THE COMMERCIAL APPEAL
Tuesday, June 8, 1993
Section: News
Edition: Final
Page: A1
RELATIVES, LAWYERS DISPUTE ACCOUNT
BY MISSKELLEY IN SLAYINGS OF 3 BOYS
By Bartholomew Sullivan and Marc Perrusquia
The Commercial Appeal
The three 8-year-old boys slain in West Memphis were in school on May 5 well past the hour that one accused killer told police the crimes occurred, according to a school official.
On Monday, critics worked at shooting holes in Jessie Lloyd Misskelley Jr.' s description of what happened to the Weaver Elementary School second- graders. A 27-page transcript of a police interview with Misskelley was obtained by The Commercial Appeal.
In it, Misskelley, 17, said he watched as Michael Wayne Echols, 18, and Charles Jason Baldwin, 16, brutalized the children with a club and a 6-inch knife after luring them into a wooded area.
Misskelley told police that co-defendants Echols and Baldwin choked their victims into unconsciousness, then sexually mutilated one and sodomized another as part of a cultic ritual.
Relatives and attorneys for the suspects said the slayings could not have taken place at the time claimed by Misskelley. Misskelley told police they took place between 9 a.m. and noon that day although there appeared to be confusion about the issue.
Police detectives involved in the case could not be reached for comment on Monday about the discrepancies. West Memphis investigators have consistently refused to discuss a motive in the case.
Weaver principal Sarah Kirkley said 8-year-old Steve Branch was picked up by his mother at 2:45 p.m., and classmates Christopher Byers and Michael Moore left when school ended at 3 p.m. "They were all three here that day," said Kirkley.
The youngsters' presence at school would appear to contradict the statement Misskelley gave police on June 3. Misskelley said the 8-year-olds "skipped school" that day.
Marion High School principal Jerry Wood refused to release attendance records for 10th-grader Baldwin.
But Baldwin's lawyer, Paul N. Ford, said school records show his client was in school all day on May 5. He declined to make them public.
Ford said his client plans to plead not guilty to the charges.
"You can't be two places at once," he said. "It just makes the whole statement questionable."
Baldwin's great-uncle, Hubert Bartoush, said his nephew mowed his lawn between about 4:30 p.m. and 6:30 p.m. on the day of the slayings.
Neighbors told reporters last month that they last saw the youngsters riding bicycles between 5:15 and 6 p.m. on May 5. A search by police, parents and neighbors began at 7:30 p.m.
Police Insp. Gary Gitchell said the bodies were found at about 1:30 p.m. the next day.
Misskelley's father, Jessie Misskelley, 54, said he believes his son was "threatened" into making statements to police that described his participation in a sadistic cult that mutilated and ate dogs and held sex orgies.
Misskelley's neighbor, Patricia Howe, said Friday that Misskelley had "been in a little trouble, like sniffing gasoline."
Dr. Kevin Merigian, a toxicologist with the Regional Medical Center at Memphis, said that the effects of recreational gasoline inhalation aren't understood completely.
"It provides a mellow feeling but you don't feel so good," Merigian said. "There's a negative feeling associated with the high."
At one point in the interview, Detective Bryn Ridge asked Misskelley about what the officer called "real confusion with the times you're telling me," according to the transcript. In answer to another question, Misskelley acknowledged that his estimate of the time of the murders might be inaccurate.
At another point, the transcript places commas in unusual places but Misskelley's statement could be taken to mean the slayings happened at night.
The transcript quotes Misskelley as saying: "Well after, all this stuff happened that night, that they done it, I went home about noon, then they (Baldwin and Echols) called me at 9 o'clock that night, they called me."
At another point in the transcript, Misskelley described a cult meeting in which pictures of the three youngsters were passed around. He said part of the cult's initiation rite was to kill a dog, skin it, cook it over a bonfire and eat the back leg meat. "If he can't eat it, then he don't get in," Misskelley said of the prospective cult candidate.
Misskelley's father said he didn't know who may have threatened his son, but said the statement to police didn't make sense.
