Life After Death: The Shocking True Story of a Innocent Man on Death Row

by Damien Echols

  Brian left and I settled in for another long day of watching television. When lunchtime came I ordered another pizza. I knew I couldn’t eat the food in the house, or Brian’s mom would become suspicious. I was pretty sure I could live on pizza until my money ran out, but then I’d have to think of something else.

  Twenty minutes after I placed my daily pizza order, there was a knock at the front door. Thinking that my provisions had arrived, I opened the door to discover Jerry Driver and one of his two cronies. Driver was trying his best to look official; he wore a pair of mirrored sunglasses stretched across his rotund face. His partner was a skinny black man who would one day meet the wrong end of a shotgun after sleeping with another man’s wife.

  “I’m here to arrest you,” Driver wheezed.

  This was quite a shock to me, as the only crime I had committed was not being in school, and that was not for lack of trying. “For what?” I asked him.

  He began stuttering as if my question had caught him off guard. His jowls quivered as he managed to insult my intelligence with the crime of being under the age of eighteen and not living in the household with my parents. I seriously doubted his assertion that this was a criminal offense, but once again, I simply didn’t understand that Driver was operating outside his jurisdiction, and I didn’t know my rights. I was put in chains and shackles like a convict while Driver ushered me back to the Crittenden jail.

  This time Driver’s questions became even more bizarre and outrageous. I was taken into a small office and chained to a chair, while he and the black guy tried to entice me to read texts to them that were written in Latin. He showed me odd objects that I’d never seen before, such as glass pyramids and silver rings with strange designs. He wanted me to explain the significance of these items to him. I had not the slightest clue what any of it meant, but he refused to accept that answer. When he was finished with this, I was left in a jail cell for a few more weeks.

  I knew what to expect this time, but that didn’t make the ordeal any less horrendous. The endless days in a cage, the fights that erupt all around you, the inedible gruel, the humiliating orange clothes, and the way the jailers treat you like scum—it all comes together to create an incredible mental pressure that’s maddening. You feel defeated and hopeless. What made it even worse was that this time I knew I had done nothing wrong. I was being punished at the whim of an obsessive, delusional, power-hungry liar. I just couldn’t figure out why this clown had become obsessed with me.

  After my time in jail, I was once again sent back to Charter of Maumelle. Jerry Driver took me himself, as he had obtained a court order for my institutionalization. He’d given me the same two options as before: either go to the hospital or wait in jail for months until a trial. It was the equivalent of a plea deal—and again I was caught between a rock and a hard place. In the absence of my parents, Driver arranged for my father’s sister Pat to give her consent, sign the paperwork, and offer answers to the questions posed at the hospital all over again. I was chained and shackled for the entire trip. When we arrived, the other patients were quite disturbed by the sight of me. Some later confided that they had believed I must be a madman of the highest order to require all the restraints. You know you’ve hit rock bottom when mental patients question your sanity.

  Luckily, I had to spend only two weeks at the hospital this time. During my first conversation with the doctor she said, “I have no idea why they brought you back here, because I see no reason for it.” It would have taken too long to explain Driver’s fixation, so I just shrugged as if to say, “I don’t know why you’re asking me, I only live here.” I was kept there for two weeks just for the sake of following procedure, and then I was discharged. On my last day, I said good-bye to all the other patients, some of whom I really liked. There’s always a huge emotional scene anytime someone is released.

  I walked to the front desk and standing there was none other than Jack Echols. Driver had contacted him while I was hospitalized, told him where to pick me up, and said that I was his responsibility since he had legally adopted me. If I had had a choice I would have checked myself back into the hospital. Unfortunately, I didn’t have a choice. I would now be living with Jack Echols again. I was caught in an endless cycle of hell.

  Fifteen

  The guards brought another tour in today. That happens every month or so. Sometimes they bring in a group of teenagers they want to scare into submission. The kids stand around shuffling their feet as the guards tell them that if they continue living the way they are now, then sooner or later they’ll wind up here. They always say that Death Row is the worst. They tell the tourists that in this barracks are the people who would murder their children and rape their grandmothers. In truth, the people who commit the most heinous crimes aren’t on Death Row. They’re out in the general prison population with much lighter sentences. Most of the people on Death Row are here for no other reason than that their case got more publicity than others. The difference between a man receiving a prison sentence and a man receiving a death sentence could be decided by nothing more than a slow news day.

  The tours aren’t always just kids. Sometimes they bring in church groups, or people taking certain college courses. One thing they have in common is that they all know my name. I’ll often hear them ask the guards, “Where’s Damien Echols?” The guards point me out, then the people in the group gather in a circle and whisper as they stare at me. They do it without any trace of self-consciousness, as if I am an animal that has no idea what’s going on. As if I don’t have the slightest trace of humanity. Most haven’t a clue as to how socially inept their own actions are. My family has been here visiting me when a tour comes through, and they’ll stand around staring at my family and me as if we were put there for their entertainment. It would probably be humiliating if my feelings weren’t buried under a mountain of disgust.

