THE COMMERCIAL APPEAL
MAN SAYS HE SAW 4 BOYS AT SLAYING SITE
FOURTH MAY BE WITNESS FOR STATE
Date: Tuesday, March 1, 1994
Section: News
Page: A1
Illustration: photo (2)
Source: By Bartholomew Sullivan The Commercial Appeal
Dateline:
Memo: Shorter version, Final A1
Edition: First
A witness testifying in the first day of the second West Memphis triple- murder trial here Monday said he saw four boys near the woods where three 8-year-olds were later found murdered.
The testimony appeared designed to set the stage for the testimony of 8- year-old Aaron Hutcheson, who may have been an eyewitness to the murders.
Aaron's mother, Victoria, was a key witness for the prosecution last month at the trial of Jessie Lloyd Misskelley Jr.
Damien Wayne Echols, 19, and Charles Jason Baldwin, 16, went on trial on capital murder charges Monday in the deaths of Weaver Elementary School second-graders Michael Moore, Steve Branch and Christopher Byers.
But as testimony began, there was still no word on whether Misskelley, convicted on first- and second-degree murder charges last month, has struck a deal to testify for the state against them.
Deputy Prosecutor John N. Fogleman, in his opening statement, predicted the defendants' own words will help convict them, but declined to talk about upcoming witnesses as the day ended.
The first major change in the state's version of events in the second trial came before noon Monday, during the testimony of the fifth witness, Bryan Woody, who did not take the stand in the first trial in Corning.
Woody testified he was driving home on the evening of May 5 and saw four boys - two with bicycles, one with a skateboard and one walking - entering the Robin Hood Hills area where the three victims were found dead the next day.
The testimony fits a possible state plan to present Aaron Hutcheson's testimony as the fourth boy who may have been present, perhaps hiding, the day the murders occurred. His mother testified at Misskelley's trial that she attended a satanic "esbat" meeting with Echols and Misskelley.
There was no reference Monday to Victoria Hutcheson or to anyone "playing detective" to help solve the crime, as there was in Corning, suggesting the state may have recast its case the second time around. There also was no mention of cults in Monday's testimony, and there were no allusions to Misskelley's statement that he, Echols and Baldwin were members of a cult that killed and ate dogs and held orgies.
It was Aaron Hutcheson's disembodied voice in the Corning trial whose taped statement, "Nobody knows what happened but me," led to speculation the state has an eyewitness.
But Echols's lawyer, Val P. Price, said Feb. 16 that Aaron Hutcheson also made a statement that Byers's father was at the crime scene that night. Byers has said Hutcheson's statement is a lie.
As in Misskelley's trial that ended Feb. 4 in Corning, the state's first three witnesses Monday were the mothers of the slain youngsters, who told the jury about the last time they'd seen their sons - May 5, 1993.
Diana Moore described how she'd seen the three boys riding toward the woods around 6 that night and sent her 10-year-old daughter, Dawn, to call Michael in to dinner. She couldn't catch up, and came home.
Pam Hobbs didn't learn her son was missing until 9:25 that night, when she got off work at a seafood restaurant, she said. She, her father who drove down
from Blytheville, and her husband searched all night for her son, Steve Branch. Outside the courtroom, Hobbs, who was taped last week for an upcoming Geraldo show, said "Hopefully, I'll be able to sit there and take it. I hope the crying's over this time."
Melissa Byers, mother of victim Christopher Byers, added some detail to her Corning testimony, saying her son had been beaten with a belt by her husband, John Mark Byers, on the afternoon he disappeared. Byers punished his son after seeing him riding his skateboard down the middle of the street on his belly, she said.
Nine witnesses testified in the opening day of the trial. Testimony will resume this morning with West Memphis detective Bryn Ridge, who recovered the bodies from their watery resting places last May 6.
Deputy Prosecutor John N. Fogleman, in his opening statement, said that ''the proof is going to show that, through scientific evidence, the statements of these own defendants - Damien Echols and Charles Jason Baldwin - and other evidence," that they or an accomplice killed the boys.
Fogleman described the anxiety of parents searching for the missing children all night, their efforts to contact the police and search that ended when West Memphis Police Detective Sgt. Mike Allen reached for a floating tennis shoe in a shallow drainage ditch and Moore's body floated to the surface.
He explained to the jury that very little physical evidence was found at the scene, and no blood, although Byers had bled to death after being castrated and the other two had received crushing blows to the head.
That detailed medical evidence is expected to be presented today.
In their opening statements, defense lawyers argued that what one called ''police ineptitude" and pressure to get an arrest almost a month after the bodies were found explained why their clients are on trial.
Baldwin's lawyer, Paul N. Ford, said the police started from scratch, with few clues. They looked for transients, talking to people in Memphis homeless shelters; they obtained fuel records for truckers; they looked for someone with military experience and they looked for known sex offenders, said Ford.