Misskelley said he believes his son spent the whole day in the Highland Trailer Park between Marion and West Memphis, and said he is searching for witnesses to confirm that.
Comments from Misskelley's father and attorney Ford came Monday following a brief hearing in Crittenden County Circuit Court in Marion, where Judge David Goodson appointed two lawyers each to represent the three defendants.
They are:
-- Representing Echols - Craighead County chief public defender Val Price and Jonesboro lawyer Scott Davidson.
-- Representing Misskelley - Paragould lawyers Dan Stidham and Greg Crow.
-- Representing Baldwin - Ford and Jonesboro lawyer George Robin Wadley Jr.
The judge also said the state will now inform the attorneys of the whereabouts of the defendants, who had been detained at undisclosed sites over the weekend for security reasons.
Baldwin could not have done the things Misskelley claimed while traveling the 3 1/2 miles between the high school and the slaying site along Interstate 40, said Ford. "The statement clearly indicates that it took place between 9 a.m. and 12 noon, but I don't believe that to be true."
A crowd of maybe 100 people, including families of both victims and accused killers, gathered Monday morning at the white-columned county courthouse in Marion.
But if spectators came to see the three defendants, they were disappointed.
The three teens never put in an appearance, nor did police detectives.
Still, it wasn't without drama. Steve Branch Jr., father of 'Stevie' Branch and the man who lunged and shouted at defendant Echols Friday, attended the hearing a much more subdued man.
The mothers of Christopher Byers and Michael Moore embraced outside the coutroom.
Law officers took no chances, however. Everyone who entered the courtroom had to submit to an electronic search with a metal-detecting wand before being allowed inside, where the proceedings took little more than five minutes.
Illustration: photo
By Robert Cohen
(Color) Lee Rush and Jessie Misskelley, stepmother and father of slaying
suspect Jessie Lloyd Misskelley Jr., wait to enter a Crittenden County
courtroom Monday where attorneys were appointed for suspects in the killings
of three West Memphis boys.
Tuesday, June 8, 1993
Section: News
Edition: Final
Page: A1
RELATIVES, LAWYERS DISPUTE ACCOUNT
BY MISSKELLEY IN SLAYINGS OF 3 BOYS
By Bartholomew Sullivan and Marc Perrusquia
The Commercial Appeal
The three 8-year-old boys slain in West Memphis were in school on May 5 well past the hour that one accused killer told police the crimes occurred, according to a school official.
On Monday, critics worked at shooting holes in Jessie Lloyd Misskelley Jr.' s description of what happened to the Weaver Elementary School second- graders. A 27-page transcript of a police interview with Misskelley was obtained by The Commercial Appeal.
In it, Misskelley, 17, said he watched as Michael Wayne Echols, 18, and Charles Jason Baldwin, 16, brutalized the children with a club and a 6-inch knife after luring them into a wooded area.
Misskelley told police that co-defendants Echols and Baldwin choked their victims into unconsciousness, then sexually mutilated one and sodomized another as part of a cultic ritual.
Relatives and attorneys for the suspects said the slayings could not have taken place at the time claimed by Misskelley. Misskelley told police they took place between 9 a.m. and noon that day although there appeared to be confusion about the issue.
Police detectives involved in the case could not be reached for comment on Monday about the discrepancies. West Memphis investigators have consistently refused to discuss a motive in the case.
Weaver principal Sarah Kirkley said 8-year-old Steve Branch was picked up by his mother at 2:45 p.m., and classmates Christopher Byers and Michael Moore left when school ended at 3 p.m. "They were all three here that day," said Kirkley.
The youngsters' presence at school would appear to contradict the statement Misskelley gave police on June 3. Misskelley said the 8-year-olds "skipped school" that day.
Marion High School principal Jerry Wood refused to release attendance records for 10th-grader Baldwin.
But Baldwin's lawyer, Paul N. Ford, said school records show his client was in school all day on May 5. He declined to make them public.
