devil worship and I just tried to get away from him," Jennifer said. After the murders, "everybody was saying it was him," Jennifer said.
In earlier Marion yearbooks, Echols is listed as Michael Hutchison. Friends said they believe he was adopted by a stepfather a few years ago and changed his name to Echols.
A man who answered the door Friday at a trailer at 2706 S. Grove in West Memphis - the
address police gave as Echols's home - said he was the teen's natural father. The man, who said his last name was Hutchison, declined comment.
Echols had been staying with his girlfriend at the dilapidated, stench- filled mobile home rented by her mother in Lake Shore Mobile Home Park north of West Memphis, just a few streets away from where Jason Baldwin, another suspect, lives.
No one was home at the trailer Friday afternoon, but its owner, Pam Hollingsworth, allowed a reporter and photographer inside. The floor in one room was covered in cat feces, and garbage and food were found throughout the home.
On a window was a framed compact disc case titled Grim Reaper, with "See you in hell" handwritten at the bottom. Strewn across the bedroom floor were cassette tapes of heavy-metal artists.
Hollingsworth, who said she's talked to Echols several times, said she was afraid of him.
"He said the devil had chosen him. He said, 'The devil tells me what to do and I do it.' "
Joined: 02 Aug 2006
Posts: 11754
Location: Kentucky
ObscuregawdessPosted:
Sun May 25, 2008 5:21 pm
...
"In a strange way, I'm very thankful for having come to death row, because only after arriving here did I begin to find peace and happiness." ~Damien Echols, September 19, 2000
"Bratty Mama Leci"
Joined: 02 Aug 2006
Posts: 11754
Location: Kentucky
ObscuregawdessPosted:
Mon May 26, 2008 4:35 pm
Damien's Statement
January 18, 2008 Dear Friends and Supporters,
It is with great sadness and a heavy heart that I write this letter, but it must be done in light of recent events. A man in my situation is allowed to have very little of anything, so the things I do have mean all the more--things like dignity and a personal sense of honor. I write this letter in order to keep that personal sense of honor intact. The point of this letter is to inform the public, the supporters and the operators of the wm3 "innocence project" website that I will not be accepting anything from the operators of that website.
By making false accusations against my loved ones, my friends and the supporters who have gone out of their way to help me for many, many years the operators of the wm3ip website have caused me tremendous grief. At a time when I should be preparing for the upcoming fight against the charges made against me, I am having to deal with the actions and accusations made by this wm3ip group. I do not think the word "supporter" can be applied to any involved with the wm3ip website. Sadly it is more like a confederation of individuals who have attempted to further their own agendas by making use of my name, pain and misfortune as well as that of Jason and Jessie.
These individuals are not connected or affiliated with me or my case in any way, and I will not be accepting anything from them due to the insults they have delivered to me, my loved ones and my true supporters. However, your donations and support are now needed more than ever, and anything you can give would be greatly appreciated. It will be needed to fund the upcoming hearing. And again, thank you all very much for your support. It is because of you that we have gotten this far.
Thank You,
Damien Echols
Joined: 02 Aug 2006
Posts: 11754
Location: Kentucky
ObscuregawdessPosted:
Mon May 26, 2008 5:09 pm
CA 5/11/94, Echols forecast human sacrifice
The Commercial Appeal
Echols forecast human sacrifice, newly released documents show
Date: May 11, 1994
Section: Metro
Page: b2
Illustration: photo
Source: The Commercial Appeal
Dateline: WEST MEMPHIS
Edition: Final
Damien Wayne Echols told Crittenden County juvenile authorities in May 1992 that the local cults had exhausted the uses of animal sacrifice and that "the next logical step would be the sacrifice of a human.'' Jerry B. Driver, the county's chief juvenile officer, told police in December that Echols had given him that warning after Echols's arrest on trespassing and sexual misconduct charges in May 1992.
