Examiners reported that both men's charts indicated deception when they denied involvement in the murders. [75], Many songs were written about the case, and two albums released in support of the defendants. JESSIE: My dad woke me up this morning. An open letter from Lorri Davis, wife of Damien Echols . Confession. Michael Moore was the son of Todd and Dana Moore. They switch the side of the creek he was on from BB toMemphis), (Jessie leaves again and again he is guided to give more details after he says he left), [[Tape omission / blank 20 seconds jumps to here]]. RIDGE: All three of them would generally be together? Each man then entered an Alford plea to lesser charges of first- and second-degree murder while verbally stating their innocence. JESSIE: I was just wearing a regular one of my old greasy up t-shirt. Stidham made similar comments during a radio show interview in May 2010. None was found to match DNA from Echols, Baldwin, or Misskelley. Following their convictions, Echols, Misskelley, and Baldwin submitted imprints of their teeth. JESSIE: They beat them up so bad where they cant hardly move, they had their hands tied down and he sit on them. On August 19, 2011, Echols, along with Baldwin and Misskelley, was released from prison after their attorneys and the judge handling the upcoming retrial agreed to a deal. "[93] Advanced DNA and other scientific evidence combined with additional evidence from several different witnesses and experts released in October 2007 had cast strong doubts on the original convictions. RIDGE:You were there by yourself? And be truthful. Stidham testified under oath that during the trial, Judge David Burnett erred by making an improper communication with the jury during its deliberations. (Above Jessie has stated they met at 9 a.m., not 12 noon. It is not yet known whether the jury had an accurate transcript that included the next, critical portion wherein Jessie is told they are correcting his statement ]]]. RIDGE:Scared of Damien? [59] Since his release, Misskelley has become engaged to his high school girlfriend and enrolled in a community college to train as an auto mechanic. [64] Prosecutor Scott Ellington said the Arkansas state crime laboratory would help seek other suspects by running searches on any DNA evidence produced in private laboratory tests during the defense team's investigation. (Yet,again, Ridge get him to keep telling his story). RIDGE:okay, uh does Damien have a knife? Whose car where yall in? She was 13 when he was arrested, along with Damien Echols and Jason Baldwin, for the murders of three 8-year-old boys in West Memphis nearly two decades ago. I had been shocked that the police did not find it with Stevie when they found his body. These were compared to the alleged bite marks on Stevie Branch's forehead that had not been mentioned in the original autopsy or trial. RIDGE:When you left from there, did you leave running? RIDGE:Did anybody see you leaving? 1 (2005), while still in prison. The West Memphis Three are three men convicted as teenagers in 1994 of the 1993 murders of three boys in West Memphis, Arkansas, United States. RIDGE:Are you willing to go down there with us and us having a camcorder and show us where these things took place? JESSIE: They laid the knife down beside them and I saw them tying them up and then thats when I left, RIDGE: Were the boys conscious or were they, JESSIE: They were unconscious then. RIDGE: Jason had a knife, what did he cut with the knife. However, after blood was found on the knife, Byers stated that he had used it only once, to cut deer meat. Dont like the answer? What did he say about that? MATTINGLY: On February 4th, 1994, Jessie Misskelley was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison. [63] In 2011, supporters pushed Arkansas Governor Mike Beebe to pardon Echols, Baldwin, and Misskelley based on their innocence. GITCHELL: Where the pipe is that goes across the water? In 2000, The album Free the West Memphis 3 was released by KOCH Records. Producer: Devil's Knot. In 2000, the biological father of Christopher Byers, Rick Murray, expressed his doubts about the guilty verdicts on the West Memphis Three website. Mara Leveritt, an investigative journalist and the author of Devil's Knot, argues that Echols' information may have come from police leaks, such as Detective Gitchell's comments to Mark Byers, that circulated amongst the local public. JESSIE:I didnt see a briefcase, not unless they left it there at that day before it happened, unless they left it there by accident then but I didnt see one that day. JESSIE: They took turns going up under the water. JESSIE: Right after I they beat up all three of them, and beat them up real bad. [77], Investigative journalist Aphrodite Jones undertook an exploration of the case on her Discovery Network show True Crime with Aphrodite Jones following the DNA discoveries. Hutcheson's young son, Aaron, was also present, and proved such a distraction that Bray was unable