'PAGANS' IN CHILD CASE HELPED ACCUSE ECHOLS
Published on 01/15/1999
SOURCE: By Marc Perrusquia and Shirley Downing
The Commercial Appeal
Two self-proclaimed pagans entangled in a celebrated child custody case were questioned by police about occult activities surrounding the 1993 murders of three 8-year-old Arkansas boys.
Memphians Shane B. Divilbiss, 24, and Christopher D. Littrell, 22, gained national attention this week after a judge removed a toddler from their home following television disclosures that they share an apartment and a sexual relationship with the child's mother.
The trio's alternative lifestyle includes the practice of paganism, an ancient religion that involves the worship of nature.
Littrell and Divilbiss played a peripheral role in another, though more sinister, national news story five years ago.
Public records show West Memphis police took detailed statements from both men during an investigation into the grisly 1993 murders of second-graders Steven Branch, Christopher Byers and Michael Moore.
Divilbiss and Littrell, then both Crittenden County teenagers, weren't considered suspects but were among scores of youths police interviewed.
The pair, however, was among a smaller circle of young people who dabbled in the occult and associated with Damien Echols, one of three teenagers convicted for the murders.
Statements by Littrell and Divilbiss helped shape prosecutors' controversial contention that the slayings were ritual murders orchestrated by Echols and two followers involved in a teen "cult.''
The victims were found nude and hog-tied, their bodies dumped in a watery ditch.
Echols, who is on Arkansas's death row, maintains he's innocent. In recent years, a growing number of sympathizers contend he was convicted on little more than hysteria.
"There's somebody else out there that was involved that never got caught,'' Littrell said Thursday in an interview in the modest Whitehaven apartment he shares with Shane and April Divilbiss near Memphis International Airport.
April, 21, sat wide-eyed on the sofa beside him. At times she expressed surprise at a story she said she's never fully heard before.
April, who grew up in a Southern Baptist home in Hernando, Miss., said she met husband Shane in 1994. They married in 1996. Littrell joined the household a year later.
"When my husband suggested this relationship, I was . . . shocked,'' April said.
The trio grew into a happy family, they said. The family includes April's 3-year-old daughter, whose father is neither Divilbiss nor Littrell. The three adults attend Summerland Grove Pagan Church, which meets in a clubhouse of a Bartlett apartment complex.
But their family life changed after they shared the story of their polyamorous relationship on a nationally televised MTV program called Sex in the '90s.
In the show's wake, a Juvenile Court judge awarded temporary custody of April's daughter to the girl's paternal grandparents, Donna and Gordon Olswing.
The Olswings' custody petition is based solely on April's living arrangements. It does not mention the West Memphis case.
A hearing on permanent custody will be heard in coming weeks after the toddler undergoes a psychological evaluation.
"This is as loving a relationship as any monogamous relationship,'' said Littrell, a restaurant waiter.
But Thursday, Littrell responded to questions about the West Memphis child murders.
"I try not to think about it,'' Littrell said. "It was a time in my life that I was not proud to be associated with.''
Littrell was just 16 when West Memphis authorities questioned him five days after the May 5, 1993, murders. Littrell was called after Echols gave his name as one of several local youths practicing witchcraft.
At the time police talked to Littrell, they had made no arrests and appeared stumped by the case.
A month after the murders, they arrested Echols, then 18, Jessie Misskelley, 17, and Jason Baldwin, 16. The arrests came after Misskelley confessed and implicated his two co-defendants.
Echols eventually was sentenced to death. Baldwin and Misskelley are serving life terms.
Misskelley has told police he and the others were involved in a cult that indulged in orgies and sacrificed dogs. His account seemed to validate what police had been hearing from others.
Police notes show Littrell said Echols was involved in a "witches coven'' that Littrell helped lead. Rituals of the group, which called itself the "Order of the Divine Light,'' included observing lunar phases and binding the hands and feet of initiates. Littrell told police the group practiced white magic, or Wicca, observing its golden rule that one can "do whatever you want as long as it harms no one.''
But Littrell said he believed Echols also was involved in a "black magic cult,'' police notes show.
Littrell stressed Thursday that Echols had only limited involvement in Littrell's coven. He said he has no direct knowledge of the murders but believes Echols is guilty.
Littrell said police didn't appear to believe him at first, but he was cleared as a suspect after he passed a lie-detector test. Police said his alibi - Littrell attended services at West Memphis's First Baptist Church the night of the murders - checked out.