Echols, Charles Jason Baldwin and Jessie Lloyd Misskelley Jr. were found guilty of murder this year in the May 5, 1993, murders of three West Memphis boys.
The Driver interview was reviewed Tuesday, the second day of the West Memphis Police Department's court-ordered release of more than 7,700 documents associated with the triple-murder case.
Also released was a report on Echols's June 9, 1993, suicide attempt at the Monroe County Detention Center at Clarendon, Ark., and his suicide note written on the back of a Marlboro cigarette carton.
"Just remember I am a Wiccan and will be reincarnated,'' Echols printed. "I promise.''
Another file included Baldwin's school journal seized by police. In one March 1993 entry, he wrote: "I am a very calm person and can take most of everything. But . . . when I do get angry, it is usually not a pretty site (sic).''
1. I am a physician licensed to practice in California, with a specialty in clinical and forensic psychiatry. I am a licensed physician specializing in psychiatry and europsychiatry. I am in private practice focusing on forensic consultations. My business address is P.O. Box 11708, Berkeley, California, 94712-2708.
2.I am a member of the American Psychiatric Association, the California Medical Association, the Northern California Psychiatric Association, and the Board of Medical Examiners for the Superior Court of San Francisco, California. I am also a member of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law, the International Academy of Law and Mental Health, as well as a member of the American College of Forensic Psychiatrists.
3.I received my bachelor’s degree from Westminster College in Salt Lake City,Utah, in 1969. I received my medical degree at the University of Utah in 1977. I completed my residency at the Pacific Medical Center in San Francisco, California, in 1981, and participated in a National Institute of Mental Health/American Psychiatric Association Fellowship in 1982. I received my board certification in psychiatry and neurology in 1992. I became a diplomate in the American College of Forensic Examiners in 1998. I was the Clinical Director of the New Beginnings Program at Doctors Hospital in Pinole, California, from 1989 to 1994 and Senior Consulting Addictionologist to the New Beginnings Programs at Doctors Hospital, Pinole, California, and San Ramon Regional Medical Center, San Ramon, California, from 1994 to 1996.
4.I am currently Affiliate Professor at the University of Washington, Bothell Campus. I was Adjunct Professor at the University of California, Davis, Medical School, Department of Psychiatry, in the postgraduate Forensic Psychiatry Fellowship. In that position I taught courses on criminal responsibility and the trial process. I have lectured both nationally and internationally on issues of criminal responsibility and competency. I am also in private practice in Oakland, California. I have been a forensic consultant in civil, capital, and appellate proceedings since 1984. I have been qualified and testified as an expert in a number of civil and criminal cases.
Referral Questions
5.Counsel for Damien Echols requested my assistance in the following capacities:
a. Conduct a comprehensive mental health examination of Mr. Echols to determine whether Mr. Echols suffered from a mental disease and, if so, whether that disease affected his competency to stand trial during 1993 - 1994;
b. Identify environmental, genetic, and neuropsychiatric factors that may have adversely affected Mr. Echols’ early childhood and adolescent development;
c. Determine the appropriateness and standard of care of medical and Psychiatric treatment received by Mr. Echols at the Monroe County Jail;
d. Determine whether or not Mr. Echols was able to provide knowing and rational consent to treatment provided by the Monroe County Jail;
and
e. Determine the effects of treatment administered by the Monroe County Jail on Mr. Echols mental status, including whether the type and amount of medication Mr. Echols received was appropriate.
Information Relied Upon
6. My medical opinions are based on the following information:
a. Clinical interviews of Mr. Echols I conducted in December, 2000;
b. Social Security Administration documentation of Mr. Echols’ mental disability;
c. Transcripts of Mr. Echols’ trial;
d. Collateral reports of lay witnesses who observed Mr. Echols’ behavior throughout his trial;
e. Medical records of Mr. Echols’ three psychiatric hospitalizations in the year preceding his arrest;
f. Mr. Echols’ writings and correspondence;
g. Mr. Echols’ Arkansas Child Protective Services records;
h. Mr. Echols’ 1992-1994 East Arkansas Regional Mental Health Center Records;
i. Monroe County jail records of Mr. Echols’ suicide attempt;
j. Mr. Echols’ prescription medication records;
k. Results of psychological and neuropsychological tests administered to Mr. Echols; and
l. Other life history documents, including educational and medical records.
