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Part 7: Confessions of the Intellectually Challenged The credibility of Jesse's interview continues to be debated even today. The 17-year-old had an IQ of 72, far below the average intelligence of someone his age. Jesse's intellectual disabilities made it difficult for him to understand his rights.
More so, it made him vulnerable to suggestive questioning and prone to making self-incriminating admissions to please interviewers. None of this was considered by investigators. Jesse's ordeal began with a polygraph. He denied participating in any satanic rituals and insisted that he had nothing to do with the murders. "That boy's lying his ass off," one officer concluded.
Though the police only had his father's permission for a polygraph, they subjected him to a grueling interrogation rife with intimidation and suggestive questioning. Chief Inspector Gitchell kicked off the interview by asking which side Jesse wanted to be on, the killer's or that of the police. Obviously, the team chose the latter. Then, Jesse was shown Christopher's autopsy photo. He became visibly shaken.
Finally, the inspector played an audio snippet of Aaron Hutchison's interview where the boy said, Jesse, who was a minor at the time, was then questioned alone for about 12 hours, with only 46 minutes being recorded. The teen initially said that he wasn't there when the murders occurred. Instead,
He claimed that Damien and Jason called him saying they were going to find some kids and murder them before asking if he wanted to join. Then, he claimed that they'd actually called him the day after murdering the Cub Scouts to tell him about it. Jesse went on to describe cult ceremonies he allegedly attended with Damien and Jason, where brief cases of drugs were passed around, dogs were cooked and eaten, and orgies were had.
Still, the teen was adamant that he didn't know anything about the Cub Scout's deaths. The investigators convinced Jesse he was lying. They explained that the polygraph, which, according to them, hooked up to his brain and read his thoughts, proved it. Confused, exhausted, and left alone with Inspector Gitchell, Jesse suddenly confessed to witnessing and participating in the murders.
Most of the teen's confession didn't line up with the crime scene, the evidence, or the autopsy results. Each time he said something that didn't make sense, Gitchell would make a suggestion and his story would change. Jesse got the timeline of the murders wrong, saying it happened in the morning, before he was led into agreeing that he said the murders took place around 8:00 p.m. He claimed the boys were tied up with rope until he was told that they'd been bound with their own shoelaces
When asked who did what to which boy, Jesse confused the victims and mixed up the names of all involved. He even asserted that Damien and Jason had raped the Cub Scouts before murdering them which, as we know, was disproved by the autopsies. Eventually, after being told he could go home once he confessed, Jesse's story started to align with the known facts of the case.
He claimed that he watched Damien and Jason beat, stab, and mutilate the Cub Scouts in Robin Hood Hills. Apparently, Michael Moore managed to break free and took off running. Jesse said he chased the boy down and, once Damien and Jason caught up, he left. For some reason, he came back, only to find that the Cub Scouts had been stripped naked and hog-tied. Jesse alleged that he saw Damien and Jason rape and cut the boys.
Disturbed by this, he then ran home. Aside from the obvious discrepancies in the teen's story, several witnesses insisted that they'd been with him when the murders were supposed to have taken place. More so, Jesse recanted his confession shortly after giving it, complaining that he'd been coerced, intimidated, and threatened by the police. He was arrested anyway.
Interestingly, the teen's arrest record stated that he was charged with capital murder at 2:44 p.m., one minute before the teen gave his questionable taped confession. By 10:30 p.m. that same night, Jesse, Damien, and Jason had each been arrested and charged with three counts of capital murder.
Inspector Gitchell held a press conference the following morning. One reporter asked how confident he felt about the case on a 1 to 10 scale. "11." Gitchell responded with a smile. A media frenzy ensued. Portions of Jesse's confession were subsequently leaked to the press, and it became front page news, prompting the birth of wild rumors.
