Dark Spell

by Mara Leveritt

  65 The 1980 film is a fictionalized version of the 1969 book, Accomplices to the Crime: The Arkansas Prison Scandal by Tom Murton and Joe Hyams, detailing Murton’s uncovering of extortion and torture of inmates at Arkansas’s two prison farms, the Cummins and Tucker units.

  66 A sally port is a secure, controlled entryway, usually at a military fortification, courthouse or prison. The word port is ultimately from the Latin word porta for door. The word sally is derived from a defensive military maneuver. While the term sally port has nautical references, on land the term has described a door in a castle or city wall that allows secure entrance and exit by the use of a series of two locked doors. In modern court buildings, a sally port secures the prisoners in a holding area or brings them directly from the jail area separating them from the court, with entry through the sally port controlled by the bailiff. In modern prisons, passages between corridors are usually controlled by a sally port that is operated electronically by a guard.

  67 While Jason was working in the fields around Varner, I drove to the prison where Arkansas’s death row was housed for my first interview with one of the convicted teens. (“Witch on Death Row,” Arkansas Times, June 23, 1994. http://www. arktimes.com/arkansas/witch-on-death-row/Content?oid=1 886149&storyPage=7) Damien and I were separated by glass, as is typical for visits with death row inmates. He told me about his early life, his religious views, and that Jason was his only close friend. About the police, prosecutors and jury, he said: “They wanted a monster. It was such a horrible crime; they couldn’t imagine who could do a thing like that. They looked at us and they thought, ‘These cold, heartless little creeps—they could have done it.’ They wanted a monster, and they don’t want to hear now that an innocent person has been sentenced to death.”

  68 A couple of years later, the Arkansas Legislature passed a law requiring inmates who lacked a high school diploma to work towards obtaining a GED.

  69 In October 1994, five months after Jason’s assignment to Varner, I drove to the West Memphis Police Department for my first look at files from the case. In November, after several days there, I wrote a column subtitled “Grasping for something solid.” Obviously, I had not found it. “The trials were supposed to haul the crime into the sunshine of reason, where, presumably, its demonic nature would wither like a vampire,” I wrote. “But the trials were themselves full of shadow, innuendos, and dark, unexplored corridors. They failed to either expose or explain the crime. Or so it seemed to me.”

  70 The Varner Unit was now headed by Warden Terry Campbell, who had been demoted and moved there from the state’s Maximum Security Unit, where Damien Echols was held, after Campbell spoke out about corruption and lack of security at that unit. Campbell sued the Arkansas Department of Correction and, in August 1998, the U.S. Eighth Circuit Court of Appeal ruled in his favor. http://caselaw.findlaw.com/ us-8th-circuit/1350268.html

  71 Getting a disciplinary in prison is like getting charged with a crime. A formal charge is written and a hearing set. The person charged may call witnesses or enter other evidence. Only two pleas are allowed: guilty and not guilty. Appeals are allowed. If a guilty plea is made or sustained, punishments may include time in punitive detention, loss of privileges and reduction in class.

  72 Contraband—that can range from glasses to cell phones and drugs—is common in prisons, despite the illusion of security presented by concrete block buildings, chain link fences and razor-edged accordion wire. Years before I began writing about the West Memphis case, I broke a story about a death-row inmate, Mark Gardner, who had managed to get a faux leather recliner installed in his cell. The Arkansas Times published photos to support the account—photos that had been taken by another prisoner with a contraband Polaroid camera during a “party” that Gardner was hosting in his cell. The violations were possible because of bribes being paid to the warden, who had a gambling problem. When the warden did something that earned Gardner’s displeasure, Gardner provided me with the photos, resulting in the warden’s removal.

  73 The politics of capital punishment were harsh and getting harsher when Damien entered death row. In 1994, President Clinton signed the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act that expanded the federal death penalty to some sixty crimes. Three of those—espionage, treason, and drug trafficking in large amounts—did not involve murder. Two years later, in response to the Oklahoma City Bombing, President Clinton signed the Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996. The Act, which affected both state and federal prisoners, restricted review in federal courts by establishing tighter filing deadlines, limiting the opportunity for evidentiary hearings, and ordinarily allowing only a single habeas corpus filing in federal court.

