Devil's Knot: The True Story of the West Memphis Three (32 page)

By now, Fogleman had found what he wanted. Handing the files back to the psychologist, Fogleman asked him to turn to some specific reports; the ones from the county mental health center where Driver had required Damien to go. Moneypenny turned to the pages Fogleman indicated. Fogleman asked him to read from the therapist’s notes. The psychologist quoted:

“Reports that he thinks a lot about life after death. Quote—I want to go where the monsters go—end quote. Describes himself as quote—pretty much hate the human race—end quote. Relates that he feels people are in two classes, sheep and wolves. Wolves eat sheep.

“Damien explains he obtains his powers by drinking blood of others. He typically drinks the blood of a sexual partner or of a ruling partner. This is achieved by biting or cutting. He said, quote—it makes me feel like a god—end quote.”

On redirect, Damien’s lawyers tried to salvage the situation by having the doctor read some of the therapists’ more promising entries, with regard to Damien’s behavior and prognosis. But the attempt did little good, and Fogleman had the last word. “In your business,” he asked the psychologist, “is it not unusual to find people telling you about drinking blood, and that they do it to make them feel like a god?”

“It’s highly unusual,” Moneypenny said.

“It’s what?”

“It’s not usual at all,” the psychologist repeated. “It is very atypical. I think that represents some of the extremes of his thinking and beliefs and what it has come to for him.” With that, the witness was excused.

It was time for Jason’s lawyers to present evidence for the jury to consider when sentencing him. The mental health issue that Damien’s lawyers had raised was one of several possibilities allowed. While Jason had had no history of psychiatric illness, lawyers who dropped into the courtroom to hear the final arguments expected that Jason’s lawyers would present testimony, at least, about his scant juvenile record and his good record at school. But to the amazement of many in the room, Ford called no one—no witnesses at all—to offer mitigating testimony for Jason.

It was time for the trial’s final arguments. Fogleman spoke for only a few minutes, then dramatically, he opened the therapist’s files again. “Damien reports being told at the hospital that he could be another Charles Manson or Ted Bundy,” the prosecutor read. With that statement, he turned to the jury. “We ask for your verdicts,” he said.

Having called only one witness during the trial and none in the sentencing phase, Ford now pleaded for Jason’s life. He reminded the jury that Jason had no prior criminal record and that he was still just sixteen years old. He concluded, “Your verdict has already decided that Jason Baldwin will die in prison. The question is how will he die. I ask for mercy. Thank you.”

Prosecutor Davis wrapped it up for the state. Holding the photographs of Christopher Byers, Michael Moore, and Stevie Branch, he asked the jurors to consider what had been done to the children. He told them that “if ever there was an appropriate circumstance to render the death penalty, this is it.” And he asked them to “return a verdict of death.”

The jurors filed out of the courtroom at 2:05
P.M
. They entered a room where one of them began jotting impressions of the trial on a large easel pad.
³⁰¹
What followed was a simple, almost simplistic process. Under headings marked “pro” and “con,” the jurors assessed the testimony they’d heard during the three-week trial. In the pro column for Detective Mike Allen, they wrote that he seemed to be “good.” In the column for cons on Allen’s page, someone had written “none.” Other assessments were slightly more probing. The jurors wrote that Detective Bryn Ridge appeared to be “honest,” but they noted in the con column that he’d “left stick” and “lost blood.” Dr. Frank Peretti was judged to be “credible,” “impartial,” and “professional,” though “bad judgment” was listed as a con for him, as was the issue of “time of death.” On the page for Dale Griffis, the jurors listed “biased to occult finding,” “poor delivery,” and “low self-esteem” as cons. On the plus side for Griffis, one of the jurors jotted the words “knowledgeable” and “4,800 books.”

Then the jurors applied the same process to Damien and Jason. Under pros for Jason, they wrote “in school,” “stuck to story,” “exhibited remorse.” But the list of cons was longer. On this side of the page someone wrote “Damien’s best friend,” “jailhouse confession,” “low self-esteem,” “fiber match,” “knife,” and “frequented crime scene,” though no testimony had been introduced regarding that last point.

