Untying the Knot: John Mark Byers and the West Memphis Three

by Greg Day

  Damien

  Echols arguably has the best support system in place. He is married to a “walking, talking miracle in human form,” a woman who fought tirelessly for her husband, a man she married while the world thought of him as a child killer.217 In an exclusive television interview with KATV, Little Rock, Lorri Davis was cautious in her responses. “I didn’t know what to expect; I didn’t know how he was going to transition, how long it was going to take . . . He was very calm and grounded, but I couldn’t even imagine what was going on in his head.”

  Echols described his walking out of prison in surreal terms. “It was almost like the mirror reverse of whenever we were arrested,” he said of the crowds of supporters waiting outside the Craighead County Courthouse that Friday afternoon in August. “People back then were lining up condemning us, calling us names, damning us.”

  After the rooftop party, Damien jetted to Seattle, his first time on a plane, and then to New York, where he and Lorri stayed with friends while she showed him the city she had left to be with him. Although professing a desire to see the people who had supported him all these years, as well as his family, Damien said he “just couldn’t stay in Arkansas while things were still raging.” He has since gone to New Zealand to spend time with his longtime but silent supporter Sir Peter Jackson (Lord of the Rings). Jackson had to go to bat for Echols with New Zealand’s immigration service to allow Echols into the country, and there were rumors that Echols was doing movie work with Jackson that would be hampered by Echols’s lack of a work visa. Those problems were apparently ironed out. Amy Berg premiered the film West of Memphis, produced by Peter Jackson, on January 20, 2012, at the Sundance Film Festival. The film listed Damien Echols and Lorri Davis as producers.

  Echols described a “really bizarre bond” between the WM3, the murdered children, and the families of both the convicted men and the victims. Echols told Heather Crawford that the lives of all involved were totally “destroyed,” adding, “The pain in this case is like someone threw a rock into a pond, and the ripples went on forever.” While acknowledging the importance of his case, he said, “To me the spotlight isn’t even about this case. You still have innocent people on Arkansas’ death row right now.”218 Nobody is sure how he knows that, or who those innocents are, but he nonetheless said that he had no doubt that the state would repeat what had been done to him. With the exception of the moment he walked out of the Craighead County Courthouse a free man, Damien Echols has rarely been photographed smiling.

  Jason

  Jason Baldwin also attended the rooftop party thrown by Eddie Vedder and made a few media appearances. He was the lone attendee representing the Three at the screening of Paradise Lost 3: Purgatory in Memphis on November 6, 2011. Jason has allegedly taken a construction job in Seattle, for the time being at least. It is also said that he is “living off the donations of supporters” and will start soon at community college “on a full scholarship.”219 He has appeared with Joe Berlinger numerous times, including during a trip to the 2011 International Film Festival in Amsterdam.

  Damien, Jason, and Jessie were all invited to attend the premier of Purgatory at the New York Film Festival on October 10, 2011. As the 121-minute documentary drew to a close—the final chapter, the filmmakers say—the spotlight dramatically shone on the West Memphis Three, who had been watching from the balcony. The theater predictably erupted in applause. Later, Damien Echols and Jason Baldwin were onstage for questions and answers; Jessie Misskelley, who had been uncomfortable with the publicity from the beginning, remained in the balcony.

  Gail Grinnell, Jason’s mother, was photographed in New York when she joined Jason for the film festival. Grinnell, who had looked like a ghost when she testified at Jason’s Rule 37 hearing in August 2009, looked like a different person, smiling inside and out, alive. Nobody knows how she was feeling, but she had her son back, the son she loved and had never lost hope for. “We just want Jason to come home,” she had said back in 2009.