Some locals even believed that the teens had slaughtered the Cub Scouts during a ritualistic orgy that involved one victim being skinned alive. Less than a month after the murders and before their trials even began, Damien Eccles, Jesse "Miss" Kelly, and Jason Baldwin, then dubbed the West Memphis Three, were found guilty in the court of public opinion. Part Eight: Coerced and Convicted. On August 4th, 1993,
A pretrial hearing was held for the West Memphis Three in Marion, Arkansas, during which the trio pleaded not guilty. Judge David Burnett ordered that Jesse be tried separately from his co-accused and that all three teens be tried as adults. Astonishingly, despite the defense stressing that Jesse's confession was obviously coerced, the judge also ruled that it could be used against him in court. In January of the following year,
Jesse Miskelley's trial began in Corning, Arkansas. The trial centered around the teen's confession, as this was the only real evidence the state had against him. Prosecutor John Fogelman urged the jury to disregard the inconsistencies in Jesse's statement, insisting that the teen was simply trying to lessen his involvement in the murders.
The prosecution then presented an emotional, disturbingly graphic version of events while the jury gazed at the Cub Scout's bikes which were put on display. The mothers of all three victims were called to the stand to describe their ordeal and other 30 gruesome photos of the boys' bodies were exhibited for all to see. Inspector Gitchell was introduced as a witness to verify the credibility of Jesse's confession. When asked about the discrepancies in the story,
He simply stated that Jesse was confused. The defense countered this with two expert witnesses. Warren Holmes, an expert in police interrogation tactics, was the first to testify. He insisted that someone with Jesse's intellectual disabilities would say anything to get out of a hostile situation. Jesse himself even stated that he was scared of the police during his interview.
Holmes maintained that the confession was clearly scripted and that, had Jesse truly witnessed the attack, he wouldn't have gotten so many details wrong. The second witness was Dr. Richard Offshee, an expert on false confessions and police coercion, who testified that Jesse's admission was a classic example of the latter. He stated that investigators planted the answers they wanted in the teen's mind, causing him to immediately repeat them.
This, Dr. Afshi noted, was a known persuasion tactic that mentally handicapped people such as Jesse were prone to falling for. The prosecution attempted to discredit Dr. Afshi and asked him to explain how Jesse knew certain details about the boy's injuries that hadn't been made public. Dr. Afshi clapped back, countering that he couldn't because investigators interviewed the teen for hours without recording what was said.
The medical examiner who performed the autopsies testified that the boy's injuries weren't consistent with Jesse's confession. It wasn't enough to save the teen.
On February 5th, 1994, Jesse "Miss" Kelly was convicted of one count of first-degree murder for the death of Michael Moore and two counts of second-degree murder for the deaths of Stevie Branch and Christopher Byers. The teen was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole, as well as an additional 40 years. Oddly, Jesse continued to fan the flames of his own foundering,
Not only did the teen confess to his lawyers, but he confessed again to the police while being driven to prison. Three weeks later, Damian Echols and Jason Baldwin's trial commenced in Jonesboro, Arkansas. Part 9: And Justice for All Prosecutor Folgerman was the first to address the jury. He announced that, through scientific evidence, the jurors would see that Damian and Jason murdered the three Cub Scouts. However,
there was simply no real evidence against the pair. The prosecution's argument relied heavily on the assumption that the murders were part of a satanic ritual and that the teens were involved with a devil-worshiping cult after Jesse refused to testify.
All the prosecution had was unsubstantiated rumors, a knife discovered in the lake behind Jason's trailer, and a few fibers found near the bodies, which were microscopically similar to generic items in the accused Dean's homes. Something the criminologist who presented the fiber analysis conceded proved nothing. In defense of Jason Baldwin, a 16-year-old artist who loved bands like Metallica,
Attorney Paul Ford painted a tragic picture of a teen entangled in a flagrant miscarriage of justice. Whilst Jason had previously been arrested for vandalism, his record was otherwise spotless. He was still attending high school, worked hard to attain good grades, and had plans to study graphic design.
He and Damien had been close friends for years, bonding over their shared love for science fiction, heavy metal, and expressing their individuality in a suffocatingly conservative community. Now, Jason faces life in prison without any concrete evidence against him, or so Ford thought. Michael Carson, a previously unknown witness, took the stand to testify against Jason. The pair had met in jail after Jason was arrested for the murders.
Carson, who was a known drug addict, claimed that the teen confided in him about the Cub Scout's deaths. According to him, Jason admitted that he'd sucked blood from Christopher's penis and put his balls in his mouth before dismembering all three victims. Though Carson's testimony was drastically inconsistent with the autopsy results, it formed the basis of the prosecution's case against Jason, along with the aforementioned fibers.