  74 In the opinion delivered Dec. 23, 1996, Justice Robert Dudley wrote, “Baldwin argues that the occult evidence should not have been admitted because there was “little if any” evidence to link him to such activity, and the only reason for it to be admitted against him was to inflame the jury. Prior to trial, Baldwin filed a motion in limine to prevent the State from eliciting testimony that the crimes were occult-related without first conducting an in camera hearing to determine that there was a sufficient basis to find that he was involved in such activities and that the activities were a motive in the homicides. The trial court granted the motion “until such time as the Court is convinced in an in camera proceeding that there is competent evidence that [Baldwin] was involved in occult and/or occultic type activities and/or that this crime is indicative of a ritualistic occult killing.” The trial court subsequently found that Michael Carson’s testimony that Baldwin told him he had dismembered one of the boys, sucked the blood from his penis and scrotum, and put the testicles in his mouth was evidence by which a jury could conclude that he was involved in occultic-type activities. From the in camera testimony of Dr. Dale Griffis, an expert on ritual killings, there was evidence by which a jury could find that the crimes were a ritual killing. Dr. Griffis stated that one of the facts that led him to believe that the killings were cult-related was that Christopher Byers was castrated and had had the blood sucked from his penis. Thus, there was sufficient evidence of Baldwin’s participation in occult activities, and the trial court correctly allowed the evidence.” Dudley, who is now retired, declined a request to be interviewed for this book. http://opinions.aoc.arkansas.gov/ weblink8/0/doc/198989/Electronic.aspx

  75 In July 1997, while Jason was at Varner, Wadley was reprimanded by the state Supreme Court. He was disbarred in 2001.

  76 Black’s Law Dictionary defines a petition as, “A written address, embodying an application or prayer from the person or persons preferring it, to the power, body, or person to whom it is presented, for the exercise of his or their authority in the redress of some wrong.”

  77 Asked later about the significance of Jason’s Rule 37 petition, Stidham said that, had it not been submitted, “He wouldn’t have had all the issues available to him that he ended up having. It would have been bad. Those procedural doors are hard to get through.” He added, “I was there the day of or the day before the deadline. I said, ‘Sign here,” and he did. I’m not sure I would have done it, seeing Misskelley’s lawyer come through the door. But he signed. He didn’t have anyone to talk to from a legal perspective. After meeting Jason, I became more concerned about him than about Jessie or Damien, because I knew that, one way or another, they would be represented.”