"They weren't looking for a 16-year-old boy," he said.
West Memphis Police Insp. Gary Gitchell was giving daily press briefings and after almost a month, "pressure began to build. The public wanted someone. The press wanted someone (and) suddenly an arrest is made," Ford said.
Ford said the evidence presented by the state has been "disguised, manipulated and distorted" to fit a police theory involving his client. He said police disregarded other evidence and suspects in their zeal to convict his client.
Echols's lawyer, Scott Davidson, was more blunt, calling the investigation inept.
"What you'll see is sloppy police work, things the police decided not to do, evidence they decided not to send to the Crime Lab, leads they decided not to follow," Davidson said.
Davidson said that when the police couldn't find the likely suspect - a trucker, a transient, a veteran - they decided to look for a suspect in the community. It was at that point, early in the investigation, that police got ''what I call 'Damien Echols tunnel vision,' " he said.
"Our client, Damien Echols - I'll be honest with you - he's not the All- American boy," Davidson told jurors. "He's kinda weird. He's not the same as you and I might be."
But look at the evidence, he said, and consider its source: "There will be evidence, but I think you'll also see there's simply no evidence that he murdered these boys."
The state's sixth witness, West Memphis Police Patrolman Regina Meek, took the stand to describe taking the statements of parents whose children were missing but was quickly defending herself against veiled suggestions she should have done more the night the boys disappeared.
Under cross-examinations first by Davidson, for Echols, then George Robin Wadley Jr., for Baldwin, Meek said she took the parents' missing juvenile report at 8:10 p.m., then went searching for the children.
But Davidson wanted to know about an incident Meek was called away to at 8:42 p.m., at the Bojangles restaurant on Missouri Street about a mile from the place the boys had last been seen alive. A black man was reported bleeding and sitting in the women's restroom of the restaurant. Meek responded by driving to the drive-up window and, when she was told the man had gone, she looked around the area, then went on a 9 p.m. call about an egged house.
Meek told Wadley she never made a connection between the missing boys and the black man at Bojangles.
Detective Allen gave much the same version of his discovery of the Moore boy's body when he fell into water slightly more than knee deep at about 1:30 on the afternoon of May 6. He said he was reaching for a tennis shoe floating in the water when his foot hit an object under the water. "I raised it up and there was a body," he said.
The other boys were found downstream.
Ridge's testimony was used to introduce graphic crime scene photos of all three bodies, found nude and hog-tied hand to foot with shoe strings. Ridge's testimony will continue this morning.
MAN SAYS HE SAW 4 BOYS AT SLAYING SITE
FOURTH MAY BE WITNESS FOR STATE
Date: Tuesday, March 1, 1994
Section: News
Page: A1
Illustration: photo (2)
Source: By Bartholomew Sullivan The Commercial Appeal
Dateline:
Memo: Shorter version, Final A1
Edition: First
A witness testifying in the first day of the second West Memphis triple- murder trial here Monday said he saw four boys near the woods where three 8-year-olds were later found murdered.
The testimony appeared designed to set the stage for the testimony of 8- year-old Aaron Hutcheson, who may have been an eyewitness to the murders.
Aaron's mother, Victoria, was a key witness for the prosecution last month at the trial of Jessie Lloyd Misskelley Jr.
Damien Wayne Echols, 19, and Charles Jason Baldwin, 16, went on trial on capital murder charges Monday in the deaths of Weaver Elementary School second-graders Michael Moore, Steve Branch and Christopher Byers.
But as testimony began, there was still no word on whether Misskelley, convicted on first- and second-degree murder charges last month, has struck a deal to testify for the state against them.
Deputy Prosecutor John N. Fogleman, in his opening statement, predicted the defendants' own words will help convict them, but declined to talk about upcoming witnesses as the day ended.
The first major change in the state's version of events in the second trial came before noon Monday, during the testimony of the fifth witness, Bryan Woody, who did not take the stand in the first trial in Corning.
Woody testified he was driving home on the evening of May 5 and saw four boys - two with bicycles, one with a skateboard and one walking - entering the Robin Hood Hills area where the three victims were found dead the next day.
The testimony fits a possible state plan to present Aaron Hutcheson's testimony as the fourth boy who may have been present, perhaps hiding, the day the murders occurred. His mother testified at Misskelley's trial that she attended a satanic "esbat" meeting with Echols and Misskelley.
There was no reference Monday to Victoria Hutcheson or to anyone "playing detective" to help solve the crime, as there was in Corning, suggesting the state may have recast its case the second time around. There also was no mention of cults in Monday's testimony, and there were no allusions to Misskelley's statement that he, Echols and Baldwin were members of a cult that killed and ate dogs and held orgies.
It was Aaron Hutcheson's disembodied voice in the Corning trial whose taped statement, "Nobody knows what happened but me," led to speculation the state has an eyewitness.