to administer the polygraph. . The location was widely reported in the media in May 1993). JESSIE: Right, we walked and then uh, JESSIE: We went up to Robin Hood. Only two segments, totaling 46 minutes, were recorded. Officer Regina Meeks responded to the call, taking the restaurant manager's report through the eatery's drive-through window. On August 19, 2011, three men, Damien Echols, Jason Baldwin and Jessie Misskelley, who were convicted as teenagers in 1994 of the murders of three boys in Arkansas, are released from prison in. He is a producer, known for Paradise Lost 3: Purgatory (2011), Paradise Lost: The Child Murders at Robin Hood Hills (1996) and Paradise Lost 2: Revelations (2000). Alright, another boy was cut I understand, where was he cut at? No matches were found. The episode premiered May 5, 2011, with extensive background information included on the show's page at the Investigation Discovery site. [8] Initial police searches made that night were limited. Additionally, after the Murders my sister Jo Lynn McCauhey and I found in Terry's nightstand a knife that Stevie carried with him constantly and which I had believed was with him when he died. [9] Leveritt further noted that some of the physical evidence was stored in paper sacks obtained from a supermarket (with the supermarket's name printed on the bags) rather than in containers of known and controlled origin. Susie Brewer Boggan, the recent former girlfriend of Jessie Misskelley, Junior, wants to set the story straight about her relationship with Misskelley. RIDGE:okay, which one did you see killed? [90] Echols's mental state while in prison awaiting trial was also called into question by his appellate team. RIDGE: Okay, one of them were cut on the face real bad, is that what you said? He was preceded in death by his spouse, Kathy Bartoush; his daughter, Loretta Townsend; and his parents and other siblings. He has one daughter with his ex-wife Elizabeth Baldwin, and one son with his former girlfriend Isabella Hofmann. ), RIDGE: Alright, you got in front of you a picture, that was taken out of the newspaper I believe, its got three boys and these are the three boys that were killed on that date in Robin Hood Woods, okay, which one of those three boys is it you say Damien hit? This part of this statement is also pertinent to the second statement (*)). JESSIE: Thats where I seen them going down at, and he was on his back. This is very, very important, now just tell us the truth. Stidham has called the coroner's investigation "extremely substandard." RIDGE: Has he done things with them before? GITCHELL: Did they call them by name? GITCHELL: But, you saw them cutting on the boys, JESSIE: I saw them cutting on them, and then. RIDGE: Has he ever had sex with them before? JESSIE: He called me and asked me if I could go toWest Memphiswith him and I told him, no, I had to work and stuff. They were known for wearing black and listening to heavy metal. He testified that his own failure to put this incident on the court record and his failure to meet the minimum requirements in state law to represent a defendant in a capital murder case was evidence of ineffective assistance of counsel and that Misskelley's conviction should therefore be vacated. (There is no way this phone call could have taken place. He is in a relationship with a woman who befriended him while he was in prison. or scared of the police? [18], At the time of their arrests, Jessie Misskelley, Jr. was 17 years old, Jason Baldwin was 16 years old, and Damien Echols was 18 years old. He and a girlfriend had run off and later broken into a trailer during a rain storm; they were arrested, though only Echols was charged with burglary.[9]. He then realized, he has said, that his refusal would have meant that Echols stayed on death row. Christopher Byers was born to Melissa DeFir and Ricky Murray. This would include running the results through the FBI's Combined DNA Index System database. This more accurately describes the14thStreetWoods, which are normally known as the RHH woods by locals, not the site where the bodies were found (The Blue Beacon Woods). Dropout Found Guilty in Deaths of 3 Boys : Crime: Jessie Lloyd Misskelley Jr., 18, is sentenced to life in prison for the brutal slayings. The man was bleeding and had brushed against the restroom walls. [21], California police sent blood and urine samples from Morgan and Holland to the WMPD, but there is no indication WMPD investigated Morgan or Holland as suspects following their arrest in California. [56] That ruling was appealed to the Arkansas Supreme Court, which heard oral arguments in the case on September 30, 2010. [6], Factors cited by prosecutor Scott Ellington for agreeing to the plea deal included that two of the victims' families had joined the cause of the defense, that the mother of a witness who testified about Echols's confession had questioned her daughter's truthfulness, and that the State Crime Lab employee who collected fiber