  Jessie

  Jessie Misskelley’s future is perhaps the least certain. He has the fewest resources on which to rely, and the possibility of a run-in with the law is probably greater. Even without the events of May 5, 1993, Jessie was looking at a limited future. His IQ is low, and he seems to be the one least able to capitalize on his “fame” by using contacts to open doors. Granted, those prospective doors are small; Jessie at one point said he wanted to be a mechanic. He also says he’s enrolling in community college, and his criminal record shouldn’t stop him from doing that. But nobody is rushing to his aid. Is it because he confessed to the crime? Even though he’s been told that it wasn’t his fault—Echols himself said so in a prison interview some ten years ago and has repeated it to Piers Morgan—is Jessie being punished? Or does he just want to be left alone?

  What happened to Jessie Misskelley—the coercion of a false confession—has been happening with increasing frequency since 1936, when the Supreme Court banned torture and physical abuse to extract confessions (Brown v. Mississippi). The police have resorted to powerful psychological tactics that are more subtle but no less effective than the pre-Brown beatings and whippings.

  The newer techniques, which continue to grow more sophisticated, are particularly effective on juveniles and the mentally handicapped; Jessie Misskelley was definitely one and arguably both. Because so much of what Misskelley told police was not recorded, we won’t ever know what he said before those fateful forty-eight minutes of the taped statement, or in the intervals when the tape was not rolling. But since his release, it seems as though he wants to distance himself from the others as quickly as possible and head back to the trailer park in Marion where his life was based prior to May 5, 1993. During a Labor Day celebration at his father’s, Jessie announced that he was already engaged to his high school sweetheart Susie Brewer, who at age fifteen was filmed for Paradise Lost on the telephone with Jessie while he was in jail being held for trial. “We’re looking at dresses now,” he said. Where they will settle down isn’t known. Jessie said that he planned to get together with Echols and Baldwin soon, but the smart money says he’ll never see them socially again.

  Jessie had a setback in December 2011 when child services forced him to leave the place he was temporarily sharing with Susie Brewer and a friend who had custody of his young son. His future is very much in the air.

  In an echo of what she had told Erin Moriarty a few years earlier, Lorri Davis told Piers Morgan upon the release of her husband, “We want to know who did this; that’s the most important thing.” Indeed. A pardon won’t cut it, she said, and she’s right. Even an acquittal in the second Sam Sheppard trial never took suspicion away from him; no one-armed man was ever located. Davis and Echols may have it easier; they at least have a target, someone who left the only identifiable physical evidence at the crime scene, someone to whom a motive, however weird, might be ascribed. But two hairs and a bad memory don’t make much of a case and certainly wouldn’t be enough to convince Scott Ellington, reassuring words aside, to reopen the case. It requires absolutely nothing for the state of Arkansas to keep the case closed; it would require a supernova to reopen it. If their current target fizzles, the hopes of solving this case will plummet.

  Where does all this leave Mark Byers? Although the release of Paradise Lost 3: Purgatory in late 2011 “exonerated” Mark and cast at least a suspicious eye toward Terry Hobbs, it’s a long way from suspicion to apprehension. Almost nineteen years have passed since Christopher, Stevie, and Michael were pulled from the ditch in Robin Hood Hills, and with the release of the West Memphis Three, the trail may be impossible to follow. But the release of the three in and of itself was enough of a shock to convince skeptics that in this case, anything is possible. For now at least, Mark and Jacki and any who will follow will continue their crusade by website, the use of the media, and any other means available. Mark’s message board will be dedicated to finding the killer of his son. He doesn’t mince words and clearly has “Terry Hobbs tunn
el vision.” “If there’s any doubt as to where I stand on this,” he told a reporter the day the West Memphis Three were released, “there shouldn’t be.”

  EPILOGUE

  The West Memphis Three are free. It’s a qualified freedom for sure, but it beats life in prison and is light-years ahead of death row. They have to make a living though, and no one knows how the so-called Son of Sam laws, present in many states in one form or another, will affect their ability to sell their stories. Baldwin and Misskelley have expressed no interest in this area, but Damien Echols has signed with Signet Books to publish his memoirs.

  There are new books due out, including Mara Leveritt’s follow-up on the case, Justice Knot. The long-awaited theatrical production of Devil’s Knot, now finally boasting legitimacy by the hiring of veteran director Atom Egoyan (The Sweet Hereafter, Ararat, Adoration), is set to begin filming in spring 2012.

