West of Memphis Page #2

until they got there, and then I left.

If he does not run

through the woods

and chase him down and bring

him back, Michael Moore lives.

FOGLEMAN:
Did Damien invite

you to some meeting?

He did. A cult, Satanic meeting.

FOGLEMAN:
Okay.

GITCHEL:
Tell me some of

the things y'all do, being in this cult.

We go out, kill dogs and stuff.

Some of my friends had said

they saw a hog's head out here,

and they saw the body

in a plastic bag.

REPORTER:
The state is now trying

to prove motive in this case,

calling this a cult-related killing.

Whether that will be enough

to sway the women and men sitting

on this jury remains to be seen.

REPORTER 1:
Damien, any

comment about the charges?

Did you do it?

FRENCH:
I got a letter in the mail telling

me that I had summons to be on the jury.

And I didn't want to be on there

in the beginning.

But I didn't know how to get out of it.

Is it your opinion

and do you want to tell this jury

that these crimes were motivated

by occult beliefs?

Yes.

Blood is the life force.

They prefer to have a child

that is young.

There's evidence of genital mutilation,

and the red is the shaft of the penis.

CARSON:
Jason told me how

he dismembered the kid.

He sucked the blood from the penis

and the scrotum

and put the balls in his mouth.

You take this knife and drag it,

and it rips and tears.

The knife is being twisted

and the victim is moving.

Just like in the picture.

DRIVER:
Damien, he had a book that he wrote in.

It was pretty dark.

A lot of death, a lot of...

He talked about dead children.

FOGLEMAN:
"Thirsty for blood

and the terror of mortal men."

Look favorably on my sacrifice."

I think they went out in the woods.

They may not have been meaning

to kill them.

And then it just got out of control.

And Damien,

I think he was the mastermind

over Jason and Misskelley.

I do believe that. I do.

You begin to see inside

Damien Echols.

And you look inside there

and there's not a soul in there.

I know he's guilty, you know.

I can't imagine the fear going

through them boys

watching one another get killed.

Knowing they was next.

I can't believe the heinous crime.

"We, the jury, find Damien Echols guilty

of capital murder"

in the death of Stevie Branch.

Guilty of capital murder

in the death of Chris Byers.

"Guilty of capital murder

in the death of Michael Moore."

A message has to be sent.

You can't be involved in murder

and expect to get away with it.

REPORTER:
Misskelley was sentenced to life

in prison for the murder of Michael Moore.

And 40 years for the murders

of Steven Branch and Christopher Byers.

"We have determined that

Jason Baldwin shall be sentenced

to life imprisonment without parole."

If I'd been on the jury,

I sure would have found them guilty.

If there is ever an appropriate case

for the death penalty in Arkansas,

you've got it in your hands now.

That they burn in hell.

They wanna worship the devil,

let them meet him. I hope they do soon.

BURNETT:
"We the jury have

determined that Damien Echols"

shall be sentenced to death

by lethal injection."

I was kind of, I guess, happy,

if I could...

Might say that word, that everybody else

was as angry at them as I was.

Now my boy can play

and go on about his life in heaven

the way it is,

and I'll go on with mine

the best I can.

And I'm glad it's over.

It's like the community felt

like they were relieved

that somebody was behind bars

and that they didn't have to be quite

as scared as they were. They were guilty.

OPERATO:
This call originates

from an Arkansas correctional facility.

I have a prepaid call from:

DAMIEN:
Damien.

OPERATOR:
An inmate at Varner Unit.

If you wish to accept... Thank you.

LORRI:
Damien and I

probably have 5000 letters

that we've written to each other

over the past 15... Fourteen, 15 years.

You know, it's the way

we got to know each other.

I saw the film Paradise Lost,

which is a documentary

that was made about the original trial.

I was living in New York City

at the time

and I saw it at probably

the second time it was screened.

We were just watching TV

the night we were arrested.

We were in the bedroom,

turned the light off.

LORRI:
To hear Damien talk in that

film, he reminds me so much of myself.

DAMIEN:
Did she tell you whenever

she awarded herself the first-place prize

and rode in a parade?

She had this sign on the side

of a car that's saying "first place"

and it's got a blue ribbon on it.

And it was not even a contest!

She just gave herself "first place."

LORRI:
After a series of letters,

writing, corresponding with him,

and then I cared deeply about him.

And the next thing I know,

I'm in Arkansas.

DAMIEN:
When I was a real little kid, I had,

uhh, a pet turtle for a while. A box turtle.

Did you do any painting on its shell?

I most certainly did not.

We did.

Seeing the film, you realize

something has gone wrong.

You don't get the full picture

because there's so much to the story,

as we've learned,

as it's unfolded over the years.

I was struck by the fact that these people

didn't commit these crimes.

They don't have the right people

in prison.

REPORTER:
Questions about

whether justice was served

have loomed in this case

since the verdicts.

The HBO documentary Paradise Lost

gave the case worldwide attention.

I am so glad to see so many people here,

people who are interested in this case.

When I started to write Devil's Knot,

my friends said, "Mara, they did it."

And I said, "Well, that may be,

and if that's true I'm gonna find out."

This was probably the first

crowd-sourced criminal investigation

in history,

is about the only way to describe it.

The case was supposedly solved.

If it was an open case,

the West Memphis Police wouldn't be

required to make available documents.

The West Memphis Police put together

an incredibly large investigation.

Even if a lot of it was nonsense

and rumors.

So we could take on the case,

we could begin to ask the questions.

We can look at Jessie's confession

and we could say:

"Wait a second,

what did he really say

compared to what he was claimed

to have said?"

LEVERITT:
Right from the start, after Jessie

Misskelley made his statement to police,

it was recorded, transcribed.

And then it was immediately leaked

to The Commercial Appeal.

STIDHAM:
I read the confession on the front

page of the Memphis Commercial Appeal

just like everybody else did.

And it seemed like it happened.

When we were appointed

by the court in 1993,

we thought it wasn't gonna be

a jury trial.

We thought it was gonna be a plea.

As I got deeper into the case

and looked at things,

they just didn't start making sense.

Misskelley's versions

of what happened changed wildly,

and he couldn't get the story right

every time or any time.

JESSIE SR.:
Everybody round here

knew that Jessie didn't do it.

He didn't like Damien,

he was scared of him.

He, uh, stayed away from him

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