West of Memphis Page #7

I Was like, "Well, did you kill them?"

He said, "Well, no! I wouldn't do

something like that," like I was stupid.

And he was just like any other kid

his age, you know.

He was just a normal kid.

Any other contact with Damien?

None at all. Okay.

I was just a big liar,

and I really was just a big liar.

STIDHAM:
I've spent a lot of

the last 17 years looking back

at what I should have done

and what I could have done.

You know, it would be easy for me

to say I did the best I could.

But I didn't.

There's no substitute for experience,

and it's hard to look back.

JONES:
It was before the trial when

Mr. Fogleman was leaving my office,

I stopped him in the hallway, and I

asked him, "Is this actually Satanic?"

Is that what they're saying?"

And he... His response was no,

it's not Satanic.

It's just murder.

It's not something made up,

it's not something dreamed up,

it's not a figment

of our imagination.

The evidence was that this murder

had the trappings of an occult murder,

a Satanic murder.

When you take the crime scene,

the injuries to these kids,

the testimony about sucking of blood,

and there's a transference of power

from drinking of blood.

Could you have any reason

to understand

why someone would do that

to three 8-year-old boys?

Well, you know, everyone can say,

"Well, who did you tell?" Well, nobody.

I think this case was never about justice

because they knew we didn't do this.

Fogleman knew we did not do this.

FOGLEMAN:
Is it a coincidence

this knife is found in the lake,

hidden behind

Jason Baldwin's house?

And the same person that this knife

is found behind is the person

that told Michael Carson

that he did it,

and he sucked the blood out

of the kid's penis, is that a coincidence?

RIORDAN:
If you ask me, the

single greatest offense

committed in this case

is what was done by John Fogleman

with the knife in the lake.

LEVERITT:
Fogleman had divers search

a small lake behind the trailer park

where Baldwin lived.

That search produced a knife.

DOUGLAS:
To go out there in this

big pond, and to go right there,

and in just less than 3O minutes

and come up with this... This knife.

I mean, you win the lottery.

And then there's a reporter covering it.

RIORDAN:
We interviewed and have

the declaration of the diver.

He said that he was given

a description of the knife

and where it would be located.

The press said they were told...

And we have the reporter.

"Come to the lake,

we are about to make a discovery."

The prosecution knew the knife

was in the lake.

Nothing wrong with that.

You have an informant, they tell you:

"Oh, the crime was committed and

we know where the murder weapon is.

They committed the crime

and they threw it in the lake."

The thing is that informant

is of critical importance.

They're the one

who connects it to the crime.

They're the one who allows you

to say it was the murder weapon.

Why don't you call

that informant at trial?

Why instead do you tell a lie,

as John Fogleman did,

and say, "I just had a hunch

it was in the lake"?

The reason is that John Fogleman

had been told how it got in the lake.

It was thrown in the lake

by Jason's mother.

All I know is my son is innocent,

and he has been quiet.

RIORDAN:
And so there's a connection to Jason.

Why not bring it forward?

Because the same people

who told them that it was in the lake

let him know that it was thrown

into the lake a year before the crime.

He knew that knife in the lake

had nothing to do with the crime

because he had been told

when it was thrown in the lake.

This knife, state's exhibit 77,

caused those injuries right there.

Dash, dash, dash.

FRENCH:
I think the knife that

was in the courtroom was the one

that was used on the Byers boy.

I still think that.

People that found the bodies

and saw the wounds

said that it appeared

to be cult-related.

Serrations are consistent with

being inflicted with this type of knife.

The only way you can tell

if a serrated knife has been used

is by looking for the serrations

that rub across the skin.

STIDHAM:
Arkansas is one of

the last remaining states

that has a prosecutor-controlled

crime lab.

What that means is

the medical examiner is not a witness

for what actually happened, but he is

an actual arm of the prosecution.

At this time I would ask that Dr. Peretti

be allowed to show

the photographs and use...

One of the key elements of the case that

we wanted to get into was Frank Peretti.

Dr. Frank Peretti was the assistant

medical examiner at the time

the autopsies were conducted.

He's not actually board-certified.

You get five chances to take

the board exams in Arkansas

and Frank Peretti has

failed them twice.

He's opted out of taking them again

for personal reasons.

His medical testimony at the trial

created a picture in the jury's mind

of a ritualistic, sexual murder.

These type of injuries we commonly see

in the female rape victim.

Trying to spread the legs

for penetration.

The anal orifice was dilated, it could be

from putting an object in the anus.

Those types of injuries

we generally see in children

who are forced to perform oral sex.

There's evidence of genital mutilation.

This is the cutting wound here

and the red is the shaft of the penis.

Cutting wounds, superficial cuts,

gouging-type injuries.

Multiple superficial, interrupted cuts,

multiple cuts.

Stab wounds and cutting wounds.

The knife is being twisted

and the victim is moving.

Gouging where the skin

has been pulled out.

Gouging wounds, cutting wounds,

stab wounds.

Skin is going to tear,

skin has just been pulled away, torn out.

STIDHAM:
Those were the most horrifying

photographs that anyone could imagine.

Those jurors were scared to death.

He is painting the picture in jury's minds

of an absolutely horrific murder.

Cruel and unusual.

It's what the jury hears coming out

of Frank Peretti's mouth

more than anything that sentences

Damien Echols to death.

We took our lead from Peretti himself,

because during the trial he holds up

this textbook on forensic pathology.

And it's written by Vincent DiMaio, who

is a renowned medical examiner in Texas.

BRENT:
I believe you indicated that

Dr. DiMaio and you are on a first-name basis.

Yes, I did.

And so we went to DiMaio himself.

DIMAIO:
The thing that's most interesting

in this case is that while the autopsies

are done in exquisite detail,

to me, the interpretation of the findings

are completely wrong.

There is nothing here

that I would say was due to a knife.

Either the cutting edge,

the tip or the back of a knife.

If you think about how stupid it is,

they're saying they're killing these kids.

And, you know, dragging the back

of a knife across them.

When I looked at the photographs,

it's obvious that by the appearance

of the wounds,

they had occurred after death.

If you're gonna torture and mutilate

someone, that's to cause pain to them.

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