Damien’s page predicted the outcome. Under pros for him, the jurors listed “intelligent,” “manic depressant,” “stuck to story,” and “loyal family.” But the list of cons ran a couple of pages. It included “something to gain,” “dishonest,” “manipulative,” “weird,” “Satanic follower,” “fiber match,” “incriminating testimony—Ridge,” “blew kisses to parents,” “traveled crime scene 200 times in two years (LIED),” “carried knives,” “secondary confession (ballfield girls),” “lied during testimony,” “inappropriate thought patterns,” “no credible witnesses,” “eat father alive.” Finally, on one page, in big block letters, a juror wrote emphatically, “YOU ARE WHAT YOU THINK ABOUT!” Within two hours and twenty minutes, the jurors’ minds were made up.

Damien had appeared in court throughout the trial wearing long-sleeved tailored shirts, but while the jurors were out of the courtroom deliberating his sentence he changed. When the jurors returned to the room, he sat waiting to hear his fate wearing a black Harley-Davidson T-shirt.

The jury found that all three boys had been murdered in “an especially cruel and depraved manner,” a factor that would aggravate, or enhance, the sentence. Taking Jason’s youth into consideration, however, plus his lack of a prior criminal record and the jurors’ belief that he had acted as an accomplice “under unusual pressure” from Damien, they sentenced him on each of the three counts to life in prison without parole.

They found that although Damien’s guilt had been influenced by “extreme mental or emotional disturbance,” the cruelty and depravity of the murders outweighed those mitigating factors. They sentenced Damien to death by the method of lethal injection.

Judge Burnett asked the defense lawyers to have their clients stand. “Do either of you have any legal reason to show the court or give the court as to why the sentence should not be imposed? Mr. Echols?”

“No sir.”

“Mr. Baldwin?”

“Because I’m innocent.”

“Pardon?”

“Because I’m innocent,” Jason repeated.

“Well, the jury has heard the evidence and concluded otherwise. Do either of you have anything you want to say?”

“Nope,” said Damien.

Jason simply answered, “No.”

After reading Jason his sentence, Burnett told the sixteen-year-old, “You will be at this time remanded to the custody of the sheriff for transportation to the Arkansas Department of Correction….”

Then the judge turned to Damien. He informed the convicted killer that he too was now being placed in the custody of a sheriff, who would transport him to the state’s prison system. There, Burnett said, “on the fifth day of May, 1994,” officials would “cause to be administered a continuous intravenous injection of a lethal quantity of an ultra-short-acting barbiturate in combination with a chemical paralytic agent into your body until you are dead.”

W
HEN
J
ASON HEARD HIS GUILTY VERDICT
, he didn’t care if his sentence was going to be life or death.
³⁰²
Either way was the same to him. He later explained that it wouldn’t have mattered if he’d been sentenced to a single day in prison, because “the truth was not found out and proclaimed to everyone.” He could not believe the verdict. The word “guilty” rang in his ears.

He’d told himself that the trial would finally bring the truth to light. He believed that God had supreme control, and thus that everything would turn out right. That faith had carried him—and now it was dashed. He recalls that he entered a state of shock and found it difficult to breathe or speak. When Judge Burnett asked if there was any reason the sentence should not be imposed, he had wanted to answer with a scream. Instead, he had felt powerless, crushed, as though a vise was being tightened around him. He’d had to force out his tiny statement: “Because I’m innocent.”
³⁰³

On Monday morning, March 21, 1994, Jason was ordered into a van for the long drive to the penitentiary at Pine Bluff. He carried with him $50—$10 from an ex-inmate who’d visited him in jail and $40 from the jail’s warden—and a Bible given to him by his mother. After slipping into a seat by a window, he said,

But the fantasy remained just that. The van turned onto a dusty road that led to the prison department’s diagnostic unit, where new inmates spend their first few weeks. His heart beat fast when he saw the guard tower ahead, but everything else seemed to be in slow motion. When the van pulled to a stop, the officer in the tower lowered a milk crate on a rope. The officers from the van placed their guns into the basket and it was hoisted up. Then the bar in front of the van was raised and Jason found himself entering the walled and guarded compound.

He was told to get into a line with other newly arrived inmates who were waiting to be processed. An old inmate inventoried his few possessions and established an account for Jason’s money. “My first account,” the sixteen-year-old thought ironically. Then he was marched into a room where three men sat behind a table. They ordered him to get naked. Abashed, he removed his orange jumpsuit. “You think you’re tough, don’t ya?” one of the men said. Jason told himself, “I’ve got to be tough to survive all this.” In that instant he adopted that thought as his prison mantra. “I
am
tough,” he told himself. Then he repeated the phrase out loud. The men at the table looked at the 112-pound kid standing naked before them. One of them chuckled, “He won’t be tough for long.”