The prosecutors themselves knew their evidence was weak, so much so that they'd previously offered the teen a plea deal in return for testifying against Damien. Jason flat out refused, saying, "My mother raised me not to lie." Damien's interest in fringe subcultures and the Wiccan religion, as well as his reputation as an outcast, meant that he had far more hurdles to overcome.
His attorney, Scott Davidson, tried to appeal to the jurors' sense of logic. Davidson admitted that Damien was far from the all-American boy, but insisted that this didn't make him guilty of murder. The prosecution countered this with what they considered to be evidence of the teen's connection to the occult. This evidence, which was presented by both the prosecutors and their witnesses, was nothing short of ridiculous.
It included 11 black t-shirts, Stephen King novels, the book "Never on a Broomstick,"
a Blue Oyster Cult record belonging to Damien's girlfriend, and accusations that he, like many teenagers in West Memphis, carried knives. Dale Griffiths of the unaccredited Columbia Pacific University then took the stand as the prosecution's expert on the occult. His testimony included identifying the characteristic features of a Satanist, which he asserted was black nail polish, black clothing, and black dyed hair.
Griffiths also confirmed that the murders had occult undertones, citing that they occurred during a full moon, and that Satanists often seek out the blood of young victims for the life force it holds. The defense countered Griffiths' testimony with a particularly embarrassing cross-examination that challenged his expertise. When asked what classes he took to obtain his master's degree at the distance learning school,
Griffith stuttered that he hadn't taken any. Pam Eccles then testified in support of her son, asserting that he was home with her the night of the murders, after which Damien took the stand in his own defense. He stated that the Wiccan religion had nothing to do with Satanism and explained that it involved nurturing a connection to nature. The defense then asked Damien to read and explain some quotes he'd written in his journal.
which had initially been used by the prosecution as evidence of the occult. One was taken from William Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream. The other was a lyric from a Metallica song titled "And Justice for All" that, ironically, depicted the injustices of America's legal system. In the end,
The prosecution's bizarre accusations and, at best, circumstantial evidence won the jury over. On March 19th, 1994, Damien Echols and Jason Baldwin were found guilty of three counts of first-degree murder. Jason got life without the possibility of parole, while Damien was sentenced to death by lethal injection. The West Memphis Three went on to appeal their convictions but were promptly dismissed.
However, the small-town legal battle that would have otherwise been forgotten was thrust into the eye of the larger public by an unlikely source: HBO. Documentarians Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky had been chronicling the murders from the day the Cub Scouts' bodies were found until the West Memphis Three were convicted. In June 1996, their film, Paradise Lost: The Child Murders at Robin Hood Hills, was released.
Originally intended to document what seemed like an open and shut case, the film ended up exposing gaping holes in the investigation and even highlighted other potential suspects such as John Mark Byers. During filming, he gave a folding hunting knife to cameraman Doug Cooper. Blood was later found on the blade's hinge, after which HBO executives insisted it be handed over to police.
At first, John Mark maintained that the knife had never been used. Once the blood was discovered, however, he conceded that he'd used it to cut deer meat. The blood matched both John Mark's and his dead son's blood type. After he explained that he must have left the knife lying around, the matter was put to rest. Interestingly, when the knife found in the lake near Jason Baldwin's home was inspected in court,
the medical examiner agreed that its serrated edges were consistent with some of Christopher Byers' injuries. However, he admitted that they also matched John Mark's knife. While this doesn't inherently prove that he had anything to do with the murders, it should have been enough for the police to consider him a suspect. They didn't. The documentary did more than cast an ever-expanding cloud of doubt over the West Memphis Three's convictions.
It sparked nationwide support for the teens, incited criticism of the police investigation, and prompted witnesses to come forward with shocking admissions of false testimonies, two of whom were Michael Carson and Vicki Hutchison. Carson publicly announced that he'd lied about Jason's jailhouse confession. He expressed genuine remorse for what he'd done, blaming it on the copious amounts of drugs he was indulging in at the time.
Vicky's story was far more disturbing. In 2003, she recanted her original testimony and explained her sudden change of heart in an interview with the Arkansas Times. Apparently, it was a complete fabrication orchestrated by the West Memphis police. Vicky disclosed that the investigators threatened to take her children away if she didn't conspire against Damien Echols.