  I have always lived in my head, but once I was locked in a cell I completely retreated into the world of the mind to escape the horrendous environment. I leave my body here to cope with the nightmare while my mind walks other hallways. I have to sometimes listen to my body, but it’s hard. If my attention wanders for even a split second I automatically retreat down into those psychic rabbit holes. People tend to think of the soul as a man-shaped thing composed of a vague ghostlike substance. In reality it’s more like some God-almighty haunted house, in which the rooms are constantly shifting, moving, and reconfiguring themselves. A small broom closet becomes a cavernous ballroom behind your back. You always see movement in your peripheral vision, but never can find the source of the faint noises that seem to be coming from around some forever distant corner.

  Ghosts can haunt damned near anything. I have heard them in the breathy voice of a song and seen them between the covers of a book. They have hidden in trees so that their faces peer out of the bark, and hovered beneath the silver surface of water. They disguise themselves as cracks in concrete or come calling in a delirium of fever. On summer days they keep pace like the shadow of our shadow. They lurk in the breath of young girls who give us our first kiss. I’ve seen men who were haunted to the point of madness by things that never were and things that should have been. I’ve seen ghosts in the lines on a woman’s face and heard them in the jangling of keys. The ghosts in fire freeze and the ghosts in ice burn. Some died long ago; some were never born. Some ride the blood in my veins until it reaches my brain. Sometimes I even mistake myself for one. Sometimes I am one.

  Sixteen

  Living with Jack was worse now than ever before. I could tell he really didn’t want me there but felt like he had no choice in the matter. While I was in Oregon he had been renting a small room in West Memphis that was barely bigger than a closet, so he had to find a new place. That place turned out to be a tiny trailer back in Lakeshore. It was barely big enough for us to stay out of each other’s way. I can’t recall speaking to my parents at all during this time, although my mother may have been in touch with Jack.

  Unsurp
risingly, Jack didn’t have a single friend in the world. Every moment that he wasn’t at work was spent in a chair in front of the television. Other than yelling at me, the only topics of conversation he employed were how my sister had ruined his life by telling Social Services that he had molested her, or how wrong my mother had treated him by filing for a divorce. He was sickening to me, and I hated the very sight of him in his sweat-stained shirts.

  He went to bed at eight o’clock every night, which meant that I was forced to do the same. After eight I was not allowed to turn on a light because he said it would keep him awake, so there was no reading. We didn’t have a phone. I couldn’t watch TV or listen to the radio—not even a Walkman. He claimed he could hear it playing in his room even with the headphones clasped firmly to my ears. I couldn’t go out after six o’clock because he would have to sit up and let me in. When I asked why he didn’t just give me a key, he said because he wouldn’t be able to fasten the chain lock, and I’d wake him up coming in. He had three locks on the door and still felt the need to prop a chair against it every night so no one could break in. The only thing a thief could have taken was the jar of pennies next to Jack’s bed or the huge picture of Jesus hanging in the living room. Only a true crackhead would break into that place.

  Jack Echols was always angry. Sometimes it was at a simmer and other times he erupted into a screaming fit, but there was always anger. I couldn’t tiptoe around him or stay invisible in such a tiny place, so his rage was always directed at me. He did nothing but sit in his chair stewing and brewing, filling the rooms with misery and hatred. It was unbearable. Brian had moved to Missouri the day after I got out of the hospital, so my only refuge was Jason’s house. I slept there as often as possible.

  For reasons unknown, Jerry Driver had also told Jack that I was to check into his office once a week. Every Monday I made the five-mile trek to Driver’s office, where he and his two sidekicks (Steve Jones and another, whose last name was Murray) would question me. Their approach no longer seemed friendly. They had switched tactics and become downright antagonistic. Most often Driver and I were alone, but if one of the other two were there, they’d appear to be deep in thought while Driver asked one “satanic activity” question after another.

  Jack worked at a roofing company, and during the winter months and rainy days jobs were often postponed, so he would take me to Driver’s office. As long as Jack was present, Driver would refrain from his usual insanity. His beady eyes gleamed and his whiskers twitched as he stared at me across the desk, but he managed to restrain himself. After Jack came with me every week for over a month, Driver must have grown exasperated, thinking he’d never again be able to see me alone. Admitting defeat, he said I no longer had to check in.

  While Jason and Domini were in school, I had nothing to do but read. I educated myself since I couldn’t go to school. I spent most of every day in the West Memphis Public Library devouring book after book. I loved that library. I reread the Stephen King novels so often that the two librarians who worked there would hold a new release in the back for me to read first. There was something a little creepy about all that knowledge housed in one place. It gave the books a slightly sinister aspect.

  I eventually took my old principal’s advice and got my GED. I was hoping I’d have to attend classes or something, but no such luck. I passed the test with flying colors.

  Being that I was still on the antidepressants given to me during my first visit to the hospital, I had to make periodic visits to a local mental health center, where a doctor would refill my prescription. They never bothered to reevaluate me or question whether I still actually needed them; I’d just be handed a prescription like it was a hall pass.

