THE COMMERCIAL APPEAL
EXPERT DISPUTES 'OCCULT' LABEL; BYERS EXPLAINS BLOODY KNIFE
Date: Saturday, March 12, 1994
Section: News
Page: A1
Illustration: photo
Source: By Bartholomew Sullivan The Commercial Appeal
Dateline:
Edition: Final
The prosecution's satanism expert used meaningless words when he said the murder of three boys in West Memphis had the "trappings of the occult," an expert in police standards testified Friday.
Calling the West Memphis murders or any other ones satanic "imbues the whole crime with the tinge of something evil," said Robert D. Hicks, a
criminal justice analyst from Richmond, Va.
His 1991 book In Pursuit of Satan: The Police and the Occult explores the growing trend among police to put a satanic label on bizarre crimes. He said he wrote his book after his research convinced him that "the most alarming claims appear to have no validity in fact."
Also Friday, the stepfather of one of the victims testified he accidentally
cut himself with a knife, which explains the bloodstain on it which a genetic analysis shows matches both his and his stepson's blood type. The knife was mailed to police by members of a documentary film crew who obtained it from the stepfather, John Mark Byers.
Hicks and Byers testified Friday in the ninth day of the capital murder trial of Damien Wayne Echols, 19, and Charles Jason Baldwin, 16, charged in the May 5 killings of 8-year-olds Steve Branch, Michael Moore and Christopher Byers. Co-defendant Jessie Lloyd Misskelley Jr. was convicted of the murders last month and is in prison.
On Tuesday, prosecutors called former police captain Dale W. Griffis of Tiffin, Ohio, to testify about a possible occult motive in the crime. Griffis said things found in Echols's bedroom in 1992 involved "black witchcraft" and that the circumstances of the crime had "the trappings of the occult."
Hicks, who calls Griffis a "cult cop," testified that police seminars are increasingly teaching about occult crime.
"We have no evidence at all to support the idea that there is this big, underground cult that kills upwards of 50,000 people a year - which is a figure, by the way, that Dale Griffis has frequently claimed in his teaching," Hicks said.
Hicks said some officers "maintain the view that you have to be spiritually armed when you investigate these offenses, which, in my view, gets outside what law enforcement is here to do."
Echols's lawyers have suggested that circumstances by which Byers gave a knife to a member of a documentary film crew are suspicious. When the knife was turned over to police on Jan. 8, it bore a bloodstain that tested positive for blood that matches both his and his slain stepson's.
Testimony last week showed the blood of both shared a genetic factor unlike those of other members of the family.
Byers, who confirmed after his testimony that he is being treated for a brain tumor, talked slowly and walked with evident pain when he was asked to point to features on a map of his neighborhood. He and his wife, Melissa, said they are moving out of the house where they lived with the victim but said they would not disclose where they're going.
In his 45 minutes on the witness stand, Byers was asked by Echols attorney Val P. Price about being interrogated about the knife by West Memphis Police Inspector Gary W. Gitchell on Jan. 26 at the Clay County Courthouse in Corning. The questioning took place as testimony began in the Misskelley murder trial.
According to a transcript of his statement to police read to jurors, Byers said, "I have no idea. I have no idea how it could have any human blood on it."
"I don't even remember nicking myself with it cutting the deer meat or anything," he said, according to the transcript.
But on Friday, Byers did recall how the knife would have had blood on it.
"Yes, I would have an idea," he said in answer to Price's question. "I
cut my thumb." He said the injury occurred as he prepared venison around Thanksgiving.
"I might not have remembered at the time when he was questioning me, but I could have remembered later on in the day," he said.
Byers was also asked about being called to the West Memphis Police Department on May 19, two weeks after the murders, and being questioned by Detective Bryn Ridge.
According to the transcript of that taped interview, Ridge told him: "OK, what I want to say right now - what I'm going to say is that I may have information. This information suggests strongly that you have something to do with the disappearance of the boys and ultimately the murders."
Price asked him if he recalled his response.
"It seems to me that when he asked me that I got very upset and distraught and then he told me he just had to ask that to get my reaction," Byers testified.
Before Byers testified, Circuit Judge David Burnett accepted a proffer of evidence. Price confirmed for reporters that the evidence, which the jury will not hear, involved Byers's May 19 statement to police in which he reportedly said he worked for various law enforcement agencies as a drug informant.
In the statement, according to Price, Byers suggested the names of two people who might have killed his son in retaliation for his activities.
Price told reporters that Burnett also ruled he would not allow the jury to hear about Byers's criminal history, which includes a 1988 felony conviction of threatening to kill an ex-wife for which Burnett sentenced him to a term of probation.
The evidence will be reviewed by the Arkansas Supreme Court in the event of an appeal.
Echols's attorneys also called Marty King of Forrest City to the stand Friday to repeat his testimony from the Misskelley trial about a strange, bloodied black man found in the women's restroom at the West Memphis Bojangles restaurant around 9:30 p.m. on the night the boys disappeared.
That night King was a manager of the restaurant, which is about a mile from the crime scene.
King said the man appeared "disarrayed" - the same term he used in Corning - and left the bathroom floor and walls smeared with blood.
The next day, after the bodies were found, Ridge and another detective came and scraped samples of the blood from the walls into an envelope with a pocket knife, he said. Ridge testified last week that the sample was later lost.