  Without a doubt the most significant post-Alford happening was the release of Amy Berg’s West of Memphis, a documentary that was the result of five years of investigative journalism funded by Lord of the Rings titan Sir Peter Jackson and his wife Fran Walsh. West of Memphis opened at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival to enthusiastic audiences that had been left hungry after the rather bland Paradise Lost 3. Damien Echols and Lorri Davis are listed as producers of the Berg film and were on hand in New Zealand during the editing. The film’s target is no surprise; ever since DNA evidence linked him to the crime scene in 2007, supporters have had Terry Hobbs in their sights. He is their White Whale.

  In West of Memphis, Berg reports that three witnesses recently came forward and gave sworn statements alleging that many years ago, they had heard from Hobbs’s nephew that his uncle had confessed to the murders. Reportedly, Michael Hobbs Jr., the son of Terry’s brother Michael Hobbs Sr., told his friends that his Uncle Terry had murdered the three children, that it was the “Hobbs family secret.” According to KTLO.com, Michael Hobbs Sr. said that his brother never made any incriminating statements. When Michael Hobbs Jr. was reached at the school he attends in Florida, he too denied ever making any statements. The witnesses allegedly came forward after seeing an episode of 48 Hours: Mystery that implicated Terry Hobbs as a suspect. The three men have taken and passed polygraph examinations. Berg turned the film over to District Attorney Scott Ellington with a request that he reopen the case. As of this writing, there has been no public response.

  On hand for the premiere of West of Memphis were many familiar faces. Mark and Jacki Byers, Damien Echols and Lorri Davis, Sir Peter Jackson and Fran Walsh, Echols’s lead attorney Stephen Braga, Pam Hobbs and her sister Shelia Muse, John Douglas, and Dennis Riordan were all living high in Park City. The scene was bizarre: they came from movie studios, courtrooms, trailers, and prison cells to the red carpet to celebrate their cinematic closing argument, with thousands of flashes of light going off in their faces. Mark Byers sat in awe as he was taken by a huge cable car high into the Wasatch Mountains to gorge on a six-course dinner with Jackson and Walsh, Berg, Echols and Davis, and others from the Sundance elite. “I’m a country boy, like you,” Jackson told Byers, “only from New Zealand.” A country boy titled “Sir.”

  During this second aftermath—the first being the period after the trials in 1994—the public will hear about the hellish conditions of death row from Damien Echols in his book. The famous supporters will continue to be heard—some of them, at least. Eddie Vedder, Peter Jackson, and Fran Walsh will try to make official what they believe in their hearts: that the West Memphis Three are innocent. Attorneys Stephen Braga and Patrick Benca are in it for the long haul. And of course, John Mark Byers will be heard. Byers is always heard.

  What won’t be heard about much are the three dead children who were once Christopher Byers, Stevie Branch, and Michael Moore. They died alone in the woods at the hands of one or more depraved lunatics. And the reason they won’t be spoken of is the same reason they have been marginalized all along: supporters of the West Memphis Three recognize them as inflammatory reminders that the WM3 still stand convicted of murder, and three dead Cub Scouts are bad for business. Sadly, the West Memphis Three may be innocent of the murders, and proving it could be impossible.

  The odds are against Echols, Baldwin, and Misskelley adjusting well on the outside, particularly Damien Echols. He was by all accounts not mentally stable when he entered prison in 1994, and seventeen years on death row—the last ten of them in solitary confinement—could have only worsened his condition, however lucid and articulate he appears. He will require not only a strong support system, which he seems to have in Lorri Davis, but also an incredibly strong will, as well as a gifted psychiatrist. Echols already seems to be morphing into a type of Johnny Depp-styled, tattooed hipster, and the tremendous amount of attention paid to him in the surreal world of celebrity will only delay his acclimation to the outside world. But like everything else in this case, all this conventional wisdom could be stood on its head.

