This article is 1994 THE COMMERCIAL APPEAL
THE COMMERCIAL APPEAL
MISSKELLEY DEFENSE MAY HAVE SURPRISES FOR TRIAL
Date: Saturday, January 22, 1994
Section: News
Page: A1
Source: By Bartholomew Sullivan The Commercial Appeal
Edition: Final
Police investigated an incident at the Highland Trailer Park near Marion, Ark., the night three West Memphis 8-year-olds were murdered. The police file is sealed, but what happened may be revealed next week in Corning, Ark.
A mile away that same night, an unidentified man walked into the Bojangles restaurant in West Memphis covered with what a witness said was blood, entered the women's restroom, smeared it on the walls, then vanished.
And another 8-year-old, a friend of the victims, has been named as a potential defense witness, according to court documents.
These details, or the names of witnesses who could testify about them, have been placed in the court file for the murder trial of Jessie Lloyd Misskelley Jr., scheduled for opening statements Wednesday in Corning, a town of 3,323 in northeastern Arkansas.
Misskelley, 18, is charged with capital murder in the May 5 murders of Steve Branch, Christopher Byers and Michael Moore.
Co-defendants Damien Wayne Echols, 19, and Charles Jason Baldwin, 16, are scheduled to go on trial on identical charges in Jonesboro beginning Feb. 22.
A jury of seven women, five men and two alternates was selected this week and testimony was to have begun immediately. Circuit Judge David Burnett declined to explain the delay until Wednesday but said both sides had accepted it and that it was "in the interest of justice."
Deputy Prosecutor John N. Fogleman and Second Judicial District Prosecuting Atty. Brent Davis have subpoenaed at least 62 witnesses for the trial, records show. A defense list of potential witnesses runs to more than 200 names, including many police officers and Arkansas Crime Lab officials expected to testify for the state.
The state's list includes forensic geneticists from North Carolina, several Misskelley acquaintances and a witness who last saw the boys bicycling near the woods where they were later found.
One man now living in Texas will be paid $432 to travel 1,400 miles and testify next week, court records show.
Defense lawyers Daniel T. Stidham and Gregory L. Crow of Paragould have listed a sociologist from the University of California at Berkeley and a Miami, Fla., polygraph expert along with Domini Teer, the teenage mother of Echols's newborn baby, and another previous Echols girlfriend.
They also have named an 8-year-old West Memphis friend of the victims.
The defense team also has called the coordinator for Crittenden County's Driving While Intoxicated program and plans to make an exhibit of DWI school records. If Misskelley attended such classes, those records, kept in Little Rock, would usually be available but have been seized by police, a custodian there said Friday.
Both defense and prosecutors have listed Buddy Lucas as a witness. Lucas, of Earle, Ark., was the youth to whom Misskelley gave his Adidas tennis shoes before his arrest, according to the defendant's statement to police.
Both sides also have listed the man from Texas as well as several of the victims' family members who searched for the boys the night they disappeared.
Defense exhibits refer to an incident police investigated at the Highland Trailer Park in unincorporated Crittenden County the night of the murders.
Another exhibit will introduce tips from around the country that came in to Fox Television's America's Most Wanted show before the arrests June 4. A spokesman for the program said all tips were turned over to police. Trucking logs also may be introduced.
Misskelley himself also is listed as a potential defense witness.
If the incidents at Bojangles or the trailer park, or the television- prompted tips, are introduced at trial, they may be used to suggest that other suspects were considered long before Misskelley himself became a
suspect.
Police said Misskelley wasn't a suspect when he was asked to come in to answer questions about Echols on June 3.
Lawyers on both sides have been reminded by Burnett not to talk to reporters about the facts in the case, and jurors have been strictly admonished not to discuss the case or read about it in the newspaper.
THE COMMERCIAL APPEAL
MISSKELLEY DEFENSE MAY HAVE SURPRISES FOR TRIAL
Date: Saturday, January 22, 1994
Section: News
Page: A1
Source: By Bartholomew Sullivan The Commercial Appeal
Edition: Final
Police investigated an incident at the Highland Trailer Park near Marion, Ark., the night three West Memphis 8-year-olds were murdered. The police file is sealed, but what happened may be revealed next week in Corning, Ark.
A mile away that same night, an unidentified man walked into the Bojangles restaurant in West Memphis covered with what a witness said was blood, entered the women's restroom, smeared it on the walls, then vanished.
And another 8-year-old, a friend of the victims, has been named as a potential defense witness, according to court documents.
These details, or the names of witnesses who could testify about them, have been placed in the court file for the murder trial of Jessie Lloyd Misskelley Jr., scheduled for opening statements Wednesday in Corning, a town of 3,323 in northeastern Arkansas.
Misskelley, 18, is charged with capital murder in the May 5 murders of Steve Branch, Christopher Byers and Michael Moore.
Co-defendants Damien Wayne Echols, 19, and Charles Jason Baldwin, 16, are scheduled to go on trial on identical charges in Jonesboro beginning Feb. 22.
A jury of seven women, five men and two alternates was selected this week and testimony was to have begun immediately. Circuit Judge David Burnett declined to explain the delay until Wednesday but said both sides had accepted it and that it was "in the interest of justice."
Deputy Prosecutor John N. Fogleman and Second Judicial District Prosecuting Atty. Brent Davis have subpoenaed at least 62 witnesses for the trial, records show. A defense list of potential witnesses runs to more than 200 names, including many police officers and Arkansas Crime Lab officials expected to testify for the state.
The state's list includes forensic geneticists from North Carolina, several Misskelley acquaintances and a witness who last saw the boys bicycling near the woods where they were later found.
One man now living in Texas will be paid $432 to travel 1,400 miles and testify next week, court records show.
Defense lawyers Daniel T. Stidham and Gregory L. Crow of Paragould have listed a sociologist from the University of California at Berkeley and a Miami, Fla., polygraph expert along with Domini Teer, the teenage mother of Echols's newborn baby, and another previous Echols girlfriend.
They also have named an 8-year-old West Memphis friend of the victims.
The defense team also has called the coordinator for Crittenden County's Driving While Intoxicated program and plans to make an exhibit of DWI school records. If Misskelley attended such classes, those records, kept in Little Rock, would usually be available but have been seized by police, a custodian there said Friday.
Both defense and prosecutors have listed Buddy Lucas as a witness. Lucas, of Earle, Ark., was the youth to whom Misskelley gave his Adidas tennis shoes before his arrest, according to the defendant's statement to police.
Both sides also have listed the man from Texas as well as several of the victims' family members who searched for the boys the night they disappeared.
Defense exhibits refer to an incident police investigated at the Highland Trailer Park in unincorporated Crittenden County the night of the murders.
Another exhibit will introduce tips from around the country that came in to Fox Television's America's Most Wanted show before the arrests June 4. A spokesman for the program said all tips were turned over to police. Trucking logs also may be introduced.
Misskelley himself also is listed as a potential defense witness.
If the incidents at Bojangles or the trailer park, or the television- prompted tips, are introduced at trial, they may be used to suggest that other suspects were considered long before Misskelley himself became a
suspect.
Police said Misskelley wasn't a suspect when he was asked to come in to answer questions about Echols on June 3.
Lawyers on both sides have been reminded by Burnett not to talk to reporters about the facts in the case, and jurors have been strictly admonished not to discuss the case or read about it in the newspaper.
