Copyright 1994, The Commercial Appeal
The Commercial Appeal (Memphis)
March 8, 1994, Tuesday, Final Edition
SECTION: NEWS, Pg. 1A,
LENGTH: 1548 words
HEADLINE: Prosecutors seek to link occult in 3 boys' deaths
BYLINE: By Bartholomew Sullivan, The Commercial Appeal
DATELINE: JONESBORO, Ark.
BODY:
Prosecutors said Monday they will attempt to prove that the West
Memphis triple-murder case was an occult killing, and they presented
evidence that Damien Wayne Echols is a Wiccan with a pentagram tattoo
on his chest.
West Memphis Police Detective Bryn Ridge testified outside the
presence of the jury that signs at the crime scene and his own
research indicated the murders were the work of a satanic cult.
The fifth day of testimony in the capital murder trial of Echols
and Charles Jason Baldwin saw Echols himself take the stand briefly to
testify he asked three times for a lawyer while being questioned four
days after the 8-year-olds' bodies were found.
West Memphis second-graders Steve Branch, Michael Moore and
Christopher Byers were found dead, hogtied, and thrown into a watery
ditch on May 6. Byers was sexually mutilated.
Ridge testified that his readings on occult crime indicated that
there were ''several indications'' at the crime scene of a link to the
occult.
''Early on in the investigation, elements were there that pointed
to an occult killing,'' Ridge said.
Among the indications, Ridge said, were that the boys were the
victims of ''overkill''; one boy's penis ''a symbol of power'' was
removed but never recovered; that they were thrown into water, which
has ''satanic symbolism;'' and that the victims' stab wounds fit a
pattern and may have been produced for ''bloodletting.''
Ridge also said an 8-year-old possible eyewitness, Aaron
Hutcheson, had seen five people with two of the victims ''and saw what
he described as satanic activities.''
A witness last week said Baldwin told him he sucked the blood from
one victim after mutilating him.
Circuit Judge David Burnett said he will not allow the jury to
hear Ridge's conclusions, which at one point he labeled ''garbage.''
At one point, thunder from a passing storm shook the courtroom,
adding unneeded dramatic effect to Ridge's testimony that a tree at
the crime scene was marked with the letters ''ME.''
Prosecutors today are expected to present a former Ohio police
officer and expert in the occult.
With the jury present, Ridge read from a ''subject description
form'' filled out during a May 10 interview with Echols. The form
indicated Echols is a member of the Wiccan religion of witches, that
he has a tattoo of a pentagram on his chest and another of an Egyptian
ankh.
Pentagrams, according to The Encyclopedia of Witches and
Witchcraft, are the most important symbols in witchcraft. The ankh, or
looped cross, is the Egyptian symbol of life, the universe and
immortality.
Echols was asked about the murders beginning at 11:54 a.m. on May
10, Ridge said. In the course of the questioning, he told Ridge and
Lt. James Sudbury that he imagined the murders were a ''thrill kill,''
and noted that ''the penis was a symbol of power in his religion,
known as Wicca.''
Deputy Prosecutor John N. Fogleman asked Ridge a series of
questions from notes he took during the interview.
Fogleman: ''Did he say anything about the fact the children were
young?''
Ridge: ''He said the younger the children, the more innocent they
would be; in turn, the more innocent that person would be, the more
power would be derived by that killing.''
Later, Fogleman asked if Echols had commented on the screaming
such murders would have created, and Echols allegedly told him, ''they
probably wanted to hear it the person doing the murder.''
'' 'The person who did the murder probably thinks it's funny,' ''
Ridge continued, reading from his interview notes. '' '(He) didn't
care if he got caught, and probably wouldn't get caught.' ''
Echols also told Ridge during that first interview that his
favorite author was Anton LeVey, author of The Satanic Bible and that
he liked Stephen King novels ''because they're scary.''
Baldwin's lawyers, Paul N. Ford and George Robin Wadley Jr.,
objected to any testimony from Ridge about occult activities and asked
Burnett to heed a ruling he made in a pretrial hearing in Osceola last
month that references to the the occult and satanism would first be
explored in a hearing outside the presence of the jury.