  Such an abrupt release from prison after so many years of incarceration can also create serious problems. Dr. Frederic G. Reamer, a professor at the School of Social Work at Rhode Island College in Providence, observes, “It’s disconcerting when an inmate leaves the system so abruptly.” Normally, inmates are processed out with a parole plan and know well in advance when they will be released. “There hasn’t been enough time to construct the scaffolding that an ex-offender absolutely needs after entering society.”220

  On the day Damien Echols, Jason Baldwin, and Jessie Misskelley were released from prison, Mark Byers was asked by a reporter if he thought justice would be ever be done. “As crazy as this case is, I don’t know. Today seems like the day the state closes the door and sweeps everything under the rug.”

  Earlier in 2011, Pam Hobbs had told Heather Crawford of KATV, Little Rock, that once the three men were freed, she “might be able to sleep at night,” but when the WM3 were released on August 19, 2011, she was crestfallen. “I said once those guys are out, there will be closure,” said Hobbs. “But there is not.” The release of the evidence in West of Memphis pointing further to her ex-husband’s complicity in the crime doesn’t give her peace. She’s convinced of the innocence of the West Memphis Three, but as has been the case in the past, she equivocates on the matter of her ex-husband’s guilt. “I don’t know what to think about Terry,” she told WREG-TV in Memphis. “I’m scared. I’m fearful.” She reminds viewers that the three witnesses passed polygraph tests. “Why would they lie?” One could—and should—ask the same thing about jailhouse snitch Michael Carson, who was also dug up for West of Memphis and who claimed he was taking LSD at the time he testified against Jason Baldwin. Carson had passed a polygraph before testifying in 1994. Jessie Misskelley’s polygraph indicated that he was lying when he said he wasn’t involved in the murders and didn’t know who was. Suddenly, polygraphs are the new gold standard, even though their admittance in court is still generally prohibited.

  Todd Moore, as he has been since the convictions in 1994, was unwavering in his condemnation of the support given to the West Memphis Three. In a letter to WMC-TV, Memphis, he wrote, in part,

  Our son was brutally murdered by those men known as the West Memphis Three. We have supported these convictions from the beginning. We are pleased that those convictions were upheld and that those men confirmed that with their plea of guilty yesterday before the judge and the world. They can say they are innocent all they want but the fact remains that they themselves confirmed their guilt.

  When Paradise Lost 3: Purgatory was nominated for an Oscar in 2012, Todd reacted again, this time in concert with his ex-wife, Terry Hobbs, and Steve Branch Sr. The four sent a joint letter to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences urging them to rescind the nomination. “This film should be exposed as a fraud, not rewarded with an Academy Award nomination.”

  Weaver Elementary School, where Christopher, Michael, and Stevie attended second grade, looks much like other schools of its type elsewhere in the Unite
d States. A flat, brick building, it has a semicircular driveway in the front for morning and afternoon student drop-off/pickup, a parking lot off to the right for teachers and visitors, and a flagpole planted in the midst of it all. Out back, there is a colorful plastic gym set, with ladders and slides and tunnels. Next to it is a dome-shaped climbing set, which in earlier times might have been called “monkey bars.” In the foreground of all that equipment stands a five-sided structure with low walls and a few benches built onto the sides. The pitched roof is of asphalt shingle construction, and quite a few of the shingles are loose. There is a weather vane on the peak sporting the Boy Scouts of America symbol. The steel arrow that is meant to indicate wind direction is lying on the roof, snapped off from the shaft of the instrument. But is has been painted in the not-too-distant past and shows signs of at least minimal maintenance. This is the “Memorial Reading Grove” dedicated to Christopher, Stevie, and Michael by their friends at school. The slab of stone inside is engraved with the words “Do Your Best”—the Cub Scout motto. It doesn’t seem like enough to say about three lives, regardless of their brevity. Do your best. Do your duty. God and country. Their legacy won’t be nearly as prominent as that of the West Memphis Three, but life isn’t fair. Maybe Mark Byers said it best: “They got their sons back. I’ll never get my son back, but at least they’ll get theirs.”