EXPERT DISPUTES 'OCCULT' LABEL; BYERS EXPLAINS BLOODY KNIFE
Date: Saturday, March 12, 1994
Section: News
Page: A1
Illustration: photo
Source: By Bartholomew Sullivan The Commercial Appeal
Dateline:
Edition: Final
The prosecution's satanism expert used meaningless words when he said the murder of three boys in West Memphis had the "trappings of the occult," an expert in police standards testified Friday.
Calling the West Memphis murders or any other ones satanic "imbues the whole crime with the tinge of something evil," said Robert D. Hicks, a
criminal justice analyst from Richmond, Va.
His 1991 book In Pursuit of Satan: The Police and the Occult explores the growing trend among police to put a satanic label on bizarre crimes. He said he wrote his book after his research convinced him that "the most alarming claims appear to have no validity in fact."
Also Friday, the stepfather of one of the victims testified he accidentally
cut himself with a knife, which explains the bloodstain on it which a genetic analysis shows matches both his and his stepson's blood type. The knife was mailed to police by members of a documentary film crew who obtained it from the stepfather, John Mark Byers.
Hicks and Byers testified Friday in the ninth day of the capital murder trial of Damien Wayne Echols, 19, and Charles Jason Baldwin, 16, charged in the May 5 killings of 8-year-olds Steve Branch, Michael Moore and Christopher Byers. Co-defendant Jessie Lloyd Misskelley Jr. was convicted of the murders last month and is in prison.
On Tuesday, prosecutors called former police captain Dale W. Griffis of Tiffin, Ohio, to testify about a possible occult motive in the crime. Griffis said things found in Echols's bedroom in 1992 involved "black witchcraft" and that the circumstances of the crime had "the trappings of the occult."
Hicks, who calls Griffis a "cult cop," testified that police seminars are increasingly teaching about occult crime.
"We have no evidence at all to support the idea that there is this big, underground cult that kills upwards of 50,000 people a year - which is a figure, by the way, that Dale Griffis has frequently claimed in his teaching," Hicks said.
Hicks said some officers "maintain the view that you have to be spiritually armed when you investigate these offenses, which, in my view, gets outside what law enforcement is here to do."
Echols's lawyers have suggested that circumstances by which Byers gave a knife to a member of a documentary film crew are suspicious. When the knife was turned over to police on Jan. 8, it bore a bloodstain that tested positive for blood that matches both his and his slain stepson's.
Testimony last week showed the blood of both shared a genetic factor unlike those of other members of the family.
Byers, who confirmed after his testimony that he is being treated for a brain tumor, talked slowly and walked with evident pain when he was asked to point to features on a map of his neighborhood. He and his wife, Melissa, said they are moving out of the house where they lived with the victim but said they would not disclose where they're going.
In his 45 minutes on the witness stand, Byers was asked by Echols attorney Val P. Price about being interrogated about the knife by West Memphis Police Inspector Gary W. Gitchell on Jan. 26 at the Clay County Courthouse in Corning. The questioning took place as testimony began in the Misskelley murder trial.
According to a transcript of his statement to police read to jurors, Byers said, "I have no idea. I have no idea how it could have any human blood on it."
"I don't even remember nicking myself with it cutting the deer meat or anything," he said, according to the transcript.
But on Friday, Byers did recall how the knife would have had blood on it.
"Yes, I would have an idea," he said in answer to Price's question. "I
cut my thumb." He said the injury occurred as he prepared venison around Thanksgiving.
"I might not have remembered at the time when he was questioning me, but I could have remembered later on in the day," he said.
Byers was also asked about being called to the West Memphis Police Department on May 19, two weeks after the murders, and being questioned by Detective Bryn Ridge.
According to the transcript of that taped interview, Ridge told him: "OK, what I want to say right now - what I'm going to say is that I may have information. This information suggests strongly that you have something to do with the disappearance of the boys and ultimately the murders."
Price asked him if he recalled his response.
"It seems to me that when he asked me that I got very upset and distraught and then he told me he just had to ask that to get my reaction," Byers testified.
Before Byers testified, Circuit Judge David Burnett accepted a proffer of evidence. Price confirmed for reporters that the evidence, which the jury will not hear, involved Byers's May 19 statement to police in which he reportedly said he worked for various law enforcement agencies as a drug informant.
In the statement, according to Price, Byers suggested the names of two people who might have killed his son in retaliation for his activities.
Price told reporters that Burnett also ruled he would not allow the jury to hear about Byers's criminal history, which includes a 1988 felony conviction of threatening to kill an ex-wife for which Burnett sentenced him to a term of probation.
The evidence will be reviewed by the Arkansas Supreme Court in the event of an appeal.
Echols's attorneys also called Marty King of Forrest City to the stand Friday to repeat his testimony from the Misskelley trial about a strange, bloodied black man found in the women's restroom at the West Memphis Bojangles restaurant around 9:30 p.m. on the night the boys disappeared.
That night King was a manager of the restaurant, which is about a mile from the crime scene.
King said the man appeared "disarrayed" - the same term he used in Corning - and left the bathroom floor and walls smeared with blood.
The next day, after the bodies were found, Ridge and another detective came and scraped samples of the blood from the walls into an envelope with a pocket knife, he said. Ridge testified last week that the sample was later lost.