  I thought my life was pretty dull, but Jerry Driver must have believed otherwise. One day Jason and I were sitting in Jack’s trailer watching television while he was at work. I answered a knock at the door to discover Bo, one of the local Lakeshore youths. He was sweating and breathless as he came in and helped himself to a soda before telling me that Driver was around the corner at the Lakeshore store, asking questions about me. “He asked me which street you live on and I said I didn’t know,” Bo informed me, without a trace of irony in his voice. Driver had also told everyone at the store to stay away from me because sooner or later I was “going down,” and anyone who was with me would meet the same fate.

  Upon hearing this news, Jason looked at me with an irritated expression on his face and said, “What the fuck are we doing? We never do anything, but this freak is telling everyone we’re ‘running wild.’ Doesn’t he have any real crimes to solve?” Apparently not.

  The last time I saw Driver before my trial was the night of the high school homecoming football game. Jason and I went to it because there was absolutely nothing else to do. We had to walk home after it was over, which is when we were intercepted by my old friend. He was driving up and down the streets of Lakeshore, probably looking for me. He asked where we were going, what we were doing, and so on. When he finished the interrogation we continued on our way to Jason’s trailer, where we passed the night watching horror movies. I forgot all about this incident until I was on trial for murder and Driver testified. He told a great many lies, some of which were that Jessie Misskelley was walking with us that night, that we were all three carrying staves and dressed in satanic regalia, and that he believed we were returning from some sort of devil-worshipping orgy. The jury ate it up like candy and loved every sordid detail. A story straight from the tabloids, right next to “Bigfoot Sighted!” or “Bat Boy Born in Cave!” This was evidence.

  The misery of living with Jack reached a fever pitch when he decided that I should have a job and that I was incapable of finding one for myself. The truth is that it’s almost impossible to persuade someone to hire you when you don’t have a car or anyone willing to drive you to work. I had tried everywhere. Jack persuaded his boss to hire me to work alongside him doing roof construction.

  The job was hard, boring, and dangerous, but the worst part was that I never had a second in which I was out of Jack’s presence. We got up at sunrise and didn’t get home until nightfall. The only thing I could do was come home, eat supper, go to bed, and rest for the next day. I was chained to him day and night. This went on for months. I began to hate my life and could easily see myself trapped forever. Jack became more of a bastard by the day, and it wasn’t just me who noticed it. The people we worked with tried to be friendly to him but were met with hatefulness.

  I grew more and more desperate to escape his presence. I racked my brain attempting to come up with an idea that would allow me to break free. Finally I discovered the answer, which Jerry Driver himself had handed to me. He had insisted that I be confined to a mental institution on two separate occasions, and now I would take advantage of it.

  At my mother’s suggestion, I went to the Social Security office and applied for disability benefits. They looked over my application, which detailed my stays in the hospital, and declared me mentally disabled. I would be entitled to a check every month. I wasn’t allowed to work and draw the check at the same time, so this was my escape from working with Jack. The chain was broken. When I told Jason about it, he laughingly called them “crazy checks.” The name stuck, and that’s what we came to refer to my income as. “Have you gotten your crazy check yet?” Yes, indeed.

  Doris and Ed, my paternal grandparents, moved to West Memphis, and I began to spend time at their house a few miles away. I would keep my grandmother company while my grandfather was at work. I dearly love my paternal grandparents. No matter how old I get I always feel like a kid around them. To have that feeling around anyone else would be irritating, but I didn’t mind it at all around them. It made life seem clean and simple. You can’t stay in a black mood when visiting my grandmother; it’s impossible. Jason usually went with me because he knew there would always be food there. As soon as we walked in she would begin preparing huge bowls of chili for us, or bacon and eggs with toast, sometimes pork
chops or fried chicken. Dessert was always Dolly Madison cakes and ice-cold cans of Coke. My grandmother is a saint.

  One day while I was visiting her, my mother called. My grandmother told her that I was there and then handed me the phone. I talked to my mother and father, who were both still in Oregon. It wasn’t unpleasant; they mostly asked what I was doing, where I was staying, how Domini and Jason were. I had my reservations, but didn’t mind talking to them. It became a routine that when I was at my grandmother’s house I’d speak to them on the phone. We were getting along, but I remained wary of them to a certain degree, like I would a dog that had bitten me in the past.

  Domini now skipped school more often than not, and she stayed with me while Jack was at work. We never had a burning romance, but we kept each other company. I had no desire to get into another situation where I risked the sort of trauma I had experienced with Deanna, and Domini was safe. We were friends who had sex, and that’s the only type of relationship I was willing to have then. Perhaps that makes me sound selfish, but I will be nothing if not truthful. My worst fear in the world was having my heart broken. When she called me one day and said to come over, I already knew what was happening.

  I knew exactly what she was going to say once I got there, but curiously I felt nothing. I knew my life was about to change forever, yet I was strangely detached. I wasn’t especially happy, nor was there sadness to speak of. There was neither excitement nor dread. I was a Zen master for a day.

  When I arrived, Domini was smiling, glowing. She had an assortment of papers scattered across the kitchen table and her mother was with her. The papers were medical pamphlets. I sat in a chair; she sat on my lap and put her arms around my neck. She said the exact thing I knew she was going to. She told me she was pregnant.