  78 Sauls became the group’s unofficial spokesman, articulating the website’s purpose and explaining intricacies of the case. Whatever people thought about the West Memphis case after seeing the documentary, few could understand why anyone would commit so much time, energy and money to the seemingly hopeless task of trying to free three convicted killers in Arkansas. For each of the four, the answer was personal. For example, Sauls explained that he had grown up in Florida. “While I was watching the film for the first time, I went from thinking that they must be guilty, and that there were likely things that hadn’t been shown in the film th
at proved it, to thinking that they might have been victims of the witch-hunt mentality I grew up around—one of going to a Baptist Christian school and seeing how some of the ideas behind religion can be subverted in a way that justifies hatred.” Even as a little kid,” Sauls said, “I felt like I understood that people were taking these vague ideas from Bible verses and interpreting them however they wanted— sometimes in convoluted ways—just to make them feel righteous and ‘correct’ about whatever ignorant and hateful habits they had.” Bakken, whose childhood was spent in Kentucky and Georgia, had a similar reaction. She saw in Paradise Lost a Southern-Gothic tale of “blood lust based on fear-based religion.” She saw the prosecutors’ use of Damien’s interest in Wicca as both familiar and frightening. “For anyone who’s artistic and trying to find their way, it’s really hard, living in that kind of atmosphere.” From what she saw in the film, the case against Damien “looked like a Christian-based persecution of someone who was not Christian. And then, also, there were all those little things, like ‘where’s the evidence?’” Sauls, who’d met Bakken in Georgia, also viewed the prosecution as an unsupported attack on imagination, intellectual curiosity, and creativity. “I grew up in a family that encouraged creativity,” he said, “but then when I stepped out of my home, the part of the Bible belt I lived in was suspicious of creativity and art and music. If they didn’t immediately understand it, they used those religious terms to tear it all down. Music they didn’t like became “devil music,” and they were burning records at tent revivals. I believe the guy who originated the big record burnings of the 1970s and early ’80s, Reverend [Charles] Boykin, was from Tallahassee where I grew up, so the idea that musicians were using music to ‘possess’ teenagers was a pretty big deal with a lot of people around that area.” (Sauls provided this link, http://myq105.cbslocal. com/2011/12/06/rock-flashback-tallahassee-roasts-the¬rolling-stones-1975/, to an article looking back at those times, which included the minister’s claim that out of a thousand girls giving birth out of wedlock, nine hundred eighty-four were listening to rock music when they got pregnant, plus a video from 1967 of the Rolling Stones performing “Let’s Spend the Night Together.”) Like many who would become supporters of WM3.org, Sauls saw the prosecutions of all three teenagers as an abuse of something he deemed precious. “Despite all these claims that movies, music and art in general were tools of Satan to steal the souls of young people and turn them into Communists or Satanists,” he said, “what confused me was how much I loved music, movies and art. I was in love with comic books and monster movies and science fiction and music— all those things that were allegedly leading me to Hell. I couldn’t get past how amazing and inspiring and beautiful a lot of it was, and how good it made me feel to be in the presence of real creative genius.” For example, “How could something as great as Led Zeppelin be the work of some magical entity who wanted my soul to burn for eternity in Hell? How could the great comic book artists like Steve Ditko and Jack Kirby, whose work was so full of energy and fun, be a trick by Satan to lure me into taking drugs or worshipping Satan? It never made sense to me, especially considering the fact that my father was a brilliant artist who treasured art and music, too.” Sauls said he realized “pretty young” that the zealots were “simply wrong.” He and Bakken escaped that environment by moving across the country to Los Angeles. But in Paradise Lost, they saw kids who reminded them of themselves on trial for their lives. “It was pretty clear to me what kind of kids Damien and Jason were,” Sauls later said. “Jessie wasn’t quite as familiar to me, but it was pretty clear that he was the kind of kid who would be easy to coerce—someone that floundering police officers would probably be thrilled to question because he’d be so easy and agreeable. Damien and Jason, however, were a lot like the kids I hung around with in high school. We were all into art and drawing and music, as well as horror movies and Stephen King books.” Seeing themselves in Jason and Damien made their trial—and Jessie’s—personal. “These were kids who under different circumstances (and perhaps in a different part of the country) might have grown up to be artists or musicians or even life-long fans of movies and music and horror novels,” Sauls said. “But because of the influence of these religious ideas that had been subverted into hatred protocols, they were being sent to prison. They were being used as scapegoats to compensate for inept police work and a shoddy investigation of a triple child homicide. The people they were being judged by were calling them ‘devil worshippers’ and ‘Satanic,’ without even really knowing what they meant by it.” To him, however, “The truth was obvious: they were creative kids who enjoyed things that other people considered ‘weird.’ And in some areas, ‘weird’ is a bad and often dangerous word.” Sauls, Pashley, Bakken and Fancher all made many trips to Arkansas, to attend hearings and to keep in touch with the men in prison. Fancher recalled, “It was a lot of fun going to the hearings and meeting supporters from all over the world.” On the down-side, she remembered the difficulty of saying “goodbye” after visits to the prisons. Pashley took photographs that went onto the website and appeared around the world. For Fancher, the prisoners “became family” in a way. “Even at my broke-est,” she said, “I just charged the plane fare and expenses to Arkansas on credit cards because it’s only money—I had to show the courts that I was going to stand up for them no matter what kind of crap we knew Judge Burnett would throw our way.” She wrote, “We were four or five (including Brent Turvey) and then we became thousands!”

  79 The Tennessee dentist is Dr. Mark Cowart of Chattanooga; the Oklahoma woman, Jennifer Nickell of Norman; and the Danish man, Christian Hansen.

