Paradise Lost - The Robin Hood Hills Murders

Satanist case may close death row
(John Harlow, The Sunday Times, December 30, 2007)

NEARLY 15 years ago, the brutal murder of three Arkansas Cub Scouts in an alleged satanic rite sickened a nation and strengthened the hand of death penalty champions across the United States.

Now the same ghastly crime may be the final nail in the coffin of capital punishment in an America that is manifesting a crisis of conscience over the morality of executions.

Over the next few weeks the grim saga of the so-called West Memphis Three, teenagers who were convicted of slaughtering three small boys for kicks, is expected to reach a conclusion as a new suspect is tested and fresh DNA evidence is presented in the highest court in Arkansas.

Legal experts predict that the alleged ringleader, Damien Echols, who in other more “efficient” states such as Texas would have been executed years ago, could be freed from death row by spring.

Opponents of capital punishment are poised to adopt Echols, who has grown from an angry youth into a charismatic Buddhist preacher, as a poster child for a national moratorium on “state-sponsored killing”.

It is already happening: since September last year dozens of executions have been postponed in the face of a legal challenge as to whether the supposedly pain-free lethal injection amounts to “cruel and unusual punishment”. The US Supreme Court will hear evidence next month.

Even before the de facto moratorium, the number of state executions had fallen to its lowest level for a decade. The federal government, which used to hang or electrocute dozens of people each year, has not executed anyone since Timothy McVeigh, the Oklahoma City bomber responsible for 168 deaths, who was dispatched with a lethal injection in 2001.

Four years ago George Ryan startled fellow law-and-order Republicans when, on his retirement as governor of Illinois, he commuted all state death sentences to life sentences. Ryan said DNA testing had shaken his faith by suggesting that as many as 70 of the 1,099 Americans executed since capital punishment was revived in 1976 may have been innocent.

Ryan started a trend. Earlier this month New Jersey became the first state for 42 years to abolish the death penalty and neighbouring Maryland is set to follow suit. Texas, a culture all of its own, carries out 60% of all executions in the United States.

A clutch of opinion polls suggest that while most Americans still favour the death penalty, many are expressing reservations about its inherent unfairness. That doubt is at the heart of the case of the West Memphis Three, which keeps throwing up fresh surprises and attracting the attention of Hollywood stars and pop musicians.

The case dates back to a warm summer night in May 1993 when the bodies of three eight-year-old boys - James Moore, Steven Branch and Christopher Byers - were found in a creek near their home.

The quiet city of West Memphis went crazy with grief, with mobs pulling suspicious strangers from cars. Locals started carrying Bibles to declare themselves “normal”.

At the murder scene police asked Jerry Driver, a born-again Christian probation officer, if he had any suspects. He named Echols, a bipolar 18-year-old who, Driver believed, was a satanist because he wore a black leather coat in all weathers and listened to “devil music” such as Pink Floyd and Metallica.

With public pressure growing, police questioned Echols’s friend Jessie Misskelley, a retarded 17-year-old. During 14 hours of interrogation, unprotected by parent or lawyer, the boy confessed that he, Echols and a third friend, Jason Baldwin, had met the children in the woods by accident and then stabbed and raped them for satanic purposes.

Lacking DNA evidence, weapons or a deeper motive, this statement was the cornerstone of the prosecution - even as it emerged during the trial that police had coached Misskelley with lurid details and the victims had not been stabbed but beaten and had not been sexually assaulted.

The mutilations, which had inspired local newspaper stories of devil worship, were caused by snapping turtles.

The jury, gripped by the “devil curses” found in Echols’s diaries, which had been lifted from the works of the author Stephen King, took an hour to find all three guilty. Echols was sentenced to death and his two friends to life imprisonment.

At first the distraught parents were relieved, but then the case started falling to pieces - Driver was unmasked as a fraudster and a key witness admitted that she had invented everything in a deal with police for a cash reward.

The West Memphis Three case has since become a cause celebre. Two films have been made about it, Tom Waits, the rock star, and other music figures contributed to a fundraising album and Winona Ryder, the Hollywood actress, joined the campaign to free them.

Just before Christmas, Natalie Maines, outspoken leader of the Dixie Chicks, the country band, addressed a 500-strong protest meeting in Little Rock, Arkansas, demanding a fresh trial.

This now seems to be on the horizon. Six weeks ago Echols’s lawyer revealed that new and independent DNA tests of the murder scene not only cleared the trio but also pointed to a friend of the parents of one of the victims, who had a brutal history. The man is now being “interviewed” by West Memphis police and new hearings are “under consideration”.

Two sets of bereaved parents recently declared that they feel betrayed by police and lawyers and want an inquest.

“We can only thank God that Damien Echols has survived death row,” said John Mark Byers, stepfather of Chris Byers. “Otherwise, not only would we have lost the chance of finding the truth but we, too, would have blood on our hands. And that would have been unbearable.”