Ford said his client plans to plead not guilty to the charges.
"You can't be two places at once," he said. "It just makes the whole statement questionable."
Baldwin's great-uncle, Hubert Bartoush, said his nephew mowed his lawn between about 4:30 p.m. and 6:30 p.m. on the day of the slayings.
Neighbors told reporters last month that they last saw the youngsters riding bicycles between 5:15 and 6 p.m. on May 5. A search by police, parents and neighbors began at 7:30 p.m.
Police Insp. Gary Gitchell said the bodies were found at about 1:30 p.m. the next day.
Misskelley's father, Jessie Misskelley, 54, said he believes his son was "threatened" into making statements to police that described his participation in a sadistic cult that mutilated and ate dogs and held sex orgies.
Misskelley's neighbor, Patricia Howe, said Friday that Misskelley had "been in a little trouble, like sniffing gasoline."
Dr. Kevin Merigian, a toxicologist with the Regional Medical Center at Memphis, said that the effects of recreational gasoline inhalation aren't understood completely.
"It provides a mellow feeling but you don't feel so good," Merigian said. "There's a negative feeling associated with the high."
At one point in the interview, Detective Bryn Ridge asked Misskelley about what the officer called "real confusion with the times you're telling me," according to the transcript. In answer to another question, Misskelley acknowledged that his estimate of the time of the murders might be inaccurate.
At another point, the transcript places commas in unusual places but Misskelley's statement could be taken to mean the slayings happened at night.
The transcript quotes Misskelley as saying: "Well after, all this stuff happened that night, that they done it, I went home about noon, then they (Baldwin and Echols) called me at 9 o'clock that night, they called me."
At another point in the transcript, Misskelley described a cult meeting in which pictures of the three youngsters were passed around. He said part of the cult's initiation rite was to kill a dog, skin it, cook it over a bonfire and eat the back leg meat. "If he can't eat it, then he don't get in," Misskelley said of the prospective cult candidate.
Misskelley's father said he didn't know who may have threatened his son, but said the statement to police didn't make sense.
Misskelley said he believes his son spent the whole day in the Highland Trailer Park between Marion and West Memphis, and said he is searching for witnesses to confirm that.
Comments from Misskelley's father and attorney Ford came Monday following a brief hearing in Crittenden County Circuit Court in Marion, where Judge David Goodson appointed two lawyers each to represent the three defendants.
They are:
-- Representing Echols - Craighead County chief public defender Val Price and Jonesboro lawyer Scott Davidson.
-- Representing Misskelley - Paragould lawyers Dan Stidham and Greg Crow.
-- Representing Baldwin - Ford and Jonesboro lawyer George Robin Wadley Jr.
The judge also said the state will now inform the attorneys of the whereabouts of the defendants, who had been detained at undisclosed sites over the weekend for security reasons.
Baldwin could not have done the things Misskelley claimed while traveling the 3 1/2 miles between the high school and the slaying site along Interstate 40, said Ford. "The statement clearly indicates that it took place between 9 a.m. and 12 noon, but I don't believe that to be true."
A crowd of maybe 100 people, including families of both victims and accused killers, gathered Monday morning at the white-columned county courthouse in Marion.
But if spectators came to see the three defendants, they were disappointed.
The three teens never put in an appearance, nor did police detectives.
Still, it wasn't without drama. Steve Branch Jr., father of 'Stevie' Branch and the man who lunged and shouted at defendant Echols Friday, attended the hearing a much more subdued man.
The mothers of Christopher Byers and Michael Moore embraced outside the coutroom.
Law officers took no chances, however. Everyone who entered the courtroom had to submit to an electronic search with a metal-detecting wand before being allowed inside, where the proceedings took little more than five minutes.
Illustration: photo
By Robert Cohen
(Color) Lee Rush and Jessie Misskelley, stepmother and father of slaying
suspect Jessie Lloyd Misskelley Jr., wait to enter a Crittenden County
courtroom Monday where attorneys were appointed for suspects in the killings
of three West Memphis boys.