Divilbiss, meanwhile, told police that Echols once tried to "rip my eyes out" during a fight at Marion High School over a girl. Echols and Divilbiss shared an interest in Deanna Holcomb, then a 16-year-old resident of Marion, Ark., who also held an interest in the occult.
Divilbiss said Echols once threatened to kill him and members of his family. When Divilbiss temporarily turned up missing three months before the murders, his family posted fliers entitled "Missing - Possibly Endangered'' that offered a $200 reward for information on the teen's whereabouts.
Divilbiss's disappearance was not explained in a June 17, 1993, police interview, but he made it clear he feared Echols.
"He was a very imposing person,'' Divilbiss, then 18, told police. "He could silence (peers) with just a glance.''
Divilbiss did not say he practiced witchcraft himself but told police, "I have done a little study in that area.'' Much of his information on Echols came from Holcomb, he said.
"She didn't say he was exactly worshiping (the devil); she said that he proclaimed himself to be the son of Satan,'' Divilbiss told police.
Holcomb testified in Echols's 1994 trial, telling jurors she had often seen Echols with a large survivalist knife. At least two of the victims had been mutilated. Divilbiss and Littrell never testified. Littrell was subpoenaed and spent an afternoon in a hallway waiting to testify but wasn't called.
The case remains clouded in controversy as Echols, Baldwin and Misskelley pursue appeals. A California group called Free the West Memphis Three has developed an Internet Web site supporting their claims of innocence. Central to the claims is a lack of physical evidence. The victims' bodies were dumped in a stream, and no fingerprints, semen or hair were matched to the defendants.
Defense attorneys also claim Misskelley, a high school dropout with a low IQ bordering on retarded, was coerced to give a false confession.
Littrell said he wasn't acquainted with Divilbiss at the time of the murders but came to know him a year later.
April said she believes efforts to take away her daughter are based as much on bias against her marriage as on religion.
"The grandmother would come over and say, `I'm not comfortable with Wicca,' '' she said.
The girl's grandfather, Gordon Olswing, said his concerns involved more than that.
"Our primary concerns extended far beyond the fact that these individuals may be Wiccans,'' he said.
He declined further comment.
Published on 01/15/1999
SOURCE: By Marc Perrusquia and Shirley Downing
The Commercial Appeal
Two self-proclaimed pagans entangled in a celebrated child custody case were questioned by police about occult activities surrounding the 1993 murders of three 8-year-old Arkansas boys.
Memphians Shane B. Divilbiss, 24, and Christopher D. Littrell, 22, gained national attention this week after a judge removed a toddler from their home following television disclosures that they share an apartment and a sexual relationship with the child's mother.
The trio's alternative lifestyle includes the practice of paganism, an ancient religion that involves the worship of nature.
Littrell and Divilbiss played a peripheral role in another, though more sinister, national news story five years ago.
Public records show West Memphis police took detailed statements from both men during an investigation into the grisly 1993 murders of second-graders Steven Branch, Christopher Byers and Michael Moore.
Divilbiss and Littrell, then both Crittenden County teenagers, weren't considered suspects but were among scores of youths police interviewed.
The pair, however, was among a smaller circle of young people who dabbled in the occult and associated with Damien Echols, one of three teenagers convicted for the murders.
Statements by Littrell and Divilbiss helped shape prosecutors' controversial contention that the slayings were ritual murders orchestrated by Echols and two followers involved in a teen "cult.''
The victims were found nude and hog-tied, their bodies dumped in a watery ditch.
Echols, who is on Arkansas's death row, maintains he's innocent. In recent years, a growing number of sympathizers contend he was convicted on little more than hysteria.
"There's somebody else out there that was involved that never got caught,'' Littrell said Thursday in an interview in the modest Whitehaven apartment he shares with Shane and April Divilbiss near Memphis International Airport.
April, 21, sat wide-eyed on the sofa beside him. At times she expressed surprise at a story she said she's never fully heard before.
April, who grew up in a Southern Baptist home in Hernando, Miss., said she met husband Shane in 1994. They married in 1996. Littrell joined the household a year later.
"When my husband suggested this relationship, I was . . . shocked,'' April said.
The trio grew into a happy family, they said. The family includes April's 3-year-old daughter, whose father is neither Divilbiss nor Littrell. The three adults attend Summerland Grove Pagan Church, which meets in a clubhouse of a Bartlett apartment complex.