In the shower room, where he was led next, the old inmate who’d inventoried Jason’s possessions stared hungrily at the boy. Jason told him not to watch. When the inmate continued, Jason stared him in the eyes. The old man bowed his head and left. It was a small but important victory. For the first time since his arrival at the prison, Jason began to think he might actually survive. But after the shower, the old man was back. He handed Jason some impossibly tight-fitting boxer shorts. Jason told him he’d better get him some that fit. When the man didn’t budge, Jason reminded him that he’d been sent to the prison for a triple murder. The man responded that Jason didn’t look like a killer. “Did you really murder those kids?” he asked.

“That’s what I’m in here for,” Jason answered, “so you’d better not mess around with me.” The old man left and returned with boxers that fit.
³⁰⁴

Shortly after Jason’s first Christmas in prison, he received a letter from a man who said he’d worked as a counselor at the detention center where Jason and Michael Carson had been held.
³⁰⁵
The letter writer explained that “every word” Michael had said during his testimony against Jason had been based on conversations the counselor had had with him. The counselor explained: “We were discussing the case in a meeting, and I told him what people were saying about the victims and about what was allegedly done to the bodies. This young man then went to the police and stated that you had confessed these details to him while in detention together.”

The counselor said that when he “found out what was going on,” he was unsure what to do, fearing that he could be sued for revealing confidential information about his discussions with Michael Carson. Finally, however, the counselor had contacted Paul Ford, Jason’s attorney, who’d asked him to testify. “I agreed,” the counselor wrote, “but later learned that I would not be allowed to tell the Court what had happened. I cannot tell you why because I do not know. They said it had something to do with the fact that the information was privileged.” For all of this the counselor expressed profound regret. “I was completely out of line and very stupid for engaging in conversation of that nature,” he wrote. “I would give anything in the world if I could take back the comments that I made or change what happened.”
³⁰⁶

By now, only a court ruling could change what had happened. Toward the end of Jason’s first year in prison, Paul Ford filed a motion for a new trial. Ford did not cite the counselor’s claim; he actually lodged a much more serious charge. In an affidavit accompanying his motion, Ford alleged that at a crucial point in the trial, Judge Burnett had met privately with prosecutors Davis and Fogleman to discuss the prosecutors’ trial strategy.
³⁰⁷
Since lawyers for all sides are supposed to be present during any communication with a presiding judge, instances where that does not happen are regarded as improper, ex parte communications.
³⁰⁸
Ford’s charge was a serious one. Neither Burnett nor the prosecutors denied that the meeting had taken place. The charge placed Burnett in the position of having to rule on his own conduct as judge. He dismissed Ford’s motion for a new trial—and Jason’s life in prison wore on.

Jessie had a harder time adapting. He was disciplined frequently for cussing, refusing to work, fighting, and drinking, because liquor can always be made in a prison. He spent a lot of time in isolation, “the hole,” as it’s known. He blamed his problems on stress. Years later he would explain, “I get a lot of stuff on my mind. It’s hard for me to do anything, thinking about my family, thinking about am I ever going to get out, thinking about what I’m going to do if I ever do get out. It gets me down. It makes me think about stupid stuff, then I try to get into a fight. I try to go to the hole, so that I can be by myself to try to ease my mind. To me, being in the hole ain’t so bad. At least you do get a little peace and quiet.”
³⁰⁹
Over time, Jessie learned to control his impulse to fight. He was put to work in the kitchen. For fun, he took up dominoes, read wrestling magazines, and slept.

Damien’s prison experience was markedly different from that of both Jason and Jessie. Damien was driven straight to death row, a cell block in the state’s maximum security unit, near Varner, Arkansas. There, he was hustled into a single-man cell, and his antidepressant medication was immediately stopped.
³¹⁰
During those first few months, the effect of the cold-turkey withdrawal from his medications, on top of the tensions of being placed on death row, was severe. The cell block was constantly noisy. Mentally disturbed inmates ranted. Others shouted angrily from cell to cell. Inmates yelled at guards. Violence occasionally erupted. Guards in riot gear burst into cells. Punishments were meted out. Within a month or two after Damien’s arrival, guards came to his cell, searched it, and found a knife. Damien insisted he knew nothing about it, but he was sent to the hole for a month—a month during which, he later claimed, he was denied food and beaten.