A respected London newspaper has provided an interesting perspective on this case:

Quote:

“We can only thank God that Damien Echols has survived death row,” said John Mark Byers, stepfather of Chris Byers. “Otherwise, not only would we have lost the chance of finding the truth but we, too, would have blood on our hands. And that would have been unbearable.”

A respected London newspaper has provided an interesting perspective on this case:

Opponents of capital punishment are poised to adopt Echols, who has grown from an angry youth into a charismatic Buddhist preacher, as a poster child for a national moratorium on “state-sponsored killing”.

It is already happening: since September last year dozens of executions have been postponed in the face of a legal challenge as to whether the supposedly pain-free lethal injection amounts to “cruel and unusual punishment”. The US Supreme Court will hear evidence next month.

The West Memphis Three case has since become a cause celebre. Two films have been made about it, Tom Waits, the rock star, and other music figures contributed to a fundraising album and Winona Ryder, the Hollywood actress, joined the campaign to free them.

Damien Echols Plans for Spring Hearing
(By Jon Gambrell, Associated Press, January 04, 2008)

Lawyers for one of the three teens convicted in the brutal 1993 killings of three 8-year-old boys in West Memphis plan to bring their new appeal to a state judge by the middle of next month, a new court filing shows.

Lawyers for Damien Echols say they reached an agreement with prosecutors to hold the hearing. The decision comes after U.S. District Court Judge William R. Wilson Jr. asked Echols to present parts of his new, wide-ranging appeal to state courts before seeking relief from federal courts.

The filing by Echols' lawyers, dated Thursday, says much of the DNA testing ordered by the Craighead County Circuit Court in 2005 has been completed. Echols' new appeal claims evidence tested from the crime scene showed no traces of the him or the two other men convicted in slayings, though much of the evidence failed to yield reportable results. The appeal also includes testimony from forensic experts saying the genital mutilation of one of the boys likely came from an animal after their deaths.

Echols' lawyers say they plan to file the appeal with the circuit court by Feb. 15, giving prosecutors time to examine the evidence before a hearing in late spring.

Echols, now 33, was sentenced to death over the slayings of Stevie Branch, Christopher Byers and Michael Moore. Co-defendant Jason Baldwin received a life sentence without parole, while Jessie Misskelley received a life-plus-40-year sentence for the killings.

The three victims disappeared while riding bicycles in their quiet, tree-lined neighborhood May 5, 1993. The bodies of the three Cub Scouts were found the next day in a watery ditch near their homes.

Police arrested the three after a confession by Misskelley in which he described how he watched Baldwin and Echols sexually assault and beat two of the boys as he ran down another trying to escape. Prosecutors describe the killings as coming from the teens' participation in a satanic cult.

The Arkansas Supreme Court upheld the convictions, but a later documentary about the case sparked interest across the Internet, as well as among celebrities. Last month, about 150 supporters of the "West Memphis Three," including Dixie Chicks lead singer Natalie Maines, rallied on the steps of the state Capitol.

Arkansas AG slams 'misleading' campaign by West Memphis 3 supporters
(Associated Press, 2008-01-16)

Attorney General Dustin McDaniel said Wednesday he hasn't seen any evidence exonerating the three teens convicted in the brutal 1993 killings of three 8-year-old boys in West Memphis.

McDaniel accused the supporters of the so-called "West Memphis Three" for running a QUOTE "misleading" campaign.

McDaniel says he doesn't believe there is any new DNA evidence that prove the innocence of Damien Echols, Jessie Misskelley and Jason Baldwin, who were convicted in the slayings.

McDaniel says that if he had seen new evidence exonerating the men, he would be the first one to approach the governor to do something about it.

Echols' lawyers say they plan to bring a new appeal to a state judge by the middle of next month. The decision comes after U.S. District Court Judge William R. Wilson Jr. asked Echols to present parts of his new wide-ranging appeal to state courts before seeking relief from federal courts.

Echols, who is now 33, was sentenced to death for the slayings of Stevie Branch, Christopher Byers and Michael Moore. Baldwin received a life sentence without parole, while Misskelley received a life-plus-40-year sentence for the killings.

Reviving an investigation that ended 14 years ago, West Memphis police recently questioned the mother and stepfather of Stevie Branch, one of three 8-year-old boys murdered in 1993. Three teenagers were convicted of the killings.

In a telephone interview on Monday, Stevie’s stepfather, Terry Hobbs, confirmed that West Memphis police had videotaped an interview with him within the last three weeks. Pam Hobbs, Stevie’s mother, also said she had been interviewed by police. The Hobbses are now divorced.

Terry Hobbs, who lives in Bartlett, Tenn., said police requested the interview with him as a result of recent DNA tests on items found with the bodies. Prior to the police interview, he said, he had been informed of the test results by Ron Lax, a Memphis private investigator.

Terry Hobbs said, “Ron claims that a piece of my hair is in the knots that tied up [victim] Michael Moore.”

“Does that bother me?” Hobbs continued. “No, ma’am, it does not. Why? Because I don’t believe a thing he has to say because he’s working for the defense team. And because if my DNA was at the crime scene, I think [Prosecuting Attorney] Brent Davis would be the one to call me about that, and not Ron Lax.”