She called out Officer Jerry Driver, in particular, saying that he'd concocted the story about the witches meeting and told her what to say. Worse, she claimed that Aaron never implicated Damien, Jason, and Jesse in his interview. Their names were suggested to him by the interviewers. Aaron, now an adult, supports his mother's claims and maintains that the police messed with his words.
In fact, Aaron is convinced that John Mark Byers, who he says hated kids, murdered the boys. His suspicions are well-founded. John Mark was known to beat his adoptive son frequently and even admitted to whipping him with a belt hours before the boys went missing. The self-proclaimed white supremacist also admitted to being associated with a brotherhood that committed several murders. In the years following the Cub Scout's death,
John Mark racked up an extensive criminal record, rife with domestic violence and drug charges, which is particularly concerning when you consider the suspicious circumstances surrounding his wife's death. In 1996, months before the incriminating HBO documentary was released, he found Melissa Byers laying naked and unresponsive on their bed.
Instead of immediately calling an ambulance, John Mark asked his neighbor, Norm Metz, to come over and check for a pulse. Eventually, an ambulance was called, and Melissa was pronounced dead upon arrival. Metz told police that both Myers and his son, Ryan, were unusually calm during the encounter. Allegedly, John Mark later told him that he feared police would accuse him of smothering his wife. In the end,
Melissa's cause of death was reported as undetermined and no charges were filed. Despite this strange incident, John Mark's potential involvement in the Cub Scouts murders was dismissed after dental records proved his teeth weren't a match for bite marks found on the boy's bodies. Though it was later found that the marks were more likely left by snapping turtles. Interestingly, John Mark wasn't the only parent who came under suspicion. Part 11.
Neither pretty nor perfect. In 2007, advances in DNA technology brought new evidence to light when a forensic analysis was performed on hairs discovered at the crime scene. They weren't a match for the West Memphis Three. However, one strand found knotted in the boy's bindings was consistent with those of Terry Hobbs, Stevie Branch's stepfather, while another was consistent with the hair of Terry's friend, David Jacoby.
After this discovery, incriminating evidence against him began pouring in, much of it coming from his own wife, Pam Hobbs. Stevie was known to carry a knife with him everywhere. When it wasn't found at the murder scene, Pam was convinced that the killer had taken it. One could imagine her shock upon finding that same knife in her husband's nightstand drawer.
After this discovery, Pam, her relatives, and even Terry's own family began to suspect the man of being involved in the Cub Scout's deaths. Their suspicions quickly deepened after Pam revealed that Terry kept the news of her son's disappearance from her until later that night when she finished work. Even more damning, he lied about his whereabouts during the hours the boys were believed to have been killed.
Armed with a substantial amount of new evidence that could, at the very least, prove reasonable doubt in his conviction, Damien Eccles petitioned for a retrial in October 2007. Almost one year later, Judge Burnett, the same judge who presided over the trials in 1994, ruled that no new evidence may be presented in his court, citing the DNA tests done on the hairs as inconclusive.
Damien's defense lawyers appealed Burnett's ruling to the Arkansas Supreme Court. However, before the matter could reach the courts, the West Memphis Three were presented with a plea deal that proved far too tempting to ignore. In 2011, Damien Echols, Jason Baldwin, and Jessie Miss Kelly each entered an Alford plea deal in exchange for their freedom. Also known as the Best Interests Plea,
This agreement allows defendants to maintain their innocence. In return, they're required to acknowledge that there's enough evidence to convict them and must plead guilty to their charges. All three men were sentenced to time served and released from prison with a warning that, should they re-offend, they would face 21 years behind bars. This wasn't the ideal outcome for the West Memphis Three. Even so,
It was the only way to save Damien from death row and for the men to avoid spending another day behind bars for a crime they claim they didn't commit. Unfortunately, this decision also protected the state of Arkansas as the deal prevented the men from ever taking civil action against it for their wrongful imprisonment. Damien captured the bittersweet ending rather poetically in an interview with the Arkansas Times when he said,
Sometimes justice is neither pretty nor is it perfect, but it was important to take this opportunity to be free.