But Echols's lawyer, Val P. Price, said Feb. 16 that Aaron Hutcheson also made a statement that Byers's father was at the crime scene that night. Byers has said Hutcheson's statement is a lie.
As in Misskelley's trial that ended Feb. 4 in Corning, the state's first three witnesses Monday were the mothers of the slain youngsters, who told the jury about the last time they'd seen their sons - May 5, 1993.
Diana Moore described how she'd seen the three boys riding toward the woods around 6 that night and sent her 10-year-old daughter, Dawn, to call Michael in to dinner. She couldn't catch up, and came home.
Pam Hobbs didn't learn her son was missing until 9:25 that night, when she got off work at a seafood restaurant, she said. She, her father who drove down
from Blytheville, and her husband searched all night for her son, Steve Branch. Outside the courtroom, Hobbs, who was taped last week for an upcoming Geraldo show, said "Hopefully, I'll be able to sit there and take it. I hope the crying's over this time."
Melissa Byers, mother of victim Christopher Byers, added some detail to her Corning testimony, saying her son had been beaten with a belt by her husband, John Mark Byers, on the afternoon he disappeared. Byers punished his son after seeing him riding his skateboard down the middle of the street on his belly, she said.
Nine witnesses testified in the opening day of the trial. Testimony will resume this morning with West Memphis detective Bryn Ridge, who recovered the bodies from their watery resting places last May 6.
Deputy Prosecutor John N. Fogleman, in his opening statement, said that ''the proof is going to show that, through scientific evidence, the statements of these own defendants - Damien Echols and Charles Jason Baldwin - and other evidence," that they or an accomplice killed the boys.
Fogleman described the anxiety of parents searching for the missing children all night, their efforts to contact the police and search that ended when West Memphis Police Detective Sgt. Mike Allen reached for a floating tennis shoe in a shallow drainage ditch and Moore's body floated to the surface.
He explained to the jury that very little physical evidence was found at the scene, and no blood, although Byers had bled to death after being castrated and the other two had received crushing blows to the head.
That detailed medical evidence is expected to be presented today.
In their opening statements, defense lawyers argued that what one called ''police ineptitude" and pressure to get an arrest almost a month after the bodies were found explained why their clients are on trial.
Baldwin's lawyer, Paul N. Ford, said the police started from scratch, with few clues. They looked for transients, talking to people in Memphis homeless shelters; they obtained fuel records for truckers; they looked for someone with military experience and they looked for known sex offenders, said Ford.
"They weren't looking for a 16-year-old boy," he said.
West Memphis Police Insp. Gary Gitchell was giving daily press briefings and after almost a month, "pressure began to build. The public wanted someone. The press wanted someone (and) suddenly an arrest is made," Ford said.
Ford said the evidence presented by the state has been "disguised, manipulated and distorted" to fit a police theory involving his client. He said police disregarded other evidence and suspects in their zeal to convict his client.
Echols's lawyer, Scott Davidson, was more blunt, calling the investigation inept.
"What you'll see is sloppy police work, things the police decided not to do, evidence they decided not to send to the Crime Lab, leads they decided not to follow," Davidson said.
Davidson said that when the police couldn't find the likely suspect - a trucker, a transient, a veteran - they decided to look for a suspect in the community. It was at that point, early in the investigation, that police got ''what I call 'Damien Echols tunnel vision,' " he said.
"Our client, Damien Echols - I'll be honest with you - he's not the All- American boy," Davidson told jurors. "He's kinda weird. He's not the same as you and I might be."
But look at the evidence, he said, and consider its source: "There will be evidence, but I think you'll also see there's simply no evidence that he murdered these boys."
The state's sixth witness, West Memphis Police Patrolman Regina Meek, took the stand to describe taking the statements of parents whose children were missing but was quickly defending herself against veiled suggestions she should have done more the night the boys disappeared.
Under cross-examinations first by Davidson, for Echols, then George Robin Wadley Jr., for Baldwin, Meek said she took the parents' missing juvenile report at 8:10 p.m., then went searching for the children.
But Davidson wanted to know about an incident Meek was called away to at 8:42 p.m., at the Bojangles restaurant on Missouri Street about a mile from the place the boys had last been seen alive. A black man was reported bleeding and sitting in the women's restroom of the restaurant. Meek responded by driving to the drive-up window and, when she was told the man had gone, she looked around the area, then went on a 9 p.m. call about an egged house.
Meek told Wadley she never made a connection between the missing boys and the black man at Bojangles.
Detective Allen gave much the same version of his discovery of the Moore boy's body when he fell into water slightly more than knee deep at about 1:30 on the afternoon of May 6. He said he was reaching for a tennis shoe floating in the water when his foot hit an object under the water. "I raised it up and there was a body," he said.
The other boys were found downstream.
Ridge's testimony was used to introduce graphic crime scene photos of all three bodies, found nude and hog-tied hand to foot with shoe strings. Ridge's testimony will continue this morning.