  80 The tape-recorded, post-trial confession referred to here was one that Jessie made during questioning by Davis on the night of Feb. 17, 1994, after his own trial and shortly before Damien and Jason’s trial, at which he had refused to testify. (http://callahan.8k.com/wm3/jmfeb.html) Jessie’s attorney, Dan Stidham, who was not informed that his client was to be questioned, was furious when he learned of the interview. In a hearing on Feb. 22, Stidham argued that state officials had no right to remove Jessie from prison for any reason, much less to interrogate him in a prosecutor’s office. He charged that the questioning constituted prosecutorial misconduct and insisted that the court investigate, but Judge Burnett refused.

  81 “Two HBO Films Examine Darker Aspects of Mid-South,” by Tom Walter, The Commercial Appeal, Jan. 22, 1996.

  82 Driver stole more than a bag of chips and candy. In 2000, he pleaded no-contest to a charge of theft after a state audit revealed he’d written $27,400 in unauthorized checks on a county fund. In September 2000, Judge Burnett ordered Driver to repay the stolen money in monthly installments of $241. Driver, sixty by then, was not sentenced to time in jail. “Ex-Crittenden Official to Pay Up,” by Bartholomew Sullivan, The Commercial Appeal, Sept. 27, 2000. http:// westmemphisthreediscussion.yuku.com/topic/2780#. UziBSxZCjR0

  83 Though a number of drugs were identified in Melissa Byers’ body, the Arkansas Medical Examiner’s report listed both the cause and manner of her death “unknown.” In 2012, the sheriff of Sharp County where she died denied my request to see the investigative reports on her death, claiming that an investigation into it remained “open.”

  84 Fogleman’s claim that there was “no soul” in Damien has literary precedent. In his 1942 novel, The Stranger, Albert Camus described the murder trial of a man known only as Meursault. At one point, the prosecutor said he had peered into Meursault’s soul “and found nothing.” The prosecutor then urged that Meursault be beheaded on the grounds that such a person had no access to humanity or morality, and thus did not belong in society.

  85 Governments have used private prisons for centuries, but the explosive growth of prison populations in the 1980s that resulted from the War on Drugs led many states, especially in the South and West, to turn to the private sector to build and operate prisons. Private prisons have since become a huge business in the U.S. By 2000, when Jason was in Grimes, corporations ran m
ore than one hundred private correctional facilities in the country, holding more than one hundred thousand prisoners. In 2002, a Danish company bought Wackenhut, the company that operated Grimes, for five hundred seventy million.

  86 I began writing to Jason in 1999, soon after his arrival at Grimes. By then, he had already spent five years in prison; my first book, The Boys on the Tracks, was about to be published; and I was preparing to write my next book, Devil’s Knot, about the West Memphis case. All three of the convicted men accepted my requests to let me interview them. Jason did so by inviting me to visit at his “humble estate.” During the years that followed, I wrote to and visited with Damien and Jessie several times. But my most sustained communication developed with Jason. Early on, he wrote a few lines that I thought captured both his personality and his predicament.

  “In case you haven’t noticed already,” he wrote shortly after we’d met, “I am a very hopeful and optimistic person and I don’t give up easily. Especially when my life is involved! It’s been long and hard, and I still don’t really have a strong sense or grasp on what it is actually that Damien, Jessie and I are up against . . .” I couldn’t grasp that, either, which is why, while Jason coped with prison, I directed my liberty at trying to unravel the twists and turns of a legal case that had, on one hand, outraged so many non-lawyers while winning, on the other, unmitigated approval from my state’s judiciary.

  87 Val Price, Damien’s trial lawyer, testified at the Rule 37 hearing that he and co-counsel Scott Davidson had contracted with HBO for three interviews at $2,500 each and that it was his view that HBO still owed them $2,500. The Commercial Appeal newspaper reported on June 11, 1998 that filmmaker Bruce Sinofsky “admitted he paid at least $37,000 to the families of the three murder victims and to three defendants.” Though the exact amount paid was not mentioned during the Rule 37 hearing, the fact that money was paid was discussed. “It comes across like checkbook journalism, which is not the case,” Sinofsky testified. “We did not buy their interviews.” He said the money was not paid to gain access, but as a “humanitarian gesture.”