In the months that followed, one of the most seasoned criminals in the place took Damien under his wing.
³¹¹
Damien would later claim that this inmate had had the knife planted in his cell as a way of demonstrating the level of autonomy he exercised in the prison.
³¹²
After the knife incident, the man offered Damien protection—and introduced him to elements of a plot that had been hatched long before Damien’s arrival.
³¹³
As Damien quickly discovered, Arkansas’s maximum security unit was at the time a place rife with corruption, and Damien’s self-appointed protector was exploiting the situation. Because he and some friends on death row had access to large amounts of money from outside sources, they had been able to bribe guards and certain prison administrators, securing drugs, luxuries, and other contraband items. The ringleader’s unique status on death row was evidenced by, among other things, the presence of a recliner in his cell. He also had a Polaroid camera, with which he photographed parties he threw in his cell. The photographs graphically demonstrated the breakdown of security at what was supposed to be the state’s most secure prison. By the time Damien arrived there, the inmate and his cadre of friends were using the situation to plan an escape. They had already loosened a window, and they’d removed a cinder block in the wall between the ringleader’s cell and the one adjoining it. Shortly after Damien’s arrival on death row, he was assigned to that adjoining cell.

The escape plan failed. There was a change in the prison administration, and soon afterward, guards discovered the loosened window and the hole in the wall between the cells, as well as hidden tools and gunpowder. The ringleader was punished severely, his privileges taken away, and when he was finally released from the hole, he wanted to retaliate. He wanted, at the very least, to embarrass prison officials, whom he considered corrupt and equally culpable. Toward that end, he smuggled photographs of his recliner and the parties to a reporter, and they were published in the
Arkansas Times
. Coincidentally or not, at approximately the same time, Damien wrote letters to state officials and to the media, claiming that the veteran inmate had repeatedly raped and beaten him. In the letters, Damien reported that the assaults had begun shortly after he had arrived at the prison, that he’d been photographed in “states of nudity and semi-nudity,” and that “several high-ranking officers [at the prison] were already aware of the fact, and would do nothing to prevent it.”

The allegation, leveled in March 1995, after Damien had been at the prison for a year, raised the question of how one death row inmate would even have had access to another.
³¹⁴
In his letter, Damien claimed that “part of the wall was missing…so that our cells were joined.” The sensational assertion, combined with the photos published by the
Arkansas Times,
called public attention to the breakdown in security at the prison.
³¹⁵
The Arkansas State Police conducted an investigation, and though investigators said they could not substantiate Damien’s claim that he had been raped, three staff members, including an acting warden, were fired as a result.
³¹⁶

As promised, the lawyers for Jessie, Damien, and Jason all filed direct appeals to the Arkansas Supreme Court. Jessie’s appeal went to the high court first. In a unanimous opinion handed down on February 19, 1996—two years after his conviction—the seven Supreme Court justices noted that Jessie’s statements to police were “virtually the only evidence” offered against him; that they amounted to “a confusing amalgam of times and events”; and that they contained “numerous inconsistencies.” Nevertheless, the court found the statements to be sufficient to support the jury’s verdict.
³¹⁷

Chief Justice Bradley D. Jesson wrote the opinion. In it, he pieced together what he called “the substance” of Jessie’s statements to the West Memphis police, laying it out “in such a way as to reveal with clarity” Jessie’s description of the crime. Unlike Jessie’s statements to the police, the chief justice’s summary was presented as a coherent narrative. It noted, for example, that Jessie said he’d been invited to meet Jason and Damien in the woods. “They went to the area, which has a creek, and were in the creek when the victims rode up on their bicycles. Baldwin and Echols called to the boys, who came to the creek. The boys were severely beaten by Baldwin and Echols. At least two of the boys were raped and forced to perform oral sex on Baldwin and Echols.” Elsewhere: “The appellant [Jessie] was asked about his involvement in a cult. He said he had been involved for about three months. The participants would typically meet in the woods. They engaged in orgies and, as an initiation rite, killing and eating dogs….”

The Supreme Court recognized that Jessie had gotten some significant details wrong. “The appellant [Jessie] initially stated that the events took place about 9
A.M
. on May fifth,” Justice Jesson noted. “Later in the statement, he changed that time to noon…. [In a later statement], the appellant said he, Echols and Baldwin had come to the Robin Hood area between 5 and 6
P.M
. Upon prompting by the officer, he changed that to 7 or 8
P.M
. He finally settled on saying that his group arrived at 6
P.M
., while the victims arrived near dark.” But all seven justices waived off the discrepancies. “When inconsistencies appear in the evidence,” they noted, “we defer to the jury’s determination of credibility.”