Attorneys for the convicted men have said no DNA was found that matches their clients.

Terry Hobbs said police asked him “a bunch of questions” about his activities on May 5, 1993 — the day Stevie, Michael and Christopher Byers, the third victim, disappeared — and the following day, when the boys’ bodies were discovered submerged in a drainage ditch. He declined to answer further questions about what he was asked by police.

Pam Hobbs, who lives in Blytheville, said a lieutenant for the West Memphis Police Department also questioned her about her family’s activities around the time of the slayings. In the last couple of months, she has stated publicly that she now believes that the men convicted of the murders — Damien Echols, Jason Baldwin and Jessie Misskelley, Jr . — are not guilty.

“We have stages of grieving that we go through,” she said. “I guess I came to forgiveness. I’ve always wanted to know the truth, and when I was called by the defense — knowing the DNA was being retested — I guess that was the big eye-opener.”

Pam Hobbs said she “chose to believe all those years” that Echols, Baldwin and Misskelley were guilty, despite her realization during the trials that the prosecutors “didn’t have anything” and persistent doubts afterwards that the defendants “were smart enough or hateful enough to have done it by themselves and clean it up.”

The state medical examiner ruled that Stevie and Michael died by drowning and that Christopher, who’d suffered stab wounds to his groin, died from loss of blood.

Pam Hobbs said that in 2002, at a point when she and Terry Hobbs were separating, she sent a package containing “14 or 15 knives” owned by her husband to one of the defense lawyers.

Pam Hobbs said that she had done so after discovering among the knives “a little pocket knife” that her father had given to Stevie.

She said Stevie “carried it around with him all the time, because it was like part of his granddaddy. He would have had it May the fifth. He carried it with him from the day my daddy gave it to him until the day he was murdered.”

Asked why, five years ago, she had given the knives to a lawyer for the defense, she said it was because she “didn’t trust the prosecution ... because of the evidence that was not presented at the trials.”

Terry Hobbs dismissed the knives as having had “nothing to do with anything.”

“I’d bought some, and found some and Pam bought me some. I just threw them in a drawer, and that’s where they’d been for years.” He added, “Them knives were stolen out of my home and I’m fixing to try to get them back.”

Asked whether one of the knives was a pocket knife given to Stevie by his grandfather, Terry Hobbs responded: “I don’t know. It could have been. And it could have been it was in the drawer because we didn’t want him to have it. I didn’t want a kid of mine to go around with a pocket knife — not a kid who was 8 years old. Would you?”

Terry Hobbs said, “I raised Stevie from the time he was a year and a half, until he was 8. I tried to be a good daddy.”

As for his ex-wife, he said, “Pam’s got some problems. This thing has taken a toll on her. It’s really hurt her.

“I don’t think she really supports the idea they [the convicted men] are innocent. I think she’s doing it out of anger. As a matter of fact, I know it’s out of anger. It’s being angry at the world and not knowing how to deal with her anger.

“It’s kind of sad. And I’m really sorry that people think she supports that theory.”

Pam Hobbs acknowledges that she has “held anger toward Terry,” in part because of his actions on the night Stevie disappeared.

Terry usually got off work by 4 p.m., she said, in time to watch Stevie and their daughter Amanda, while Pam went to her job at a restaurant. On the day of the murders, Stevie, who had gone riding bikes with Michael, was supposed to be home at 4:30. He had not returned by 4:45, when Pam left for her job.

She said she assumed that he was just late, and that it was not until 9 p.m., when Terry drove to the restaurant with Amanda to pick her up, that she realized Stevie was not in the car.

“Terry told me he really thought he was going to find him and he didn’t want to burden me at work,” she said. “ But I held anger toward Terry over that — that he didn’t tell me Stevie was missing.”

Another element of her anger, Pam Hobbs said, relates to her brother, whom Terry Hobbs shot in the abdomen during an altercation 10 years ago. That brother died last year.

Terry Hobbs dismisses the episode. “The truth is,” he said, “when a man is trying to kill you, you have a right under the United States Constitution to defend and protect yourself.”

Nevertheless, he acknowledged that he was charged with aggravated assault, fined and placed on probation.

When asked if she now considers her ex-husband a suspect in the murders, Pam Hobbs answered, “Yeah. And I don’t know if it’s because of the anger I still hold toward him for not telling me when Stevie was missing, and from some of his other actions or not. But I haven’t been able to shake that feeling.”

For his part, Terry Hobbs said he’s not worried and that he has nothing to hide. With regard to the retested DNA, he said, “I’ve been told that nothing that’s going on right now is going to change a thing.”

Asked who’d given him that assurance, he replied, “Brent Davis,” the prosecuting attorney.

Davis would not comment on what Terry Hobbs said about either the reported DNA or the chance that new findings would change the case. When asked who ordered the renewed questioning by West Memphis police, he explained, “I can’t comment on anything, one way or another, as it’s still in appeals and litigation.”