7. The data I reviewed, though by no means inclusive, are clinically significant and are required in order to provide valid and reliable medical and psychiatric opinions.
Findings
8. My findings include the following:
a. Mr. Echols has a serious mental illness characterized by grandiose and persecutory delusions, auditory and visual hallucinations, disordered thought processes, substantial lack of insight, and chronic, incapacitating mood swings;
b. Mr. Echols’ mental illness was established before the offense and subsequent legal proceedings. The Social Security Administration determined that Mr. Echols was 100% disabled due to mental impairment and granted him full disability benefits;
c.Mr. Echols’ mental illness made him incompetent to stand trial. The stress, complexity, and adversarial nature of the trial compounded the effects of his mental illness. He was not able to understand rationally and respond appropriately to the many demands of the prolonged legal proceedings. He could not adequately appreciate or consistently articulate the nature and gravity of the charges against him. He did not understand the role of his counsel and could not assist his counsel or investigators in identifying critical evidence or a viable theory of defense. His grandiose and paranoid delusions left him unable to make rational decisions and grossly distorted his perception of the purpose and possible outcomes of the trial.
d. Mr. Echols’ mental status worsened with time. He developed a psychotic euphoria that caused him to believe he would evolve into a superior entity, would be assisted by similar deities, and eventually would be transported to a different world. His psychosis dominated his perceptions of all aspects of the court proceedings. He developed delusions of reference in which he believed every event or movement, regardless how insignificant, was a potential “sign” that the deities were attempting to show him the pathway to the other world where he would join other entities like himself. As a result Mr. Echols was extremely hyper vigilant and anxious but at the same time completely unable to attend to the critical aspects of his death penalty trial.
e. Mr. Echols had no control over his mental illness, nor did he possess the skills or insight to militate his psychosis or delusions prior to or during his trial. His mental illness, combined with his immaturity and the enormous stress of his charges, incarceration and trial substantially impaired his perception of reality. Lack of insight, low tolerance for stress and immaturity are strong characteristic features of chronic mental illness.
Mental Status Examination
9.Mr. Echols presented as a neatly groomed, adequately nourished, healthy man of his stated age. He was oriented to person, place, date, and context of interview. After his confinement on death row at the age of 19 he converted to Buddhism. His appearance was consistent with the traditions of some Buddhist sects. His head was shaved and he wore a necklace made of wooden beads. Mr. Echols was soft spoken, polite and cooperative throughout the interview. He consistently appeared to be sincere and to put forth his best effort in all domains of the evaluation. His responses reflected average intelligence. His ability to assimilate new information and his short term memory were within normal limits, however there are significant gaps in his long term memory.
10.Mr. Echols’ showed signs of a mood disorder. His affect was generally flat and constricted, although he became animated and more expressive on several occasions. In some instances his affect did not match his thought content or the content of the interview, but on the whole these domains were consistent. Mr. Echols denied persistent hallucinations but did acknowledge hearing intermittent “noises or voices.” Mr. Echols’ insight, judgment and thought content appeared to be adequate, although his responses suggested both his insight and judgment continue to be compromised by his mood disorder. He denied fixed delusions and homicidal or suicidal thoughts.
11.During the second day of interviewing, Mr. Echols had difficulty concentrating, which is consistent with dissociation; he lost his train of thought and there was marked delay in his responses. When asked what he was experiencing, he said certain questions caused him to relive the experiences being discussed.
