West of Memphis Page #3

as much as possible.

Well, he wasn't too good in school.

Had to take him out of school

and I got him started

doing mechanic work.

He caught on pretty good.

JESSIE:
When I was growing up, my dad always

taught me, you know... Tell the truth.

Tell the police the truth. I thought

the police was there to help you.

That's when they, uhh,

started questioning me.

Gary Gitchell and Bryn Ridge was,

you know, asking me some questions.

You know, about the kids.

And I tell them,

"I didn't know nothing about it."

The only thing I knew was what, you know...

What I was told from another guy.

I kept telling them the whole time,

"I wanna go home. I wanna go home."

HILL:
Certainly one of the reasons

behind why he confessed is

that he's borderline

mentally retarded.

He was trying to compose a story

as though he was there.

He just didn't have the details.

JESSIE :
Right after,

uh, they beat up all three of them.

RIDGE:
Beat them up real bad? And

then they took their clothes off?

JESSE". Mm..hmm. And then they...

FUDGE". Then they tied them?

JESSE'. Then they tied them up.

Tied their hands up.

RIDGE:
And about what time was it

that all this was taking place?

I was there about 12.

About noon?

"Okay. Was it after school had let out?

JESSE". I didn't go to school.

It couldn't have happened at noon.

It couldn't have happened

before the kids were out of school.

So they kept leading him down the path

from noon to 4:
30, 5:30, 6:30.

Was it getting dark?

RIDGE:
Your time period might not be

exactly right, what you're saying.

STIDHAM:
Police officers don't

like the word "interrogation."

They like the word "interview."

So Mr. Misskelley wasn't interviewed,

he was interrogated.

And he was interrogated from 9:00

in the morning until after dark.

This is an entire day

that he was being interrogated,

yet we only had a few minutes

of the audio tape.

Jessie, about what time was it

when the boys

came up to the woods?

JESSE'. I'd say it was about...

It was about 5 or so. Five or 6.

Ummmm.

All right, you told me earlier it was

around 7 or 8 or... Which time is it?

JESSIE:
It's 7 or 8.

GITCHELL:
Okay.

I remember it was starting to get dark.

"GYYCHELL".

Okay, well, that clears it up.

DRIZIN:
We all have our breaking points. I

think it's important that people realize

that this is not just about a person

with disabilities

falsely confessing to a crime.

This is about police misconduct.

That's what this is about.

Once police convince

the person to make a statement

against their interest, how does

that person know what to say?

GITCHELL:
Did anyone use a

stick, and hit the boys with?

JESSIE:
Damien had a kind of a big old

stick when he hit that first one.

It's because of this phenomenon

known as contamination,

the police will suggest facts

about how the crime happened.

RIDGE:
What was to keep these

little boys from running off?

Were their hands tied in a fashion to where

they couldn't have run? You tell me.

NIRIDER:
They're sitting there

listening to the police.

Listening to their interrogators

ask those leading questions.

"Weren't these boys sexually assaulted?"

Then they know what story to tell back.

RIDGE:
Another boy was cut, I understand.

Where was he cut at?

"JESSE". At the bottom?

FUDGE'. On his bottom?

GYYCHELL". Do you mean right here?

In his groin area?

FUDGE".

Do you know what his penis is?

Yeah, that's where he was cut at.

Did it ever occur to you

that what he was telling you was false?

His entire story was false?

Jessie simply got confused. That's all.

DRIZIN:
I mean, Jessie was not convicted

on the basis of his confession.

And neither was Damien and Jason.

They were convicted on the basis

of Gary Gitchell's confession.

That was his story.

All they had to do

was get Jessie to agree to it.

STIDHAM:
It's not particularly difficult

to get a confession from someone

who's mentally handicapped.

It's like interviewing a 3- or 4-,

5-year-old child.

BURNETT:
People don't tend to confess

to crimes that they didn't commit.

You know, I'm sure

there may be circumstances

where a person might

have a low mentality.

He's slow-minded, is what it is,

you know what I mean?

It took a while for him to, you know,

get things straight in his mind.

Kind of slow-minded, you know.

Well, hell, everybody's a little bit

slow-minded anyway.

I just have better faith

in our law enforcement

than to force somebody

to make a statement that's untrue.

HILL:
I think that it was essentially

poisoned from the very beginning.

The most basic things

about the investigations,

talking to the family members.

Getting statements from police

that evening.

You know, whether they had these alibis

or not, but it wasn't done.

And it's why the case went bad.

GAIL:
Y'all need to be

investigating some of these people

who've been arrested

for child molestation.

"FUDGE". Well, it's like this.

We've got a story

that is very, very believable.

It is so close to perfect

that we have to believe it.

GA;

I don't see how anyone could believe it.

Jessie Misskelley said it happened

that morning and everything.

Jason was in school.

And then Jason mowed

his uncle's yard.

He got some money,

went to play video games.

I called Jason's house,

and Jason and Damien

and Jason's brother

were playing video games.

They weren't talking much.

I got a little irritated at them.

Damien asked me to call him

later that night.

There was never a night

that we never spoke.

I remember that we had talked

that night.

When I spoke to police and they came

one afternoon and they spoke to me,

and I talked to them once

and that was it.

"On 9-10-1993, I met Jennifer Bearden

at her residence in Bartlett, Tennessee."

The interview was a result

of having obtained information

that she'd been on the phone

with Damien on the day of the homicide.

She informed me of several times when she'd been

on the phone with Damien and Jason after school.

"And until about 9:30 p.m.

on the evening of 5-5-'93."

I was never given a chance

to at least give them, you know,

an alibi to the jury, I mean.

And honestly, I don't think

it would have changed their minds.

I think they were pretty dead-set

on what they were gonna decide.

The evidence will show

that not only was Mr. Misskelley

not in Robin Hood Hills

at the time of these homicides, he was in

a different county almost 40 miles away

the time these crimes occurred.

There were a lot of alibi witnesses.

When was the first time

you remember seeing Jessie?

At, uh, 2:
00.

Jessie came to the house. I asked if he could

watch the kids while I went to a conference.

She got back about 4:00

and we went walking.

BOY:
I seen him walking down the street.

I met him on the corner.

Talking about him fixing to leave

to go to wrestling.

STIDHAM:
A lot of these folks, when

we went back and visited with them,

they came to the conclusion,

"Oh, yeah, that's the night

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