THE COMMERCIAL APPEAL
GRANDFATHER REMEMBERS ANNIVERSARY OF SLAYING
Date: Friday, May 6, 1994
Section: Metro
Page: B1
Illustration: photo
Source: By Bartholomew Sullivan The Commercial Appeal
Dateline:
Edition: Final
Jackie Hicks just had to come back.
On the first anniversary of his grandson's disappearance Thursday, Hicks, 50, drove down from Blytheville, Ark., to stand on the high bank of a muddy creek where the region's worst crime in recent memory took place.
"I had to come back in here today to see it, to find out for myself how they got in here," said Hicks. A hunter, Hicks said he tracked the boys' bicycle tracks with a flashlight the night they disappeared, but lost the trail just feet from where they were later found.
Hicks's grandson Stevie Branch, along with Michael Moore and Christopher Byers - 8-year-old adventurers, Boy Scouts and friends - disappeared on the evening of May 5, 1993, and were found dead a year ago today, beaten, hogtied with shoelaces and thrown in the ditch.
Three Crittenden County teenagers have been convicted of murder and imprisoned for their deaths after jury trials earlier this year.
Hicks chopped his way through shoulder-high flowering weeds and honeysuckle to reach the murder scene Thursday; then, he relived his search a year before. It was a search aided by a full moon.
Hicks was one of several searching that night and until about 1 p.m. the next day.
Hicks recalled getting a call from West Memphis at 9:30 at night and racing down from Blytheville. He recalled his anger at seeing the "spit-shined" boots of a police officer who told him she'd been out searching for the boys. And he recalled making his way that night to a pipe that crosses the 10-mile Bayou which forms the southern boundary of the woods known to area residents as Robin Hood Hills.
The boys' bodies were found nearby the next day.
"I've never understood why the good Lord didn't let me find him," said Hicks. "I've searched my mind a million times for why I didn't let Stevie's chow (dog) loose, 'cause he'd have found 'em."
Hicks said he spends his time studying Satanism and the occult since the second of two trials ended March 19 in Jonesboro. "Everybody doesn't want to believe about Satanism, but we're standing in it right here," he said. "If I can speak and one little kid can be brought out of Satanism, then little Stevie didn't die in vain," he said.
At Weaver Elementary School where the three boys were second-graders, the flag hung at half-staff in their memory Thursday. "That's all we're doing today for the boys," said Principal Sarah Kirkley.
A reading grove with a granite plaque reading "Do Your Best," the Cub Scout motto, is to be dedicated May 21.
Around their old neighborhood, business went on as usual Thursday. Someone's having a roof repaired on 14th Street, near where one mother testified at the trials she last saw her son riding his bike. Political signs festoon the frontyard where one boy once lived. Another's house looks deserted. All the families have moved, Kirkley said.
A television reporter did her standup at the dead-end leading to the woods but, unlike a year ago, it didn't draw a crowd.
Out on the interstate, drivers arriving in West Memphis from the east can see the Robin Hood woods framing a billboard advertising the political ambition of Deputy Dist. Atty. John N. Fogleman, who prosecuted the case and is now a candidate for circuit judge.
Behind it, the eerie crime scene - littered with latex gloves, a Sprite can, and the sand bags the police used to dam up the creek - is bathed in the sweet smell of honeysuckle. Robins sing. The steady whine-and-roar of the highway 100 yards away continues.
"I got news for Satan," said Hicks, turning to return home. "I've got good news for him. He didn't kill those little boys. He gave them eternal life."
Caption:
By Lisa Waddell
Jackie Hicks observes the first anniversary of grandson Stevie Branch's
disappearance by visiting the West Memphis site Thursday where the bodies of
Stevie, Michael Moore and Christopher Byers, all 8-year-olds, were found.
GRANDFATHER REMEMBERS ANNIVERSARY OF SLAYING
Date: Friday, May 6, 1994
Section: Metro
Page: B1
Illustration: photo
Source: By Bartholomew Sullivan The Commercial Appeal
Dateline:
Edition: Final
Jackie Hicks just had to come back.
On the first anniversary of his grandson's disappearance Thursday, Hicks, 50, drove down from Blytheville, Ark., to stand on the high bank of a muddy creek where the region's worst crime in recent memory took place.
"I had to come back in here today to see it, to find out for myself how they got in here," said Hicks. A hunter, Hicks said he tracked the boys' bicycle tracks with a flashlight the night they disappeared, but lost the trail just feet from where they were later found.
Hicks's grandson Stevie Branch, along with Michael Moore and Christopher Byers - 8-year-old adventurers, Boy Scouts and friends - disappeared on the evening of May 5, 1993, and were found dead a year ago today, beaten, hogtied with shoelaces and thrown in the ditch.
Three Crittenden County teenagers have been convicted of murder and imprisoned for their deaths after jury trials earlier this year.
Hicks chopped his way through shoulder-high flowering weeds and honeysuckle to reach the murder scene Thursday; then, he relived his search a year before. It was a search aided by a full moon.
Hicks was one of several searching that night and until about 1 p.m. the next day.
Hicks recalled getting a call from West Memphis at 9:30 at night and racing down from Blytheville. He recalled his anger at seeing the "spit-shined" boots of a police officer who told him she'd been out searching for the boys. And he recalled making his way that night to a pipe that crosses the 10-mile Bayou which forms the southern boundary of the woods known to area residents as Robin Hood Hills.
The boys' bodies were found nearby the next day.
"I've never understood why the good Lord didn't let me find him," said Hicks. "I've searched my mind a million times for why I didn't let Stevie's chow (dog) loose, 'cause he'd have found 'em."
Hicks said he spends his time studying Satanism and the occult since the second of two trials ended March 19 in Jonesboro. "Everybody doesn't want to believe about Satanism, but we're standing in it right here," he said. "If I can speak and one little kid can be brought out of Satanism, then little Stevie didn't die in vain," he said.
At Weaver Elementary School where the three boys were second-graders, the flag hung at half-staff in their memory Thursday. "That's all we're doing today for the boys," said Principal Sarah Kirkley.
A reading grove with a granite plaque reading "Do Your Best," the Cub Scout motto, is to be dedicated May 21.
Around their old neighborhood, business went on as usual Thursday. Someone's having a roof repaired on 14th Street, near where one mother testified at the trials she last saw her son riding his bike. Political signs festoon the frontyard where one boy once lived. Another's house looks deserted. All the families have moved, Kirkley said.
A television reporter did her standup at the dead-end leading to the woods but, unlike a year ago, it didn't draw a crowd.
Out on the interstate, drivers arriving in West Memphis from the east can see the Robin Hood woods framing a billboard advertising the political ambition of Deputy Dist. Atty. John N. Fogleman, who prosecuted the case and is now a candidate for circuit judge.
Behind it, the eerie crime scene - littered with latex gloves, a Sprite can, and the sand bags the police used to dam up the creek - is bathed in the sweet smell of honeysuckle. Robins sing. The steady whine-and-roar of the highway 100 yards away continues.
"I got news for Satan," said Hicks, turning to return home. "I've got good news for him. He didn't kill those little boys. He gave them eternal life."
Caption:
By Lisa Waddell
Jackie Hicks observes the first anniversary of grandson Stevie Branch's
disappearance by visiting the West Memphis site Thursday where the bodies of
Stevie, Michael Moore and Christopher Byers, all 8-year-olds, were found.