But their family life changed after they shared the story of their polyamorous relationship on a nationally televised MTV program called Sex in the '90s.
In the show's wake, a Juvenile Court judge awarded temporary custody of April's daughter to the girl's paternal grandparents, Donna and Gordon Olswing.
The Olswings' custody petition is based solely on April's living arrangements. It does not mention the West Memphis case.
A hearing on permanent custody will be heard in coming weeks after the toddler undergoes a psychological evaluation.
"This is as loving a relationship as any monogamous relationship,'' said Littrell, a restaurant waiter.
But Thursday, Littrell responded to questions about the West Memphis child murders.
"I try not to think about it,'' Littrell said. "It was a time in my life that I was not proud to be associated with.''
Littrell was just 16 when West Memphis authorities questioned him five days after the May 5, 1993, murders. Littrell was called after Echols gave his name as one of several local youths practicing witchcraft.
At the time police talked to Littrell, they had made no arrests and appeared stumped by the case.
A month after the murders, they arrested Echols, then 18, Jessie Misskelley, 17, and Jason Baldwin, 16. The arrests came after Misskelley confessed and implicated his two co-defendants.
Echols eventually was sentenced to death. Baldwin and Misskelley are serving life terms.
Misskelley has told police he and the others were involved in a cult that indulged in orgies and sacrificed dogs. His account seemed to validate what police had been hearing from others.
Police notes show Littrell said Echols was involved in a "witches coven'' that Littrell helped lead. Rituals of the group, which called itself the "Order of the Divine Light,'' included observing lunar phases and binding the hands and feet of initiates. Littrell told police the group practiced white magic, or Wicca, observing its golden rule that one can "do whatever you want as long as it harms no one.''
But Littrell said he believed Echols also was involved in a "black magic cult,'' police notes show.
Littrell stressed Thursday that Echols had only limited involvement in Littrell's coven. He said he has no direct knowledge of the murders but believes Echols is guilty.
Littrell said police didn't appear to believe him at first, but he was cleared as a suspect after he passed a lie-detector test. Police said his alibi - Littrell attended services at West Memphis's First Baptist Church the night of the murders - checked out.
Divilbiss, meanwhile, told police that Echols once tried to "rip my eyes out" during a fight at Marion High School over a girl. Echols and Divilbiss shared an interest in Deanna Holcomb, then a 16-year-old resident of Marion, Ark., who also held an interest in the occult.
Divilbiss said Echols once threatened to kill him and members of his family. When Divilbiss temporarily turned up missing three months before the murders, his family posted fliers entitled "Missing - Possibly Endangered'' that offered a $200 reward for information on the teen's whereabouts.
Divilbiss's disappearance was not explained in a June 17, 1993, police interview, but he made it clear he feared Echols.
"He was a very imposing person,'' Divilbiss, then 18, told police. "He could silence (peers) with just a glance.''
Divilbiss did not say he practiced witchcraft himself but told police, "I have done a little study in that area.'' Much of his information on Echols came from Holcomb, he said.
"She didn't say he was exactly worshiping (the devil); she said that he proclaimed himself to be the son of Satan,'' Divilbiss told police.
Holcomb testified in Echols's 1994 trial, telling jurors she had often seen Echols with a large survivalist knife. At least two of the victims had been mutilated. Divilbiss and Littrell never testified. Littrell was subpoenaed and spent an afternoon in a hallway waiting to testify but wasn't called.
The case remains clouded in controversy as Echols, Baldwin and Misskelley pursue appeals. A California group called Free the West Memphis Three has developed an Internet Web site supporting their claims of innocence. Central to the claims is a lack of physical evidence. The victims' bodies were dumped in a stream, and no fingerprints, semen or hair were matched to the defendants.
Defense attorneys also claim Misskelley, a high school dropout with a low IQ bordering on retarded, was coerced to give a false confession.
Littrell said he wasn't acquainted with Divilbiss at the time of the murders but came to know him a year later.
April said she believes efforts to take away her daughter are based as much on bias against her marriage as on religion.
"The grandmother would come over and say, `I'm not comfortable with Wicca,' '' she said.
The girl's grandfather, Gordon Olswing, said his concerns involved more than that.
"Our primary concerns extended far beyond the fact that these individuals may be Wiccans,'' he said.
He declined further comment.