12.Mr. Echols’ accounts of his social and medical history were consistent with documentation and collateral interviews. There is a long standing history of an extremely chaotic and impoverished childhood that thwarted the trajectory of his development and left Mr. Echols with very low self esteem and poor coping skills. He lacked adequate nurturing, guidance, and supervision. He was exposed to chronic psychological maltreatment and was unable to retreat from or interpret his experiences. He developed symptoms of extreme anxiety at a very young age and had virtually no compensatory influences to counteract the damage to his social and emotional development. He was isolated from peers and caring adults who could help him find internal and external resources to restore.
13. Mr. Echols’ accounts of his symptoms since childhood are consistent with severe traumatic stress disorders and mood disorders. He reported periods of dissociation in which he “lost” long spans of time. He also endorsed numerous physical problems, including frequent severe headaches (for which he was treated with prescription medications as a child), heart palpitations, difficulty breathing (he was diagnosed with and treated for asthma), and chronic sleeping problems. He reported having nightmares from which he awakened in a terrified state as often as twice a night. These symptoms persisted throughout his childhood and adolescence and grew to include periods of psychosis.
14. Mr. Echols’ became so debilitated by his escalating mental illness that he was hospitalized three times during the year prior to his arrest for the current offense. His diagnoses included mood disorder, psychosis not otherwise specified, and severe depression. He was evaluated by the Social Security Administration and given full disability benefits on the basis of his mental illness.
15. Mr. Echols vividly described a course of mood-incongruent psychotic features that reached their apex during the stress of his trial and pressure of constant media attention, and did not abate until after his confinement on death row.
16. Although he has received no psychiatric treatment on death row Mr. Echols stated his mental illness has improved significantly since his incarceration. He attributes this improvement to his structured environment, the enduring support of his wife, who is a touchstone to reality and is unflaggingly devoted to his best interest, and his devout study of Buddhism.
Hallucinations
17. Prior to and during his trial, Mr. Echols heard “voices that were not really voices” and he “was not sure if it was a voice inside” his head or “somebody else’s voice.” He thought it “was nearly impossible” to tell if it was his voice or somebody/something else. He experienced visual hallucinations that “were personifications of others. They were like smoke, changing shape but present and constant.” The personifications had specific names and activities. One was “Morpheus Sandman” who was a hybrid of a human being and a god. Another example was “Washington crossing the Delaware.” Mr. Echols saw Washington cross the Delaware with “Hermes on the boat.” Hermes was able to cross with Washington because “Hermes was moving backwards through time.” Mr. Echols came to believe that he was the same as these personifications, “made of the same material and from the same place.”
Delusions
18. Mr. Echols stated that at some point in his adolescence he came to believe he was “something that was almost a supreme being that came from a place other people didn’t come from.” This transformation caused him to change physically, the pertinent changes appearing in his “appendages, hands, feet, hair.” He acquired “an entirely different bone structure that was not human.” He developed “stronger senses.” His eyesight was better and his “ability to smell and taste changed.” He had a different stance, moved his eyes and held his head differently. He grew his nails so that they would be a “perfect 1 ½ inches long.” When he looked at his hands, he could see his bones. His weight dropped to 116 pounds, consistent with neurovegetative signs seen in mood disorders. This period of physical change began the year before his arrest and lasted for about two years after he was on death row.
Family History
19. Despite its many problems and limitations, Mr. Echols’ family has remained supportive and concerned for his well being. They visited him in jail prior to his trial, attended the trial, and have maintained contact with him since his confinement on death row. They work and live in eastern Arkansas in the community where Mr. Echols spent the majority of his childhood.
20. The Echols family appears to have done the best it could in the face of enormous adversity. There is evidence of generational poverty, mental illness, low education and employability, limited problem solving skills, medical problems, and social alienation.
21. Mr. Echols’ mother, Pamela, was adopted under mysterious circumstances and reared as the only child of her adoptive mother, who was trained as a