evidence at the Echols and Baldwin homes after their arrests had died. JESSIE: If he cant eat it, then he dont get in. (Again ignores Jessies statement that he left and guides him into saying more happened). GITCHELL:Were your clothes wet still? [90] Hospital records for his treatment in Little Rock 11 months before the killings show a history of self-mutilation and assertions to hospital staff that he gained power by drinking blood, that he had inside him the spirit of a woman who had killed her husband, and that he was having hallucinations. GITCHELL: Was uh, where you all close to the creek at that point? Statement of Jessie L. Misskelley, Jr. 6/3/93. RIDGE: Alright, is that where he was cutting? And, AGAIN, Jessie leaves #4 and again his statement that he left at that point is ignored.). In his efforts to win a new trial, Echols, 27 at the time of the appeal, claimed he was incompetent to stand trial because of a history of mental illness. Present in the interview will be Inspector Gary Gitchell and Jessie Misskelley. RIDGE:Light blonde, or like a sandy reddish type blonde, do you know the difference? 5-10-102 (a) (2) (Repl. (Jessie indicates here he leaves directly after Damien and Jason reach Michael, yet he is then led on to continue his story). RIDGE:Old t-shirt, where are these shoes at now? He lived with his mother, Sharon Melissa Byers, his adoptive father, John Mark Byers, and his stepbrother, Shawn Ryan Clark, aged 13. (In Gitchells testimony on the stand he states that Jessie knew about the castration of Christopher Byers and that was not public knowledge, when in fact, that was not true. JESSIE: They asked me how come I left so early and stuff, and I told them that I couldnt stay there watching it no more, so I had to do something to get out of there. RIDGE:What kind of shirt were you wearing? RIDGE: This is Det. Digging for an answer when he doesnt know what response will please his questioner). . You tell me. They both claimed to have had information on the case linking Terry Hobbs to the murders, but were ignored by police initially. JESSIE: Yeah, weve been in the water, we were in it that night, playing around in it. Not long after three teens were arrested, including Damien Echols, 18, Jason Baldwin, 16, and Jessie Misskelley, 17. To assist in the appeals process, Echols' appellate legal team retained a Berkeley, California-based forensic psychiatrist, Dr. George Woods, to make their case. DNA evidence at the scene was not found to include any from Echols or his co-defendants. Jessie Misskelley Jr. (born July 10, 1975) is one of the three members of what has been called the West Memphis 3 (Misskelley, Damien Echols, and Jason Baldwin). Dr. Peretti, the Medical Examiner, described half-lunar wounds that were caused by a blunt object which could have been the result of kicks or blows with something such as a flashlight, not fists. GITCHELL: And you saw the pictures in the briefcase? Jessies times of arrival at the woods will change many times throughout the three statements), JESSIE: Yes, I did. A subsequent search of the ditch revealed the bodies of three boys. When told the blood matched both his and Chris' blood type, Byers said he had no idea how that blood might have gotten on the knife. Second, Dennis Dent stated he was having a phone conversation with Angela (Jasons mother) between 9:00 and 9:30 pm, during her break at work. Jessie Misskelley Net Worth. Baldwin and Echols were acquainted with Misskelley from school, but were not close friends with him. His psychosis dominated his perceptions of everything going on in court, Woods wrote. 1993).3 The jury was also instructed on accomplice liability as follows: In this case, the state does not contend that Jessie Lloyd Misskelley, Junior acted alone in the commission of the offense of three counts of capital murder. On September 17, 2011, 48 Hours re-aired the episode with the update of their release and interviews from Echols and his wife, and Baldwin. Jessie Misskelley said in a short interview a few months ago that he is happy staying out of the limelight, as he lives and works in West Memphis. "However, they're trying to kill Damien. [80], Atom Egoyan directed a dramatized feature film of the case, titled Devil's Knot, released in U.S. theaters on May 9, 2014. He also told mental health workers that he was "going to influence the world. RIDGE:How was he actually killed? Echols testified that Detective Ridge's description of their earlier conversation (which was not recorded) regarding those particular details was inaccurate (and indeed that some other claims by Ridge were "lies"). (No one knew that the three boyus would be together; Steve Branch was told to be home in 15 minutes, Chris Byers was prohibited from being the RHH woods the idea that it was a targeted killing of these boys doesnt even come close to fitting). , where Are these shoes at now all close to the creek at that point ignored. 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