The jury heard about Echols's tattoos and Echols's alleged views
that the murders were a ''thrill kill,'' that three is ''sacred'' in
Wiccan religion and that the penis is a symbol of power. It also heard
that Ridge felt early on that there was a possibility the murders were
related to the occult, but did not hear why he thought so.
Echols's lawyers, Val P. Price and Scott Davidson, on the other
hand, sought to elicit testimony about an occult motivation for the
crime, which they say they can refute.
Outside the jury's presence, Burnett asked Fogleman whether the
state would attempt to prove a motive and whether that motive would
involve the occult.
''I believe we haven't made a final, firm decision, but I'd say at
this time, yes,'' Fogleman said.
Monday's testimony and arguments outside the jury's hearing
produced a series of revelations and showed that the two defense teams
have sharply divergent attitudes toward evidence of the occult.
Baldwin's lawyers renewed a request to separate the trials again
Monday and asked Burnett to remind jurors that testimony about
Echols's beliefs pertain only to Echols.
Echols's lawyers introduced an affidavit for a search of Echols's
Crittenden County Library records that showed a municipal judge was
told ''the murders appear to be related to occult beliefs or
religion.''
''I understand there's some subtle difference between the Wiccans
and the occult, but now what it is I couldn't tell you,'' Burnett
said. ''From what I've read in the newspaper, one disavows the other,
whatever that means.''
Echols took the stand in his own behalf Monday morning, in a
hearing outside the presence of the jury, to say he'd asked for a
lawyer during police questioning May 10. Echols also said police
detectives cussed at him and told him to confess.
Echols's lawyers asked for the hearing in an effort to suppress a
statement Echols allegedly gave to West Memphis Detective Bill Durham.
Durham testified that, after administering a lie-detector test
which Echols allegedly failed, Echols ''made the statement, 'I'll tell
you all about it if you let me talk to my mother.' ''
Echols had already waived his right not to talk to police and had
signed and initialed forms waiving his right to have a lawyer present,
Durham testified.
Price called Echols to the witness stand shortly after 9 a.m. He
testified for about 10 minutes.
Price first asked if Echols had been questioned by Ridge and
Sudbury for about two hours beginning at 11:54 a.m. Echols said yes,
that at first he'd been asked a series of 32 prepared questions.
Price: Tell the judge the manner in which they were questioning
you during this period of time.
Echols: During these questions right here (the first 32), they
were pretty nice. After that, God! After I'd been there a while, they
started cussing me, telling me they knew I did it, they were going to
fry my ass, I might as well go ahead and confess now.
Later, Price asked his client:
Q During that time, did you ask for an attorney?
A Three times.
Echols said that when he asked for an attorney the first time,
''He told me I didn't need to bring him back there because he was just
going to cost us a lot of money and that in the end he was going to
quit anyway.''
Echols confirmed that he told Durham that he would ''tell all I
know'' if he were allowed to atlk to his mother.
Fogleman asked Durham what happened after Echols made that
statement.
Q Did he go ahead and tell you like he said he would - tell you
all about it?
A No, sir. After his mother left, he again denied any
involvement in these murders.
Also Monday, Echols's former girlfriend, Deanna Holcomb, testified
she saw Echols in 1991 or up to May 1992 with a knife similar to the
one Arkansas State Police divers retrieved from the lake behind
Baldwin's trailer home in November. Holcomb said the knife, which
Echols carried in his trench coat pocket, was the same as the lake
knife except that it had a compass on the handle, and the lake knife
does not.
Fogleman next called James Parker, a knife collector and dealer
from Chattanooga, who testified from a 1987 knife catalog that the
model of knife found in the lake would have had a compass in the
handle when it was sold.
The state also presented inconclusive fiber evidence that certain
rayon and cotton fibers found at the crime scene were
''microscopically similar'' to fibers found in a search of both
Baldwin's and Echols's trailers on June 3. But the witness, Lisa
Sakevicius also said she could not determine the source of any of the
fibers. A search of Michael Moore's home in December also turned up
fibers similar to those found at the scene.
GRAPHIC: Photo; By Robert Cohen; Damien Echols testified that police would
not let him speak to a lawyer when questioned about the deaths of
three Arkansas boys.0000 Damien Echols testified that police would
